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| Joe Fugate |
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   Registered Member #3 Joined: Fri Sep 08 2006, 01:59PM: posts: 145 | Q. Which DCC system would you recommend? A. The question of which system I would recommend is not a one-size-fits-all answer. First a bit of history about my own experience with the major "big four" systems. I've owned a Lenz system (bought it in 1993, sold it in 2000), and I own a wireless EasyDCC system (since 2000) and use it on my Siskiyou Line layout. I also own an NCE PowerCab system (bought in 2006 from Tony's trains for $140) that I use at my workbench to test locos, run locos when cleaning wheels, and so on. And I've operated quite a bit using Digitrax. I've also spent quite a bit of time reading the manuals of all these systems to see how they do things. One big system criteria for me is ease-of-use. This should not be your only criteria (there are others, which I will discuss in future posts on this topic). Since I am a senior web designer in my day job (and been a computer programmer for 30 years now), I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make a user interface easy to use by the general public. I believe this gives me some credibility when evaluating the user-friendliness of a DCC system's user interface. I would rank ease-of-use and user friendliness of the various systems, from best to worst as: 1. NCE 2. EasyDCC 3. Lenz 4. Digitrax And I consider Lenz and Digitrax's ease of use to fall far behind the number 2 contendor, EasyDCC. If I was to put it on a scale of 1-10, it would look like this: 01. NCE 02. EasyDCC 03. 04. 05. 06. 07. Lenz 08. 09. Digitrax 10. One data point for me comes in how often you need to use the manual to figure out how to do common tasks, or if you can "guess" what you need to do just by looking at the buttons -- and then does the system step you through the process with good screen prompts? Let's take consisting as an example. I'll address each system in the next few posts. It will take me a few days to complete these next posts so check back often.  [ Edited Tue Jul 17 2007, 10:45AM ] Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 250,000 hits and counting!  | ||
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Fri Sep 08 2006, 01:59PM: posts: 145 | NCE ease-of-use review To review ease-of-use with each system, I like to look at a non-trivial task that's commonly done, and see if I can figure out how to do it without reading the manual but just looking at the system's command station panel/throttle and can "guess" while the system prompts me through the process. I find making a loco consist to be an ideal example of a non-trivial activity that you will often do with a DCC system. So I want to set up a consist with an NCE system -- where do I start? If I look at the command handheld, I notice the consist section down near the bottom:  Not bad, looks like exactly where I start. Turns out this section does *exactly* what you would expect it does. From the NCE manual: CONSIST SETUP GROUP Supports not only advanced decoders that respond to the Extended Packet Format but also the older entry-level decoders. For complete operating instructions on consist makeup read the section on SETTING UP A CONSIST in the Power Pro Reference Manual. SETUP Starts the procedure for either creating an advanced or old style (some call it Universal) consist. CLEAR Disbands (breaks up) a consist. ADD LOCO Adds a locomotive to a consist. DELETE LOCO Drops a locomotive from a consist. NCE prefers advanced (decoder-based) consists, as opposed to an "old style" (command station-based) consist. However, you can set up either type of consist. We'll take a look at the old style consist. STEPS FOR CREATING A CONSIST WITH NCE So let's look at the steps to create an old-style consist. 1. Press the Consist - Setup button. The following text displays on the LCD.  2. I elect to press 1 to setup an "old style" (i.e., command station) consist. You can have a maximum of 4 locos in an old style consist. The system asks for a lead loco number. 3. Enter the lead loco number, then press ENTER. This number becomes the consist number. 4. The entered loco defaults to forward (F). The system displays the loco's direction and says that to change the loco's direction, press the DIRECTION key. 5. Press ADD for each loco you want to ADD, up to a maximum of 4 locos. NOTE: You can also include a decoder-consist as any one of the four locos. This allows you to do lots of powerful nested consisting tricks. CONCLUSIONS: NCE gets a solid A for ease-of-use. The buttons are well labeled, their function is obvious, and the system steps you through the setup process nicely. No surprises and little need to refer back to the manual once you understand the basics of DCC consisting. NEXT UP: EasyDCC. [ Edited Tue Jul 17 2007, 10:55AM ] Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 250,000 hits and counting! | ||
