Guys. Seriously, Guys. Fleischmann has impressed the hell out of me again

[delamaize]

So, Being the resident European equipment weirdo, I was able to complete another model, of a consist I rode from Garmisch to munchen. Nothing special, it was a BR218 pushing 5 double decked commuter coaches.
What's impressive about that? The Control car lighting. (Fleischmann 8620)

I run DCC, and I knew that this car had directional lighting. I figured to get lighting to function correctly, I'd have to put a decoder in. I was wrong. Some how, I assume though voodoo magic, and the use of miniature German forest gnomes, It knows witch way it's operating, right out of the box, no Decoder, no additional wiring. Start pushing it, headlights come on, Pull it, red tail lights come on, others are off. In addition to that, it also has a lighted destination board, that actually looks like a digital display. The included decals to change it to Munchen, But part of me doesn't want to risk messing it up! If anyone is as interested in this as I am, I'll try to get a video tomorrow....

This is pretty damn cool, if you ask me. I wonder why US manufactures have mot done something like this for the marker lights on passenger cars, and such...

I guess I'm easily amused. 

[Lemosteam]

piiiics, please!  this sounds cool!

[Ed Kapuscinski]

What John said. Pics or it didn't happen

[nscaler711]

Is it that surprising though? I mean N scale has had directional lighting for a while, if its got LEDs then its not really that amazing, LEDs can only be lit one way. I have a Metra F40PH that does just that, when going forward Headlights are on, in reverse, markers are on.

For a cab coach, that's got lights set up that way, then I'll agree that's pretty cool, if it came from the factory like that.
( wasn't really trying to rain on your parade, I was merely saying directional lighting isn't impressive... )

[nickelplate759]

Is it that surprising though? I mean N scale has had directional lighting for a while, if its got LEDs then its not really that amazing, LEDs can only be lit one way. I have a Metra F40PH that does just that, when going forward Headlights are on, in reverse, markers are on.

For a cab coach, that's got lights set up that way, then I'll agree that's pretty cool, if it came from the factory like that.
( wasn't really trying to rain on your parade, I was merely saying directional lighting isn't impressive... )

As I understand it, the impressive bit is as follows:
The commonly used direction lighting setup relies on the polarity of the DC on the rails to control which light lights up.   That works great for DC control systems.    DCC does not put DC on the rails (despite having two letters in common), but rather AC.  The usual way to handle this in a DCC setup is by placing a lights-only decoder in the cab car and programming it to work together with the engine.   This Fleischmann car apparently has some other control mechanism for its lights.  It's not obvious what that might be (wheel rotation direction sensors?  Forest Gnomes?).

[mmagliaro]

My curiosity meter is well past the halfway point.  Tell me more.

So... you can just plunk this car on a DCC track, push it forward with your hand, and the forward lights pop on?
And if you stop it and push it the other way, the reverse lights come on?
And you're not running anything on analog "channel 0" off your DCC controller?  It's just being powered by
the standing AC from the DCC system that is on the rails?

Yes... I'd like to see that car completely torn apart with photos!  Ha ha.

  I can think of ways to do this, like a pair of optical
sensors (IR emitter/detector, for example)  pointed at the back of one of the wheels,
which would have to have dark and light areas on it.  And then it would need some kind of flip-flop circuit hooked to
it so it could interpret direction from this (i.e. sensor 1 triggers first and then sensor 2, you are going forward,
but if it's 2-1, it's in reverse).  Perhaps a small magnet attached to one axle that whizzes past two
Hall Effect magnetic sensors?   But this seems way
more complicated than you'd want to bother with in a production model.    Can you take really close-up
shots of the underside showing the trucks and wheels? 

I wonder if you can flummox it by swapping wheelsets around (if it really is sensing wheel rotation).

[peteski]

MIke, relax, you are not the only European model nut here (I have lots of various European-prototype models).  Fleischmann (as we both know) is one of the top European manufacturers when it comes to innovation and quality (although quality has slipped a bit in the last decade).  For example some recent steam loco models have equalized drivers and a very unusual coreless motor (which I spend $50 to get a spare so I can take it apart to see what makes it run).  I'll eventually do a writeup on that strange motor, but I digress...

