Beyond DCC

[peteski]

Plastic track to be more realistic 
IIRC, the real thing is made of metal, so why make the small version plastic?  To me the shiny metallic tops of the rails is part of the realism in the scale version.

[robert3985]

Plastic track to be more realistic 
IIRC, the real thing is made of metal, so why make the small version plastic?  To me the shiny metallic tops of the rails is part of the realism in the scale version.

I didn't mention what kind of plastic or color.  Maybe sputtering a metallic finish on the railheads would be a viable option for that "metallic" look.  Since the railheads woudn't need to be obsessively cleaned, buffed, scraped, oiled, de-ox'ed, or otherwise messed with because you wouldn't have to worry about electrical continuity between engine and railhead, a thick plating of some sort would be okay, and durable enough.

Just think, real code 46 rail, or code 33, or whatever.  Branchline track, British track with all that bullhead stuff, and turnouts with all that support superdetailing all over the tops of the ties and sides of the rails.  How about "modern" welded rail AND traditional rail with joiners every 39 feet???? 

My imagination is really goin' now!  Plastic components for track?...like 39' foot pieces of rail and separate ties, frogs, rail joiners, or laser cut tie strips with locating holes burned into them for precision placement of tie plates, with the rails slid into the assemblies??

It gets my mind into uncharted waters, just because I've never really thought seriously about the track not being an electrical component in my model railroading.  I'm sure the outdoor guys do it, but that's out of my realm of interest.

[peteski]

Even with no cleaning, thousands of passes of all those little wheels over any reasonably thin metallic coating on the plastic rail-head would wear off the plating rather quickly.  But it is your fantasy - have fun with it. 

[robert3985]

Peteski,

Tell that to the Atlas 55 designers.  The plating on the frogs and closure points does wear off, but it takes a lot of buffing and "Bright-Boying" to do it...I mean a "LOT".

Although this isn't DCC related, I'm still quite amazed that there's only code 55 and code 40 as passable "realistic" rail heights in N-scale.  Must be powerful-expensive to roll rail!

Also, eliminating the electrical connection between engine and track would certainly make the new air-delivered packets more reliable, plus, you'd never have to worry about all that stuff everybody worries about (signal loss, shorts, etc) if your throttle was what sent the signal to your engine since you'd probably want to keep it in sight.

[peteski]

Peteski,

Tell that to the Atlas 55 designers.  The plating on the frogs and closure points does wear off, but it takes a lot of buffing and "Bright-Boying" to do it...I mean a "LOT".

Yes, because (probably cost cutting measure) they decided to cast them out of some white metal, copper plate them, then plate them with some unknown, very shiny silver-colored metal.  If those items were simply cast from solid nickel-silver, the wear would not be a problem.  The silver plating wears off rather quickly. My friend's layout has not been operated much (or cleaned more than few times), and the copper color is already visible on several turnouts. 

Although this isn't DCC related, I'm still quite amazed that there's only code 55 and code 40 as passable "realistic" rail heights in N-scale.  Must be powerful-expensive to roll rail!

Actually - yes!  I recall DKS mention on some thread here on TRW that he looked into having some small-code rail rolled - it was very expensive, and the minimum quantity was rather sizable.

Also, eliminating the electrical connection between engine and track would certainly make the new air-delivered packets more reliable, plus, you'd never have to worry about all that stuff everybody worries about (signal loss, shorts, etc) if your throttle was what sent the signal to your engine since you'd probably want to keep it in sight.

I disagree about the need to eliminate track power and control.

Have you ever looked at Lenz Gold+ series of decoders?  They already do all that you are asking quite well. They are able to run with no power coming from the track, and still receive the DCC packets at the same time (while the wheels are isolated from the rails).  The technology is already here (and using the "old" DCC standard).

I just don't understand why so many modelers want to abandon the track power.  That, combined with batteries, seems to provide best of both worlds (strictly track powered or strictly battery operated model trains).  In that application, a small rechargeable battery is more or less constantly being charged through the track, yet it is only used at the the times when there is unreliable contact with the track.

How about lit passenger cars, cabooses, etc? Do you want to install batteries in every one of them, and then have to charge them all at some point in time?  Having the power supplied through in the track is much more convenient.  The charging takes place as the trains are running around the layout.

Sure, you could have something like contact-less inductive charging system for the batteries, but that means you would have to bury coils installed under the track. That seems cumbersome and complicated.  It seems so much easier and cheaper to just use 2 metal rails to deliver power to all the rolling stock which requires power.

