Kits can be intimidating

I'm not afraid of as kit, at least not in the sense of being scared to tackle the project.  I've built my own throttles, do my own decoder installations, build my own models.  What I find intimidating is the unknown  - how long will I have to spend building this item?  And until it's finished, how much of my messy workbench will I have devoted to a half-finished kit?  It would he helpful to see some photos of all the parts spread out, and some real-world assessment of how long I can expect to devote tot his, and just how finicky it will be (am I going to be soldering miniature surface-mount resistor in place?).

As for what bothers me about DCC..  not much, to be honest.  So far, I have been happy with my little Zephyr, but I'll admit that I have not attempted a full multi-operator session yet.  One thing does frustrate me, though - the fact that I cannot program a Tsunami (and presumably other sound decoders?) on the programming track.  If I'm buying a booster anyway, why couldn't it have a programming booster as well?  Why do I need to buy two things to do the same job?

Don.  Thank you for making

Don.

Thank you for making your presence known to us in this forum.

You claim the booster works with a Power Cab? Is this with an SB3a or without? Is the booster hooked between the Power Cab panel and the track? I imagine the Power Cab can not be unplugged and moved around the layout like the smart booster allows.

I can actually see this product as a boon to the modular railroad guys. These would allow greater expansion of modular layouts with less complex wiring of buss lines and short protection. Imagine if few every module section had its own booster? When someone shorts across a closed switch on one module it would not shut down the whole system. I had considered running the main busses and then sub buss with breakers on each module but doing 30 plus modules is a lot of wiring.

Pete

Some more explanation perhaps?

Don, perhaps providing a bit more explanation here as to what the LOLBooster will do for us, how it works, what its advantages are, etc., would help us all.  I've seen your ad and admittedly have not clicked on it yet to investigate further, but having an explanation here (and then linking to your website) would probably assist more than a few.  I will definitely click on it now when I see it.

Don, how about a step by step instruction page on your site?

I think the concern with kits for many people may be the fear of either too much complication, or too much time needed to build the piece, or in the case of electronic kits, fear of shorting something out inadvertently.  If you did a short step by step instruction sheet with pictures detailing each step on the web page, perhaps make a new section for the web page titled "Instructions" on the drop down menu with a drop down menu on the Instruction page listing each kit that you have done instructions for. 

An individual going to the site could then look up the instruction sheet for the item they are considering building to see how much complication is involved.  They could even print a copy of the instruction sheet from your web site and take it to the work bench when building the kit.

Don't forget to identify the various parts.  If there are more than one type of resistor or capacitor or other component, don't forget to illustrate how to tell the pieces apart. Also if a component needs to be installed in a certain way such as transistors or diodes, be sure to show novices how to tell which way something should be oriented.

I think the most important thing is to keep in mind that even though you know how to build something, a novice might not know how to tell a transistor from a diode or a resistor.

Comment from the peanut gallery

http://railstars.com/hardware/lolbooster/lolbooster-assembly/

Having watched my dad build a Dynaco preamp, amplifier, and then a tuner in the 60's, this would be a piece of cake.

I have not built one, but it appears to be all through hole design, so the parts will be large enough to be built by us 1 to 1 scale people.

From the instructions:         "experienced solderers may only require about 45 minutes"

Looks about correct to me.  Just like the Dynaco kits (and now the Sauder flat boxed furniture we must assemble) , the worst part looks as if it'll be laying out all the parts first.

DCC Annoyances

Dear Don,

You asked, I'll answer

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/a-solution-for-a-problem-tvd-solution-retired-ise-successor-12187989

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/a-solution-to-a-problem-mk2-elephant-tracks-12188911

In short, I would dearly love to have available:

- a method of reliably stopping a/any DCC locomotive at a given physical track position,

which
* allowed "backing up" once stopped,
* is loco address agnostic
* is loco Front/Back orientation agnostic
* and does not require any mods to the loco
(no extra onboard magnets or similar)

- a method to tell a loco on a given section of track to "change your current direction"
(literally "whatever direction you think you are travelling now, change")

which
* could be triggered by some form of "contact closure", or automatically via "dumb timer"
* is loco address agnostic (any loco, any time, as long as it's on the designated section of track. NO "address tweaking" should be required)
* is loco Front/Back orientation agnostic
* and does not require any mods to the loco
(no extra onboard magnets or similar)

- A "mini controlstand" throttle a la the one shown HERE

For your consideration...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Great feedback!

