RailPro > RailPro Specific Help & Discussion

RailPro and DCC Modules Compatability

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G8B4Life:
I'm not sure that I'd call the NCE PowerCab "boosted" by any means by itself due to the low amount of power it can provide but yes Zephyr / PowerCab style include integral boosters much like most command stations these days. I'm not actually sure you could find a command station these days that doesn't have a booster built in but if one looked hard enough you could probably find one.

In relation to the OP's question and the suggestion of "using" DCC at home to provide power for RailPro and that we can think of the command station and booster as a single component this is what I'm pondering.  A stand alone booster is cheaper than a command station. Since the OP has no need of the command station functionality and it would be a waste of resources (money) to have one just to be able to use things like DCC frog juicers for club use; if a stand alone booster could generate the DCC AC waveform at least without needing command station input then that would be a cheaper avenue than having to get a command station of which he''d only use the power from.

I don't have a stand alone booster so I can't test my theory to prove or disprove it.

Edit: Thinking about this further, if a stand alone booster can't generate the DCC waveform by itself without command station input then the OP could still possibly get by with a stand alone booster and a "DCC waveform generator" for want of a better word to plug into it; not that I know of any DCC waveform generators out there but it could be worth looking into.

- Tim

Alan:
If all you need is the 10kHz square wave on the rails then that is pathetically easy to do. A darlington pair transistor arrangement on the output would provide all the amperage you could ever want eliminating the need for a booster.

G8B4Life:
I feel like we're hijacking LanOsb133's thread for our own conversation even through we're really not.

A very interesting idea you present there Alan. I'm quite sure all you would need is the raw AC waveform (say all zero's at 100μs); an LM doesn't need the coded waveform and I doubt that non controllable DCC items, like juicers need a coded waveform either. The only thing I can think of that prevents at least me from seeing how pathetically easy this is is don't the rails need to be in opposite phase to each other? I'm sure with a few extra components you could create an opposite phase copy of the darlington pair output but remember, not an electronics genius here.

- Tim

Alan:
Vout in the schematic is the two rails. Notice Vcc is - and + instead of the usual + and GND.

And yes, the output transistors would need to be a push-pull configuration.

G8B4Life:
I'll take your word for it at the moment, right now the sandman beckons.

I have sent Tim Ring an email about using a generated raw DCC waveform. Will be interesting to see what he says; probably something about starting a fire  ;)

- Tim

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