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Fri Sep 08 2006, 01:59PM: posts: 145 | EasyDCC ease-of-use review EasyDCC considers command station consists to be the preferred kind of consist, so they call this type of consist a "Standard Consist" in their manual. EasyDCC frowns on decoder-based consists, and calls them something you "might want to experiment with" in their documentation. So let's look at setting up a command station based consist in EasyDCC. EasyDCC: Setting up a consist Again, the first thing I look for is for some obvious way to make a consist without referring to the manual. EasyDCC has a button down in the lower left part of the key pad labeled "SETUP/ASSIGN - CONSIST", so that's where I assume I need to start.  In fact, this is correct. By pressing this button EasyDCC prompts me to setup a consist. STEPS FOR CREATING A CONSIST WITH EASYDCC Here are the steps to create a standard consist. 1. Press the SETUP/ASSIGN button. EasyDCC displays: Setup / Assign what? 2. Press the CONSIST second action button (happens to be the same button as the SETUP / ASSIGN button). EasyDCC displays: Setup Consist - Consist #____? 3. Type in the number of the lead loco (say 4408), which also becomes the consist number. EasyDCC displays: Cons# 4408: 1=Add 2=Remove 3=Kill 4. To add another loco, type 1, then type the loco address (like 4333). EasyDCC displays: Add loco 4333, Press R or N (EasyDCC is asking which way the loco is facing, so you press the R or N accessory button to indicate which way the loco is facing. If Forward, press N for normal -- if backwards press R for reversed.) NOTE: To make an decoder-based consist, EasyDCC has you press SETUP - Y, which is not at all obvious and requires studying the manual to find this out. EasyDCC clearly does not prefer decoder-based consisting, and goes out of its way to make it hard to even figure out how to do it. CONCLUSIONS EasyDCC gets a B for ease-of-use. Once you get the hang of the two-step double duty nature of the buttons, which button you need to press is fairly obvious. The system steps you through what to type clearly and in a helpful manner, with no use of the manual necessary. EasyDCC's disdain of decoder-based consisting made sense in the early days of DCC but is now somewhat dated. Their deliberate attempt to make the command sequence less than obvious was a heavy-handed move on the part of the system developers and should be rethought. If EasyDCC had not burried the decoder based consisting command, they would have gotten a B+ for ease of use. NEXT UP: Lenz [ Edited Fri Nov 03 2006, 02:31PM ] Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 250,000 hits and counting! | ||
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Fri Sep 08 2006, 01:59PM: posts: 145 | Lenz ease-of-use review Lenz considers decoder consists to be the *only* kind of consist you can make with their Set 90 system. They call this type of consist an MU or "Multi-unit consists" in their manual. If you want to make a command station consist, you'll need their set 100, and look for what Lenz calls a "double header" in their manual. Lenz limits command station consists to a max of two locos.  Lenz: Setting up a consist I first look for some obvious way to make a consist without referring to the manual. You won't get any help looking at the LH90 since it has a minimal number of buttons. Back to the manual, again. STEPS FOR CREATING A CONSIST WITH LENZ Here are the steps to create an MU consist (decoder-based only -- you can't make a command station consist with a Lenz Set 90). 1. Make sure the first loco to be consisted has been selected and stored in the loco stack in the handheld memory. You'll have to read the manual and play around for a while with the handheld to figure out what a "loco stack" is. Gotta love computer geeks.  2. Select the second loco you want to add to the consist and add it to the loco stack in the handheld memory. Don't know how to do this? Time to check the manual again ... 3. Go back to the first loco in the memory stack. 4. Press the shift key (the one with the up arrow and the plus on it), then press the O/M button to bring up a menu of operations you can perform. Keep pressing O/M until you see MU appear in the display (looks more like nu, but let's not get picky). 5. Enter an MU address, which must be between 01 and 99. Use the 4 key to alter the value of the ones digit, and the 3 key to alter the value of the tens digit. 6. Confirm the selected MU address by pressing the "A" key. The first locomotive you selected (the first loco in the internal memory stack of the handheld) is now part of the consist. Pay attention to the direction switch next to the display since that's what controls the loco's direction in the consist. 7. Scroll through the memory stack to the second loco you selected. Now repeat steps 4-6 to add the second loco to the consist ... CONCLUSIONS The Lenz LH90 gets a C- for ease-of-use. The set 100 is better (I'd give it a solid C), but the set 90 with the LH90 throttle takes dozens of non-intuitive keystrokes to even do basic loco addressing, much less to do consisting. Some things are very intuitive, like the use of the direction switch to control loco direction in the consist, but other things are a real pain -- like the need to go through all the button pushing gyrations done to add the first loco to a consist to likewise add each additional loco. Once you are in consisting mode, there is no reason why pressing a single button shouldn't add the next loco in the address stack to the consist. The Lenz user interface *requires* keeping a manual handy (or making up a cheat sheet for yourself) since very few of the keystrokes needed to do anything are intuitive. Or do yourself a favor ... get a computer interface and do all your programming through your PC. [ Edited Fri Nov 03 2006, 02:31PM ] Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 250,000 hits and counting! | ||
