Not much information about the Digitrax BPX88 out there yet... just wondering if anyone has actually put their hands on one yet? Really interested in exactly how easy and effective the "simplified" wiring really is. Does it mean that the current plan to use the 168/rx4 wiring but have not yet begun. I know the detection zones moves from 16 to 8 but if it meant not having to utilize multiple devices with all the added wiring and planning... well... i might be ready to take the plunge and get some to install and test. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
I installed one on my layout about 10 days ago and I would recommend it! I have a couple of areas of hidden storage that I am currently using basic Digitrax block occupancy to monitor. I had looked at the 168/rx4 possibility before, but had not taken the step to invest or negotiate the installation. When the BXP88 was released, the potential benefit of simplicity tipped my hand right away. I inserted this into my current set-up, so a couple of the installation issues I had were simply not keeping track correctly of which power wires I had unconnected/re-connected. Once those were resolved, I was left with only one issue: when I connected the BXP88 to the loconet, I immediately got a lot of 'chatter' on the network, resulting in the '9 beep' warning from the command station and other loconet commands 'timing out'. This took a couple of days to debug, but the solution was to have one dedicated loconet line from the command station to the BXP88. In the initial install, I had the BXP88 on the loconet network after two PM42's. I haven't explored this any further yet (in terms of device order on the network, whether it is the PM42's, etc), but will have to soon as I just ordered my second BXP88. Digitrax support, frankly, was not much help de-bugging this situation -- perhaps it is too new. I did feed back to them this observation. Once that was solved, BXP88 works perfectly. It is a simple wiring install. I have done initial testing and it correctly reports out occupancy (and transponding data) -- I'm reading this through jmri software. Hope this helps!