All,

Thanks for the warm welcome and the great feedback. Let me see if I can address some of the questions here!

As  locoi1sa, your question about compatibility with NCE products deserves more attention. I'll write another response just for that. But you are, I think, right about LOLbooster and modular layouts. I was just recently in Budapest, hanging out with the local FREMO club, and they had suggested just the same thing! Too, on modular layouts, no more than two or three trains will ever be running on a single module, so even 3A might be overkill. One thing that does need to be considered is that each of the boosters will need to have their output voltage tweaked to match the neighboring modules to avoid mistaken shorts, which might be a little bit of a pain—but perhaps much less of a pain than the entire layout shutting down over a jumped turnout!

LOLbooster and NCE Power Cab

Pete,

There are two ways to use LOLbooster with the NCE Power Cab. The Power Cab itself, unlike other NCE offerings, doesn't offer an NCE Control Bus jack for attaching additional boosters. Instead, it uses a hybrid Control Bus/Cab Bus jack for attaching the SB3a. The reason is that the SB3a is actually a command station/booster combo unit. That's how it permits detaching the Power Cab without disturbing running trains.

So, the first way is this: If you do have an SB3a, you can follow the directions on the Railstars website for connecting LOLbooster to theNCE Control Bus jack on the SB3a.

But the SB3a is not necessary to use LOLbooster. The second way is this: Simply wire the "track out" outputs of the Power Cab's Power Panel to the LOLbooster inputs. I don't have a Power Cab, and the manual doesn't say, so I cannot tell you which wire should go to DCC Input A, and which to DCC Input B, but I can tell you how to determine this for yourself. Basically, just wire everything up, and use a voltmeter on the tracks to see if the polarity is reversed between the LOLbooster and the Power Cab. If you want to go this route, I can provide more detailed instructions on determining the right way to connect the wires. The advantage is of course you don't have to buy an SB3a, but the disadvantage is that, being a "dumb" booster, and not a command station combo unit, you don't gain the unplug ability for the Power Cab that you would with the SB3a.

Is this helpful?

Don

Why LOLbooster

skiloff asked for a discussion of the benefits and advantages of LOLbooster.

LOLbooster is intended to be an all-in-one booster/power-manager. Currently, larger layouts use one or two very large boosters, and a power distribution network with power-manager/short-circuit detections nodes to distribute the amplified DCC signal to individual blocks. Such an arrangement suffers from two particular shortcomings. First, it requires running wires carrying obscene amounts of current all over the layout, which is just asking for trouble—especially when you consider that some manufacturers don't design their boosters to tolerate indefinite short circuits! Second, it requires the user to run two buses: One is a bus to distribute the un-amplified DCC signal to the booster or boosters from the command station, and a second to distribute the amplified signal to the various power distribution nodes, and hence to each power district.

(Additionally, when you consider that the power needs of Z, N, and HO trais are actually quite low (excepting sound decoders at startup, but that is a problem LOLbooster is designed to handle), the idea of running such a high-current bus seems doubly ridiculous. One Japanese magazine performed tests and found that most Kato and Tomix (another Japanese brand) locomotives require only about 200mA of current to run!)

LOLbooster, in contrast, is a low-power booster intended to provide an amplified signal to just one power district (or, as locoi1sa has pointed out, modules), without the need for separate power manager nodes. Ideally, large layouts would have a separate LOLbooster for each power district. Such a scheme provides a solution to the two problems noted above. Now, only one low-power bus is needed to distribute the un-amplified DCC signal to each LOLbooster. Second, the high-power runs are quite short, as LOLbooster is intended to be installed directly adjacent to the district it will power; moreover, these runs are limited to 3A, rather than the 5A, 8A or even 12A runs required with the centralized booster model. The result is a safer and simpler wiring scheme.

