Railpro with DCC on Large Modular Layout

[drisdon]

This past weekend 18 people including myself setup a large 30 module Free-mo layout in a 34' x 70' space in Clovis, CA.  I used my Railpro system on the typical Digitrax equipped Free-mo layout and it was a great experience!  One of the biggest issues everyone experienced was dirty track and I initially thought there was something wrong with Railpro, but realized everyone had the same problem.  Now this issues is magnified when you don't have any sort of keep alive installed to get through the rough spots though and I hope this will be a future addition to Railpro.

Now for the fun stuff; everyone kept asking me what I was using, and I would tell them Railpro.  Most have never heard of it and many would say; "Oh, that's what that guy from Texas keeps pushing".  However many started to realize that I could run my trains without experiencing all the DCC issues they were all having.  I find it funny to watch people use wireless throttles and constantly plug them in with their short 18" cable because the wireless is not reliable enough to just run on it.  I lost count of the number of runaways when a locomotive takes off at full power, loss of consists, or one unit drops out of consist, slot and slot max issues, and other random Digitrax issues.

One person, who has been adamantly opposed in the past, was very intrigued and would like to purchase a Railpro to experiment with it.  Another whom developed the MSS signal system was also very intrigued as he had never heard anything about Railpro before.  Another person visiting from out of state was very interested as well, especially once I showed him how easy it was to consist and have locomotives run together without any speed matching.  The biggest complaint was that they have much $$$ tied up in DCC and it would be hard to switch.  I sold my Digitrax equipment to fund the purchase and I have no regrets in doing so.  I did save one Digitrax throttle and even brought a couple of DCC equipped locos, but never wanted to try and run them which I think tells me I'm done with DCC and just install Railpro in them too.

So, I just wanted to share the great experience with all of you that I had with Railpro on a large modular layout. 

Dan Risdon

[G8B4Life]

I'm glad you had a great time using, and importantly, showing off RailPro. I think showing it off by using it (and letting them try it) is probably our best avenue to get it out there; there seems to be much stubbonness and animosity towards RailPro without people actually seeing it, usually from the DCC diehards that have a lot invested in DCC.

Sometimes it doesn't work though; I took my RailPro and a couple of loco's with me when I went to a friends hobby shop a couple of weeks ago as I told him I'd show it to him. He handed the HC back to me within 20 seconds of handing it to him without even turning it on. The loco's didn't even make it out of my bag. I guess some people just don't want to know what else there is out there.

- Tim

[William Brillinger]

Thanks for sharing your story Dan!

Regarding a Keep Alive option for RailPro, Please email support@ringengineering.com and tell Tim you would like to see this option. The more people that ask for it, the sooner it will happen. (so says Tim.)

[nodcc4me]

Good to hear of your experience Dan. Most of us have had similar ones.


RailPro, like DCC, is susceptible to stalling on dirty track. We are hoping that Ring is working on keep-alive circuitry, which should mostly eliminate that problem.

[KPack]

Keep alive would be awesome.  I've asked Tim about it several times and I do believe he plans on making one.  Unfortunately he has other issues to deal with first and clear a backlog of projects and updates.

"Oh, that's what that guy from Texas keeps pushing".  Haha, are they talking about me?  I can't think of anyone else in Texas that used it when I was there.  I've since moved though, so maybe now it will be "that's what that guy from Washington keeps pushing".  I can't help it if I like the system and enjoy using it.  I got so tired of the disinformation, secondhand "facts", and speculation that I took it upon myself to answer questions and comments from the perspective of someone who actually uses Railpro.

Glad that you had a good experience running Railpro on the modular layout.  A month ago I ran at a semi-local club for the first time and answered a lot of questions about Railpro.  I let one of the guys play around with it for a while and run some switching ops with one of my locos.  The only issue was my locos are all equipped with Sergents and the clubs stuff was all Kadee, so they didn't play well together.  Besides that he had a blast using it.  I believe that putting the controller in someone's hand and letting them use the system is the best way to educate.  You can talk about it all you want, but until you've actually used Railpro yourself then you really aren't aware of what it's capable of.