EDIT: syntax and spelling 

[DKS]

Tell that to the Atlas 55 designers.  The plating on the frogs and closure points does wear off, but it takes a lot of buffing and "Bright-Boying" to do it...I mean a "LOT".

Um, no... it started coming off of my frogs after just a few relatively gentle swipes with a Bright Boy. Consider, too, that the plating on these frogs is still many hundreds of times thicker than the typical plating applied to plastic for metal effects. Not to mention the general durability of plastic rail would have me just a bit concerned. Add to that the need to clean wheels doesn't go away, since they'll still collect crud and their rolling characteristics will diminish. And the rail is just as likely to collect crud, too, which means it will still need to be cleaned. I can't imagine the plating will be long for this world.

Must be powerful-expensive to roll rail!

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is.

I keep hearing this blurb on the radio about a new battery technology (3D-something) that would allow a battery the size of a cell-phone battery to be able to start a car, and charge back up in only a few seconds...without being extremely hot.  When I first heard it, I thought..."Wow!  Something like that would be great for making model trains self contained!"  Upon further thought, it'd also make for the possibility more prototypical operation in several areas that we consider "normal" nowadays.

And you'll keep hearing those blurbs for a long time. The news media love to run with preliminary reports from "breakthrough" research, where they use test results of a tiny sample to extrapolate what "might be" by several orders of magnitude and get everyone needlessly excited. You really need to take these kinds of reports with a grain of salt.

And you want to put this battery where? In the loco? Along with the transceiver and sound and all the other crap? Where is the space for weight? Most locos these days are already borderline too light. Unless you're counting on the miracle battery folks to also provide some new weight material that's ten times more dense than tungsten, or some such...

Sure, you could have contact-less inductive charging system for the batteries, but that means you would have to have coils installed under the track. That seems cumbersome and complicated.  It seems so much easier and cheaper to just use 2 metal rails to deliver power to all the rolling stock which requires power.

This.

It gets my mind into uncharted waters...

As Peteski put it...

But it is your fantasy - have fun with it. 

[John]

It's pretty plain that DCC is not cutting edge, but it gets the job done pretty well.

and the other guys say

It's pretty plain that DC is not cutting edge, but it gets the job done pretty well.

[DKS]

and the other guys say

It's pretty plain that DC is not cutting edge, but it gets the job done pretty well.

FTW!

[robert3985]

and the other guys say

It's pretty plain that DC is not cutting edge, but it gets the job done pretty well.

I guess it depends on what "the job" is! 

[peteski]

I guess it depends on what "the job" is! 

Could you elaborate on your definition? 

[robert3985]

Um, no... it started coming off of my frogs after just a few relatively gentle swipes with a Bright Boy. Consider, too, that the plating on these frogs is still many hundreds of times thicker than the typical plating applied to plastic for metal effects. Not to mention the general durability of plastic rail would have me just a bit concerned. Add to that the need to clean wheels doesn't go away, since they'll still collect crud and their rolling characteristics will diminish. And the rail is just as likely to collect crud, too, which means it will still need to be cleaned. I can't imagine the plating will be long for this world.

I don't have any experience with actually using Atlas 55 turnouts since I hand lay all my turnouts.  However, I have half a dozen fellow N-scalers who use the Atlas 55 Turnouts (with ME 55 flex) who have not had a problem with their Atlas 55 turnout's plating coming off.  Your example is one (1), everybody else I know doesn't have a problem with it...yet.

Also, I'm not aware of what metal Atlas is plating their frogs and closure points with.  Perhaps there's something that has a more "steel" look to it that would be much harder than using something that attempts to look like nickel silver.  For all I know, maybe it IS nickel silver?? 

However, I'm just attempting to think outside the box here.  Maybe there's a shiny, steel-appearing plastic that's durable, flexible and injectable out there.  I do not know.

As to your question as to how to engineer the engines...I have no idea.  I'm just blue-skying.  You got a problem with that?  I have no idea what size the battery would have to be, but the ad talked about having a battery that is about the size of a cell phone battery that has enough amperage to start a car, then can be re-charged in a matter of few seconds.  The natural extrapolation of that would assume (yes "assume") that the battery required to run an N-scale train would be MUCH smaller, and require much less time (fraction of a second?) to re-charge.

I'm fully aware of the traction problems with present-day N-scale trains and the need for weight.  Maybe the battery would be made from extra-heavy materials (I don't know), or be so small that it would fit in the present-day air space in most engines.  Since most of the tires on the battery powered engines wouldn't need to be made of metal, maybe the ratio of traction tires vs pick up tires would be just reversed from what we have today.  Just two metallic tires per engine to conduct voltage to re-charge the battery on a recharging section of track.