An illustration might help:

Currently recommended layout wiring topology.

LOLbooster wiring topology. Simpler, with no high power runs.

Missed it by that much...

Dear Don,

Um, you're close, but missed the thrust by "...that much..."
(Apologies to the original "get Smart" series... )

The "reversing module" deliberately _doesn't_ need to know "who to reverse",

it only needs to change the "reversing status" of _any_ locos within a defined (blocked/gapped/isolated) section of physical track. (IE it is _loco_agnostic_).

A module which sits _between_ a LOLBooster (or any booster for that matter)

and the section of track (or portion thereof) the booster feeds,
on which "auto control" is desired,

(IE the trackfeeds to that "desired auto control section" of track go thru the "auto module",
not _direct_ from the booster)

and sends the equivalent of "all locos who can hear this, change direction" command,

would do the job.
(it all sounds soo simple on paper... ).

A simple "start/stop" or "shuttle/bypass" button would be the only "user Interface" the module would require.

Tag-team this with the other "module" I mentioned
(reliably stops any DCC loco at a known given track position,
and allows it to be "backed away" from the stopping-position),

and we start to get some useful little items...

Could a unit which sends a blind

- "move Fwd -- wait X seconds -- move Bkwd -- Wait X seconds -- move Fwd -- etc ad infinitum" command
- to Address 0 (Address Zero, which IIRC is meant to be "broadcast to everyone"),

perform the desired task?

The salient point being, the operation of such a "direction control" module is that it is _loco_agnostic_,
the "train to control/change direction" is the one (or more) that is sitting on the specifically-connected piece of trackwork.

IE The human operator has deliberately "driven them onto said piece of track" for the purpose of having them automatically controlled.
We can therefore assume that there will be no _accidental_ "direct human control VS automatic control" arguments, and in the case of any issue, the "automatic" unit should win. That's what the aforementioned "bypass" or "stop" button is for!

Hope this refines the focus on the issue some

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Control-stand throttles : US market requirements?

Dear Don,

Love the Tomix CL controller. However, for the US market, most anything which requires "sitting down at a fixed powition and operating" has lost a lot of appeal in the last few decades. "Walkaround" control would appear to be the more-preferred "User Interface". This is just one of the reasons why the "mini Control Stand" mod of the NCE CAB04 posted would IMHO be the "better thing to focus on" for the US market...
(It also better represents the kind of US control stand that modellers from "steam/diesel transition" thru "late EMD SD50 and 60" eras would warm to...)

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Prof Klyzir, Ah, I see what

Prof Klyzir,

Ah, I see what you mean. The problem is, you can't have different DCC commands sent to different sections of track. (Well, you can, but you are opening a tremendously huge can of worms, and currently the only people doing this are FREMO, with the aid of a large amount of additional custom hardware). Thus, sending a "reverse direction" command to "all locos who can hear this" would be sending it to all locos. Which isn't what you wanted. Hence the need to determine the address of whichever locos happened to be in the block of interest. So, it cannot be address agnostic, but it can at least be (in theory) transparent to the user (via polling the address over RailCom), which is the important thing in the end.

I see what the Prof is saying

I think you're missing the idea a bit.  If the LOLbooster is used for only the block in question (for example for a push-pull commuter line or a trolley) then "all locos who can hear this" would not be all locos on the layout, just all locos in the block attached to the LOLbooster.

However, if there is a way to automatically poll the address of all locos in a given block and send commands to them as needed, the as you say the function is the same from the user's point of view.  Is such a thing possible, or available?

Ken, Unfortunately, it's

Ken,

Unfortunately, it's not that I'm missing the idea, it is that, with DCC anyway, you cannot send commands to just one block: It's either the whole layout, or nothing. No amount of partitioning into power districts can change that The reason is twofold: For each command stream, you need a command station. So, first of all, you'd need multiple command stations. Second, you would have adjacent blocks with different signals on them. Different signals means that as a train crosses the boundary, it would create an instant short-circuit between those blocks, because the signals would be out of sync (high on one block, maybe low on the other…that's a 12V difference being bridged by your expensive new locomotive presenting almost zero resistance…smoke!). To avoid it, you would then have to construct intermediary blocks to perform command station hand-offs, which would be coordinated by a central computer keeping track of what train is on what block under whose control…etc, etc. It gets very complicated very quickly, and it's not clear to me that there is a general-case solution to the problem. At any rate, you have to plan for it in advance when laying track, so it defeats the Prof's generality requirements.