Back to your model - it does seem very cool!  I would love to see how it works.  If it doesn't have an addressable decoder tied to the address (for direction information) to the loco which would be pulling it, there has to be some other mechanism which tells it what to do.  It has to be something like wheel spinning and direction sensor, some sort of sensor which looks for movement under the car (similar to how optical computer mice work), or simply an accelerometer like all the smart phones have (which senses movement and direction).  Either way, there is some electronic intelligence built-in to make this work.

I agree - I'm very impressed.

I'm still a bit unclear though: when you said you pushed and pulled - was that as in the compete train being pushed or pulled by the DCC-controlled loco, or were you manually pushing/pulling the car itself on  the track? 

[keeper]

The Fleischmann web page says that this car has a built in function decoder (as all other cab control cars).

https://www.fleischmann.de/de/product/227115-0-0-8-1-0-0-003002/products.html

Thomas

[mmagliaro]

When I went to that page, all I saw was that it said the electrical system was "DC".  I didn't see anything about a decoder.

Meanwhile... I think this little gizmo could make the problem at least practical to put in a commercial model:
http://www.infineon.com/cms/en/product/sensor/magnetic-position-sensor/hall-switch/TLE4966V-1K/productType.html?productType=db3a304442b7c1190142d7838f3d33ba

Put a small ring of magnets around one axle, put this chip near that axle, and you're in business.   Pin 3 goes hi
or low depending on the direction of rotation.  It's got two Hall Effect sensors in it, and the logic to output a
"direction", all in a tiny SMD package that can run over a wide range of unregulated input voltages (3.5V to 32V)

Them thar clever chip designers.  What will they think of next.

Here's an EE Times write-up from when the chip was released in last 2013:
http://www.electronics-eetimes.com/en/dual-hall-sensor-detects-rotation-direction-and-speed.html?cmp_id=7&news_id=222919452

[nickelplate759]

When I went to that page, all I saw was that it said the electrical system was "DC".  I didn't see anything about a decoder.
...

It says this:
"Mit Funktionsdecoder für einen Lichtwechsel rot/weiß im Analog- und Digitalbetrieb."

Which means "With function decoder for changing lights between red and white in analog and digital control." (more or less, I'm not very good at German)

So, no magic, no gnomes, no wheel-rotation sensors, just a DCC controller.   still impressive that it's included.

[peteski]

Built-in function-only decoder. That makes perfect sense.

If Mr. Spock was participating in this thread he would now say "logical" instead of "fascinating". 

[mmagliaro]

But I thought Mike said he didn't think this car had a decoder in it, so he didn't try to address it or send it any
commands.

I'll let Mike clear up the story.   If he was just pushing it with his hand or with another engine, I don't see how
the internal decoder could help with the lights.

[peteski]

But I thought Mike said he didn't think this car had a decoder in it, so he didn't try to address it or send it any
commands.

I'll let Mike clear up the story.   If he was just pushing it with his hand or with another engine, I don't see how
the internal decoder could help with the lights.

Exactly - Mike wasn't clear about that so I also asked about those details. With the additional details emerging, the plot thickens.    Maybe Mike just ran the set using address 03 which was the default setting?  Or maybe the set was factory programmed to the actual number printed on the loco and that is what he used?

[Leggy]

Aside from how cool this model sounds, since when is DCC using AC power? I was always lead to believe it was a constant voltage DC feed and communication signals were transmitted down the rails to decoders to supply power to motors hence why this model without needing a decoder is kind of amazing. AC power wouldn't do anything different to DC unless it was constant voltage and did the same technobabble thing.

[peteski]

No, in DCC the track power flipping polarity is those communication packets.  The lenghts of the positive and negative pulses are the digital zeros and ones in the packets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Command_Control

Although, some vendors offer misinformation (that DCC voltage is constant at the track)
http://www.nscaledivision.com/information_on_dcc.htm