-Kevin

[hirailer]

I have said many times "this product is so good it will sell itself ". Unfortunately, not many people get the chance to experience RailPro and all it's many amazing features. Ring Engineering really needs to step up their advertising, the only ad I have seen is in MRH and the same one has been there for several years. I doubt if people even look at it anymore. To make matters worse, several DCC manufacturers have placed nice big fresh ads right next to the RailPro ad in MRH, completely plowing it under. Ring Engineering should replace this old ad in MRH with a fresh new one. Small ads in other publications would sure help to get the word out.

Model Railroaders should have a chance to experience a"hands on" demonstration at train shows. This really gets people buzzing. I have thought about renting a table at our local train show here in Chilliwack so I can get rid of a bunch of good MRR items that I have. Along with this I would certainly take along my HC2 and a loco so I can demonstrate RailPro. As far as I know, the are no RailPro dealers in Saskatchewan, Alberta or British Columbia that could represent RailPro.

Mel

[William Brillinger]

As far as I know, the are no RailPro dealers in Saskatchewan, Alberta or British Columbia that could represent RailPro.

Officially RailPro is not available outside of the USA, and Ring will not ship RailPro to addresses outside of the USA although some stores have access to it via Walthers or in my case, because I have both a US and Canadian Address.

I am not aware of any other dealers in Canada that carry RailPro besides www.pdc.ca

[drisdon]

"the guy from Texas" is referring to Jacob Damron (on this forum too) whom has made several posts to the Free-mo yahoogroup about DCC, Railpro, and some other electrical standards topics in the past year.  His posts are what made me take a closer look at RailPro and ultimately take the plunge.

Dan

[KPack]

"the guy from Texas" is referring to Jacob Damron (on this forum too) whom has made several posts to the Free-mo yahoogroup about DCC, Railpro, and some other electrical standards topics in the past year.  His posts are what made me take a closer look at RailPro and ultimately take the plunge.

Dan

Ha, that's right I forgot Jacob was down there.  Nice!  Being active on forums and such helps spread the word.  I'm glad his posts brought you over!


On a related note, I will second what Mel said regarding RE's ads in MRH.  An updated ad would make a huge difference.  Running the same ad for a long period of time means that no one will notice it.  Most people probably skip right over it now.  Something fresh that is visually attractive will catch people's attention.   I'm not a an ad designer but I know what catches my eye and makes me investigate the product further, and RE's ads aren't doing that for me.

-Kevin

[nodcc4me]

I have, on more than one occasion, offered to set up a booth at the Amherst Model Railway Club's huge annual show in Springfield, Mass., but Tim has declined, claiming they get enough business off of the internet. As busy as they are, maybe they do. 🤔

[G8B4Life]

claiming they get enough business off of the internet.

That's pretty much the same mentality as someone I know; the jobs will come to me. Result, I have hardly done anything for them in the last 3 months and the company has been roughly the same size for the last 10 years so it's a dangerous precedence to set for one's self. Reading between the lines I get the impression that it's not just that they get enough business off the internet but they cannot grow as a company to cope with the extra business that would be generated. Why else would you not actually want more business?

As for availability, Bill is correct that it's not (officially) available outside the US. I know Bill and myself have both offered to get RailPro approved for our respective countries and got met with thanks but no thanks. This could easily tie in with the above.

- Tim

[drisdon]

I emailed Ring with my great experience using Railpro at the Free-mo setup and I asked about Keep Alive circuitry and received the following response. "We do plan to offer a keep alive at some point.  We do have a working prototype now.  However, we would like to make changes before we release it.  We can not be sure at this point when it might be available."