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Fri Sep 08 2006, 01:59PM: posts: 145 | Digitrax ease-of-use review Digitrax considers command station consists to be the *only* kind of consist you can make with the Zephyr. They call this type of consist a "Universal Consist" in their manual. You're on your own if you want to make a decoder based consist. You'll have to look up the CV19 rules in the decoder documentation if you want to make a decoder consist because the Zephyr manual doesn't even go into decoder consists at all. So let's look at setting up a command station based consist in the Digitrax Zephyr. Digitrax: Setting up a consist I first look for some obvious way to make a consist without referring to the manual. Nothing immediately jumps out at me on the Zephyr panel that says consist ... oh, wait! Here's a button labeled MU -- I wonder if they mean "multiple unit" since that's what the prototype calls diesel lashups? Hmmm ...  After checking the Digitrax Zephyr manual, I find out that's exactly what MU means. It's what is normally called in DCC parlance a "consist." STEPS FOR CREATING A CONSIST WITH DIGITRAX Here are the steps to create a universal consist. 1. Make sure you already have the first loco in the consist selected. 2. Select the second loco you want to add to the consist and run it the proper direction you want it to go in the consist so both locomotives are running the same direction. 3. Go back and select the first (or lead) loco of the consist. 4. Press the MU key. The MU dot at the top of the display starts to blink, indicating you are MU'ing locos. 5. Enter in the other loco number you want to add to the consist (the second loco you previously ran) . Press the t + key to add the loco to the consist. Digitrax gets its consist direction info from the direction info you last gave it when you ran that locomotive. So you *need* to select and run any locos you want to consist first *before* you start trying to consist them together with the command station if you want some say over the direction they run when consisted, so they all run the same direction no matter which way they are facing. NOTE: The Digitrax Zephyr manual makes no mention of how to create a decoder-based consist so you're on your own -- good luck! CONCLUSIONS Digitrax gets a C for ease-of-use. Once you realize they use the object - action paradigm (instead of the more intuitive action - object approach used on NCE and EasyDCC), doing the commands are mostly straighforward. However, the command display does little to step you through the process ... you are just supposed to "know" what you need to do next. Add to the lack of prompting the fact Digitrax tends to throw in a cryptic key stroke now and then -- like the t + key to add a loco. Using the + key makes sense once you read the instructions, but I would not know that for complete certainty without the manual. With Digitrax, you'll need to keep the manual handy, or write up a set of shorthand notes for yourself on what key sequences you'll need for things. This is especially true for any tasks you don't do all the time. Digitrax used to be far more cryptic in their use of buttons to do commands, but in recent years their newer systems like the Zephyr have improved their ease-of-use quite a bit. However, ease-of-use is one of Digitrax's weaker points and continues to be less-than-stellar, though clearly improved over their earlier product offerings. The lack of any provision for decoder based consists in the interface or manual is a real oversight, and cost them a C+ rating. [ Edited Mon Nov 06 2006, 11:08PM ] Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 250,000 hits and counting! | ||
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| Registered Member #3 Joined: Fri Sep 08 2006, 01:59PM: posts: 145 | Q. What about the lack of function keys on some DCC systems? With some sound decoder manufacturers announcing they will have up to 12 functions on their sound decoders, won't this mean getting a DCC system with less than 12 functions could be a big mistake? You would think that, wouldn't you? However, don't believe all the hype you see from the DCC manufacturers. Here's a great post made elsewhere by Master Model Railroader Gerry Hopkins, commenting on the practicalities of sound decoders and function keys: ================================================================== I have just set up a Tsunami decoder in one of my steam locos and have set up the functions as follows. F0 (for) Headlight & Dyno & firebox flicker F0 (rev) Backuplight & Dyno & Firebox flicker F1 Bell F2 Whistle F3 Short Whistle F4 Dim Headlight ( not really needed on steam loco) F5 Water Fill of tender F6 ?????? F7 Blow down F8 Brakes and Screach (also brings loco to stop without turning knob) All other sounds are random. As you can see I have 2 function keys free F4 & F6 - why would I need 12 function keys? If you are in a train room with 15-20 sound locos on the move - you have no time to think