The new DCC (or whatever you want to call it) hardware would be constructed from new much smaller components, so the space required for receivers would be much less than what's presently required and might be mounted on something other than the standard old PC board to even further miniaturize things. 

The only thing that probably wouldn't change much would be the speaker space requirements for sound.  Okay, okay, I know you (DKS) don't like it, but it's obviously selling well, so lots of other modelers out there really like it, so it'd have to be an option from a marketing point of view.

With models actually being designed with mounting a speaker inherent in the chassis design, not much weight would have to be removed to accommodate several types of speakers that are presently available.  What makes a big difference in N-scale sound volume, is having an air-tight speaker enclosure (derived from my own experience and communication with others who regularly mount speakers in their engines), which could be easily cast or machined into most chassis as a shallow hole venting downward, but just large enough to either tightly hold the speaker/enclosure, or actually being the enclosure.  I'm doing my Kato E's that way, but their chassis are not a "split frame".  Maybe a speaker enclosure could be designed that would enhance the bass response of the tiny speaker, but I doubt tiny 10mm speakers will ever have that "rumble".  I just accept the near impossibility of producing 1:1 sound from a 1:160 model, at least in the bass frequencies.

In any case, the tractive coefficient, with all those potential traction tires would probably be more than what's presently available, so weight becomes much less of a necessity.

Of course there'd be problems and I can only envision a few and in the end, if battery powered engines became viable, there'd probably have to be a whole new set of NMRA standards created to assist manufacturers to produce compatible products.  As it usually is, it'd take one manufacturer to jump off the deep end first and establish viability.

Like my friend Lee Nicholas and his battery powered HO F-Units, using Rail Lynx to control them, he's got a lot of "doubters" out there too, but his engines work NOW, the main problem being the re-charge time for present commercially available battery technology and which will fit into his models.

How much smaller could you make things which don't have ergonomic design limitations (bigness) which are powered by batteries?  When I look at one of my disassembled zip-drives, the biggest part of that is the USB connector.  Actual 32Gb circuity is at least 1/4 the size of the connector, so using more up-to-date hardware, whatever supercedes DCC would be much smaller, much more powerful, and much more flexible.

The only problem I have with future compatibility is that the NMRA will insert itself into the matter, which doesn't bode well for the end user getting anything near to cutting edge.

By the flip-side of the coin, attempting to be "cutting-edge" in the electronics/computer world from a consumer standpoint, is a futile quest at best.  I'd settle for "exponentially better" than what is currently available for model railroaders, which, I believe, will involve a paradigm change such as de-powering the rails.

Of course, instead of a major advance in battery technology, maybe de-powering the rails could be accomplished by a Tesla inspired wireless power transmission scheme! 

See Ya Later!

[DKS]

I don't have any experience with actually using Atlas 55 turnouts since I hand lay all my turnouts.  However, I have half a dozen fellow N-scalers who use the Atlas 55 Turnouts (with ME 55 flex) who have not had a problem with their Atlas 55 turnout's plating coming off.  Your example is one (1), everybody else I know doesn't have a problem with it...yet.

Make that two (2). A friend of mine has several of these switches that now have copper(ish) frogs owing to having dared to use a Bright Boy on them... briefly...

[robert3985]

Could you elaborate on your definition? 

HAHAHAHAHA!!!    There's no way I'm getting into the DCC vs DC tar pit!   

[peteski]

Make that two (2). A friend of mine has several of these switches that now have copper(ish) frogs owing to having dared to use a Bright Boy on them... briefly...

Make that 3, as I already described my friends experience with the Atlas plated frogs which I mentioned around the time you posted your experience.  I am part of the group which is building the layout so I can vouch for the copper-looking frogs.

[peteski]

Like my friend Lee Nicholas and his battery powered HO F-Units, using Rail Lynx to control them, he's got a lot of "doubters" out there too, but his engines work NOW, the main problem being the re-charge time for present commercially available battery technology and which will fit into his models.

I can't understand why some people just ignore the obvious solutions, which have been available to them since the beginning of this hobby.  Why oh why can't they just use the voltage supplied through the metal track to charge the batteries while they are actually operating them?  Duh!  The conductors (metal rails) are already there.  They have been there since the first electric model trains started running on track-power. 

As far as my doubts go, the line-of-sight IR control just is not reliable enough for me to even consider it. Even with all those extra repeaters which have to be installed.    I would be much more likely to accept a radio control.  But again, there is a really nice pair of electric conductors directly under every locomotive - why not use what is already there.