Dan Risdon

[Dean]

Hi all!
I'm new here and would like to share some discussions I have been exchanging with Tim.
My layout has an NCE PowerPro 5 amp radio control DCC installed on it. I bought a RaiPro HC-2 and 4 LM-2 decoders. My interest was the consisting capabilities of RailPro. But, operating switches was a pain as I needed to use the PowerPro throttle and keep it handy as I moved around the layout. I could replace my NCE Snap It controllers and the PSX-ARs that are installed but that would be very expensive. I asked Tim if it was possible to get a plain and simple relay that would be controlled by the HC-2. As the Snap It and the PSX-ARs both have the ability to be operated by push buttons, the relay would be wired into the devices as if they were the push buttons. That way the switches could be controlled by both the DCC system and the RailPro system without major expense.
I'm sure there are other devices that could be interfaced with a relay and controlled by both RailPro and DCC. And the relay would make easier to add RailPro to DCC and DC systems.
I'm hopeful RailPro comes through with the relay.

[G8B4Life]

Hi Tuscarora (name )

I think I understand what your asking for in a relay but I'll cover both bases in this post.

What your asking wouldn't be hard to do but a HC wouldn't be able to operate a relay directly as it stands right now. An off the shelf relay that you might buy from an electronics shop would have no way of being controlled. A relay from RE fitted with a module would probably cost much the same as a plain LM-2 plus the cost of the relay; the cost difference for RE to make a single output module against the current 6 output probably wouldn't be that different.

I see three choices in reality; two "expensive" and one not so expensive.

1. Use an LM-2 as an accessory module to drive the relays via the function outputs. You would possibly have to write an accessory program for the module and possibly use the module to drive power transistors that drive the relays, depending on the current requirements of the relay coils.

2. Use an AM-1 accessory module to drive relays. This should be able to be done but I'm not 100% sure.

3. Just wire in push buttons into your existing Snap-it's and PSX-AR's. Not what you were asking but certainly the cheapest option.

The only issues I see in using RailPro to activate the relays with what you describe (as I'm not familiar with the Snap-It's and PSX-AR's) is when using an LM-2 to change the points by relay the Snap-it's and PSX-AR's might not know the points have changed if you then use the DCC system to change the points afterwards and get confused / damaged; and if you used an AM-1 to change the points by relay both the AM-1 and the Snap-It's and PSX-AR's might get confused / damaged if you used one system and then the other.

- Tim

[Dean]

Thanks for the reply.
First, I don't want to replace my present DCC system. I have too much invested in power supplies, boosters, and decoders to just rip it out. ( last year I trashed a Digitrax system to install a much superior NCE Power Pro system. At least I could use the same decoders. ) I want to run both DCC and RailPro.
Both the PSX-AR and Snap-its have provisions for momentary contact push buttons. The relay would be used in place of the push buttons. The relay isolates the RailPro system from the DCC system and allows the HC-2 to operate the switches.
The relay also addresses the problem of the switch controller knowing what position the switch is in because both the DCC system and RailPro are using a common switch controller.
Having a AM-1 operating the switch directly would not work well as you would have feedback into the DCC controller and from the DCC controller into the AM-1. This has the potential to destroy both controllers. And, the PSK-AR is an auto reversing device with push button capability. Operating that switch would not work at all.
Using an LM-2 to operate a off the shelf relay would be complicated. The output needs to be pulsed to mimic a push button. Can an LM-2 do that? And no voltage is required from the LM-2 as you are just completing a circuit from the switch controllers, like a push button. And it is an awful expensive switch controller.
Using an AM-1 to drive off the shelf relays is a promising idea. But I don't know what the output is for the 2 wire switch output. But it is a momentary output.
Using an AM-1 causes other problems on my layout. The AM-1 can control 4 switches. But the switches that I want to control are not near to each other. I would end up running over 100 feet of wiring to get to all the switches I want to control. This also has the problem of voltage drop either from the AM-1 to the relay, or from the relay to the switch controller, depending where the components are mounted.
I am also wondering if a Snap-it can be used to operate an AM-1. Then the AM-1 becomes the switch operator and the Snap-it becomes a relay. But the long wiring runs become a problem again.
The perfect solution is a relay module with two coils and two sets of contacts, controlled from an HC-2.
It could be mounted near the existing switch controller, get it's power from the track, and have a very short wire run to the switch controller.
I'll probably install push buttons.