RailCom is what the link above describes -- decoders reporting back to the command station status, etc. It allows your reporting blocks to report...
TCS also supports RailCom if that is something important to you and why they may cost more. I use TCS for any of the "KATO" type light board...
@Keith Ledbetter I can share the gerber files. I need to find them on the computer. If I don't get it done in the next day or two remind me. I...
Better late than never. Here is one of my boards populated and done using the poor man's hot plate SMD method. And an earlier rev of the board...
Thanks. I guess I just assumed they went that way since I did :) But come to think of it I've only ever seen the UP freight trains further up...
That would be an interesting ride / diversion. Parley's Canyon would be interesting in a train. (The canyon that leads out of SLC up to WY with...
I use my DR5000-ADJ with it making its own WiFI network in order to keep the traffic off my home network. Just personal preference. I run with...
The difference between a DCC throttle and your video game console is that the market for the video game console is an order of magnitude larger,...
Yeah the background is the main floor of Yodobashi Camera in Sapporo. One of the smaller Yodobashi stores (compared to Umeda [Osaka] and...
We are back (as of about 10 days ago -- been catching up, decompressing, etc). We rode a bunch of Shinkansen, a bunch of other trains, and had a...
While I am on a purchase-moratorium, I did need to get some decoders from Germany, which arrived today (on a moratorium exception basis). A few...
The JNR has not existed for about 32 years. In 1987 it was broken up into 6 regional passenger companies and 1 national freight company and those...
We happen to be on the tail end of our latest Japan trip and will be leaving for the station in a little over an hour to get on our last...
I long used rosin core 63/37 solder IIRC. I recently switched to using solid solder and H&N Superior Flux (hnflux.com) and have had good results...
@vasilis With the solder paste in a syringe and a hot plate, poor man's DIY SMD is not hard :) A full finished board is under $2 -- closer to a...
I developed some N-scale light boards to add internal lighting to passenger wagons, EMU/DMU/HST, etc. I developed three using the same basic...
In my N-scale lightboard I use a voltage regulator to bring the voltage down to either 3.3V or 5V (either work -- just changes your resistors)....
Also, do you really need a KA on a 1 function decoder? Anti-flicker type circuit on the output of the decoder will basically achieve the same...
Don't most modern KA today use stacked super caps? Probably get more capacitance in a smaller volume (?) ETA: you can also get 100uF ceramic...
You won't need anything like 14200uF in capacitance to light 2 LEDs for a few seconds. How long do you want to keep them going after power goes off?
