Hi Rob, I find your videos inspiring. It's been too many years since I did model railways, but you and one or two others have inspired me to get back into it again. We moved back to France at the beginning of the year, where I was diagnosed with cancer. I'm on chemotherapy at the moment and so watch your videos. Please keep up the great work you do as it's keeping me motivated to get started very soon on the track, which should be at home ready. Cheers Alan
Hi Alan, sorry that it's taken me so long to reply to this, I will explain in the next members video. Sounds like a you've been having a pretty tough time of it. I hope the chemo is doing its job and that you're back at home working on the layout soon. Thanks for your kind words. Please do stay in touch and let me know how you're getting on.
Very interesting. The hobby is getting technically/electronically more and more complex. It can be daunting just trying to keep up with it all, but this shows how effective and useful these advances can be.
Thats super. I have always been tempted by automation with DCC and this hows how simple it actually is. And the fact that you can turn it on and off aswell is pretty handy
Dcc ex is superb. I have a setup with 2 full circuits, a branch, 2 passing loops and an extra through line in the main station. The branch runs automatically with full semaphore signalling, the 2 main circuits operate their signalling and when the loops are set the signsl logic follows. I have used master and slave Arduino Megas and a load of sensors. It really is cool, doesn't use JMRI or any other proprietary 'stuff' and works really well. I'm now adjusting things so that rather than the trains operating the signals, the signals will control the train. DCC-EX is superb anx badly under publicised. Well done Little Wicket for this showcase.
Fantastic video Rob, what a crazy little system, definitely something that seems quite daunting but as always you've made it bite sized and seem very manageable. Perhaps something to try one day on my own layout. What a treat to see it all run flawlessly. You must be very pleased after that effort. Looking forward to more. Keep well.
nice, hope the dev team are looking at "Rpi Pico W", new automations would not need recompiling (guessing that is being done for the arduino), pico could "command" the arduino/motor board, arduino pins are 5 volt, Pico pins are 3.3 volt, need level shifter for serial communication between them
Thanks. This looks like what I'm looking for, but one question. Could you program this to Run automation at set times of the day for a set amount of time and then park the trains at set locations at the end, say a 20 minute run time? I need it to run automatically at set times of the day. I'm currently looking at DC to control this with programming power to turn on and off with sensors, that include weather sensors, for an outdoor track.
There is an additional piece of software from DCC-EX which is a clock. It runs on an additional Arduino that you hook up using the i2C bus to your DCC-EX base station. The two can interact and it opens up timed automations. For example, you could use this with a PCA9685 to run lighting sequences inside buildings if that was of interest.
Hi little Wicket, I love your videos very much and already have picked up a lot of information for my own DCC-EX command station. I have one question regarding the connection of the DCC power to the rails. At both end there are loops where normally the polarity of the supplied power needs to be changed to prevent a short circuit. How did you solve the problem? I understand that this is not really subject to your video but I would like to know this. Best regards and keep on doing well.
Hi! I use DCC40 gaugemaster reverse loop modules. I already had them, but they're not ideal. They use relays, so click and are slower than a digital solution. I don't show it in the video for simplicity, but I had to reduce the DCC-EX sensitivity to shorts.
Hi Rob,
I find your videos inspiring.
It's been too many years since I did model railways, but you and one or two others have inspired me to get back into it again.
We moved back to France at the beginning of the year, where I was diagnosed with cancer.
I'm on chemotherapy at the moment and so watch your videos. Please keep up the great work you do as it's keeping me motivated to get started very soon on the track, which should be at home ready.
Cheers Alan
Hi Alan, sorry that it's taken me so long to reply to this, I will explain in the next members video. Sounds like a you've been having a pretty tough time of it. I hope the chemo is doing its job and that you're back at home working on the layout soon. Thanks for your kind words. Please do stay in touch and let me know how you're getting on.
I will do Rob.
DCC EX user here, love it, will never buy a mainstream system again.
Agreed. It's fantastic and only getting better
Very interesting. The hobby is getting technically/electronically more and more complex. It can be daunting just trying to keep up with it all, but this shows how effective and useful these advances can be.
Thats super. I have always been tempted by automation with DCC and this hows how simple it actually is. And the fact that you can turn it on and off aswell is pretty handy
There's loads more you can do too.
DCC-EX is a great system. I'm just starting to get into it myself. Thank you for the very informative video
Thanks for watching 👍
Dcc ex is superb. I have a setup with 2 full circuits, a branch, 2 passing loops and an extra through line in the main station. The branch runs automatically with full semaphore signalling, the 2 main circuits operate their signalling and when the loops are set the signsl logic follows. I have used master and slave Arduino Megas and a load of sensors. It really is cool, doesn't use JMRI or any other proprietary 'stuff' and works really well. I'm now adjusting things so that rather than the trains operating the signals, the signals will control the train. DCC-EX is superb anx badly under publicised. Well done Little Wicket for this showcase.
Thanks Mike. Sounds like you're making really good use of it. Next level stuff.
Fantastic video Rob, what a crazy little system, definitely something that seems quite daunting but as always you've made it bite sized and seem very manageable. Perhaps something to try one day on my own layout. What a treat to see it all run flawlessly. You must be very pleased after that effort. Looking forward to more. Keep well.
Almost unbelievable. Thanks.
Love this Video. Thanks so much
Glad you liked it 😀
👍👍👍
Thank you!
👍
Very interesting. I'm on DC and too invested there to change but that was really informative, thanks.
DCC-EX will also work with DC I think. I'm not fully up to speed, but I have seen a video demo of automation being used with DC.
nice, hope the dev team are looking at "Rpi Pico W", new automations would not need recompiling (guessing that is being done for the arduino), pico could "command" the arduino/motor board,
arduino pins are 5 volt, Pico pins are 3.3 volt, need level shifter for serial communication between them
Thanks. This looks like what I'm looking for, but one question. Could you program this to Run automation at set times of the day for a set amount of time and then park the trains at set locations at the end, say a 20 minute run time?
I need it to run automatically at set times of the day.
I'm currently looking at DC to control this with programming power to turn on and off with sensors, that include weather sensors, for an outdoor track.
There is an additional piece of software from DCC-EX which is a clock. It runs on an additional Arduino that you hook up using the i2C bus to your DCC-EX base station. The two can interact and it opens up timed automations. For example, you could use this with a PCA9685 to run lighting sequences inside buildings if that was of interest.
What John said 👍
The AI thumbnail is not the one. 👎
I'm glad you've said that. I thought I'd let AI have a go, but I think I agree.
I agree
Hi little Wicket, I love your videos very much and already have picked up a lot of information for my own DCC-EX command station. I have one question regarding the connection of the DCC power to the rails. At both end there are loops where normally the polarity of the supplied power needs to be changed to prevent a short circuit. How did you solve the problem? I understand that this is not really subject to your video but I would like to know this. Best regards and keep on doing well.
Hi! I use DCC40 gaugemaster reverse loop modules. I already had them, but they're not ideal. They use relays, so click and are slower than a digital solution. I don't show it in the video for simplicity, but I had to reduce the DCC-EX sensitivity to shorts.
@@LittleWicketRailway Thank you, thats clear now for me.