However, Transponding and Railcom both provide mechanisms for discovering a loco's address at the block level. (And with Railcom, you can find out quite a bit more, in fact, than just the address), which moots the whole thing. Of course, you have to have a decoder that supports Transponding or Railcom installed, so it's not quite as general a solution as the Prof was wanting, but it is at least something!

There's also the problem that DCC doesn't provide a simple "reverse direction" command: All direction commands are also speed commands, so the reverser would need to know something about the speed the locomotive was traveling, so it could match it in reverse. But this is a solvable problem…(in no small part because Railcom permits devices to query the train's speed).

LOLbooster advantages explanation please

Don,

Other than the remote possibility of cutting into a buss wire by accident, what is the trouble with high amperage buss wires running through the layout? My house walls are chock full of high voltage high amperage circuits using the exact same wire as the layout.

Regarding the control bus, the same is needed with LOLbooster so I see no simplification there.

The LOLbooster still requires a power supply like conventional boosters except now I need to place one with each LOLbooster or run a distribution circuit from a central high amp unit. Multiple power supplies complicates the arrangement and cost plus I need 110v available at many locations around the layout which raises the master layout on/off control question. Distributing the power supply current to multiple LOLboosters puts back in place the very wires LOLbooster is designed to eliminate - high current power buss.

I am having a hard time realizing the benefit of LOLbooster. What am I missing?

  Alan, you raise several

Alan, it also depends on what DCC system

Alan:

Depending on what DCC system you're using, you may not be able to use one large AC source to power all your layout boosters.

For example, NCE's boosters will short out if you connect more than one booster to a single large transformer AC power source (ask me how I know).

Since each NCE booster needs its own hefty wall-wart to power it, then Don's point makes a certain amount of sense - put the booster near the power block it's supplying. That way the wiring between locations is the AC wiring in your house supplying the hefty wall-warts - so no high-current wiring worries.

Changing DCC "Bits" on given sections of track

Dear Don,

I know you said it wasn't possible to send "specific comands to specific sections of track",
(IE insert a module between the booster and one or more of the pieces of track that the booster feeds),

but unless I'm mis-understanding completely, these guys seem to be implying that it is possible?

http://www.dccbitswitch.co.uk/

http://www.dccbitswitch.co.uk/aboutdccbitswitches.htm

"...The DCC-BitSwitch™ alters the bit packets sent to any section of track and activates the braking or acceleration momentum for any locomotives occupying the controlled section...."
(emphasis added)

I'm not suggesting copyright infringing or "industrial espionage",
but if it is indeed possible to
- hijack the DCC signals fed to a given electrical section of track
- and loco-agnostically "slow down/stop" whichever loco in "in section",

then maybe there is hope for a DCC loco-agnostic "change direction" or "dumb-timer shuttle" module?

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Prof The BitSwitch line of

Prof

The BitSwitch line of products are quite clever, and very useful. But they rely on a very simple "trick": Most (but not all) DCC decoders can be set to halt the motor when they encounter a DC signal. All the BitSwitches do is to selectively replace the DCC stream with a DC stream to halt the locomotive; then reinstate the DCC stream to get it rolling again. Unfortunately, simple start and stop behavior is all that is possible with this method; there is no way to, say, change speed (besides stopping), change direction, set functions, etc. The advertising copy is a bit disingenuous when it claims that the BitSwitch "alters the bit packets sent to any section of track": Technically true, but the alteration is performed with a sledgehammer, not a surgical knife

This is not to slam the product! I've used them before, and think that they are great solutions to an interesting range of operational problems! I just mean to say, their description of how they work is a bit…optimistic?

Don

Rail Starts still operating?

Hi, what happened with Rail Stars? Seems the website no longer works? Can't find anything on the www but stores out of parts. Cheers, Rene