of extra functions, never mind listening to them. Silence is Golden - It's great when you turn the power off after a session. Just my 2 cents worth. Gerry Great Northern - Downunder http://users.bigpond.net.au/gerrymmr AP + Contest Manager NMRA - Australasian Region http://www.nmra.org.au ================================================================== As you can see there's a big difference between the hype and the reality of running sound locos in an op session. The reality is you won't ever need much more than a half-dozen or so sounds while you are operating, and you will be hard pressed to remember to use them all as it is. Having 8, 10, or 12 functions will be nearly impossible to remember or use effectively in most prototype-based op sessions, so the manufacturers are truly getting into unrealistic hype when they start talking about that many functions on a sound decoder. Some have even hinted at 22 functions in their sound decoders ... give me a break!  That's simply ridiculous -- no one will ever be able to use that many sound functions in anything but a choregraphed act.  Long story short: Any of the big four systems (Digitrax, Lenz, NCE, or EasyDCC) are great systems and have plenty of function keys for anything that's practical in a realistic op session. [ Edited Mon Nov 06 2006, 11:27PM ] Joe Fugate http://siskiyou-railfan.net - 250,000 hits and counting! | ||
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  Registered Member #32 Joined: Mon Oct 16 2006, 09:49PM: posts: 2 | Joe Fugate said ... Digitrax ease-of-use review Digitrax considers command station consists to be the *only* kind of consist you can make with the Zephyr. Unfortunately, they consider it to be the only real way to consist on all of their systems. The Empire Builder and Chief manuals both say that you can do all three types of consist, but they do not explain how. Though they do explain that setting all the locomotive decoder addresses the same will set up a "Basic" consist, you need to know that setting CV19 in the decoder will set up an "Advanced" consist. Joe Fugate said ... So let's look at setting up a command station based consist in the Digitrax Zephyr. Digitrax: Setting up a consist I first look for some obvious way to make a consist without referring to the manual. Nothing immediately jumps out at me on the Zephyr panel that says consist ... oh, wait! Here's a button labeled MU -- I wonder if they mean "multiple unit" since that's what the prototype calls diesel lashups? Hmmm ... With the Empire Builder and Chief systems, you use the throttle to set up consists (as well as everything else). Unlike the Zephyr, you do not need to run the locos you plan to consist, only be sure that they are all running the same direction. (Can be forward or reverse, as long as they all physically move in the same direction when you consist them.) To set up a consist using your DT400 throttle: (Directly from the Chief Manual - Copyright by Digitrax, emphasis mine) 1. Select the loco address of the TOP (first) loco on the R Throttle Knob. 2. Select the address of the loco you want to consist to the TOP loco on the L Throttle Knob. 3. Move the two locomotives into position. The locomotives can be headed in either direction. They can be adjacent to each other in the train or one unit can be the mid train helper or a pusher on the end of the train. 4. Before consisting the locos, make sure that both are traveling in the SAME PHYSICAL DIRECTION ON THE TRACK. (The direction indicators may or may not match, the important thing is that the locomotives are set up to move in the same direction and are not pulling against each other.) 5. Press the MU Key , the display will show the following: the MU mode indicator on the LCD display is lit. The loco address in the L side of the display will blink to show that it is the address that will be consisted to the address on the R Throttle. 6. The DT400 display will prompt you to press the Y + Key to add the loco address or the N - Key to remove the loco address from the consist controlled by the TOP loco address selected on the R Throttle. You will see the LCD alternate between the following two screens to remind you of which key to press. 7. Press the Y + Key to add the left address to the consist. The L Throttle display shows the address of the loco that was added to the consist with a cn in the text line above it. The R Throttle display shows the address of the TOP loco address and its current % of full speed. The R Throttle is now in control of the speed & direction of both locomotives in the consist. Ok 7 steps seems a little much, but at least the throttle does prompt you. Also the manual is illustrated, and that does help. Joe Fugate said ... NOTE: The Digitrax Zephyr manual makes no mention of how to create a decoder-based consist so you're on your own -- good luck! Personally, I plan to use JMRI to program decoders and set up consists, so I don't see a huge problem. I agree with you 100% that the Digitrax documentation is written by geeks, for geeks. That is unfortunate. I'm still threatening to write a user friendly book for Digitrax, I just have to figure out how exactly to do it. I don't suppose I can use the "Digitrax For Dummies" title... Ken Biles  | ||
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