10-25-2010, 04:13 PM
Steamtrains Wrote:For me, the principal attraction of DCC is performance. Once you've "tuned" your running settings, you can get engine performance that is impossible to achieve with DC. The second plus is running multiple engines at the same time without resorting to the electrical gymnastics required by DC, and much greater flexibility in this regard than is afforded by DC.
As far as sound is concerned, I tend to lean towards the "quiet" mode. Even watching videos with sound kind'a gets to me after a few minutes...
Sorry, not quite a correct statement in regard to engine performance. A DCC decoder is nothing but a good DC throttle with a communications channel that is installed in the engine instead of under the layout. In fact you can make an expensive DC throttle by putting your decoder in a handheld or fixed throttle and wiring the motor outputs to the track. A good PWM DC throttle will produce exactly the same performance as your DCC decoder. And there are a variety of other pulse setups for great DC performance if you don't like pulse width modulation (PWM). Feedback of various kinds has been around since the TAT III throttle of 1963. Start and maximum voltages have also been available on transistor DC throttles for decades.
Because our motors still use variable 0-12 volts DC as the input (DCC decoder output), DCC does not remove DC control. It adds a layer on top of conventional DC control. Bypassing the decoder through jumpers or software (CV) settings turns a locomotive back to DC control. For this reason, DC is not/will not die. Will all RTR locomotives come equipped with DCC decoders someday? More than likely if DCC is not superseded in the next decade.
Because the throttle is located in the engine with DCC and can be addressed individually, running multiple engines on the same track is in fact much easier with DCC. As is sound because you don't have to mix and then separate the sound signal from the motor power with DCC.
just my experiences