@christopher N&W posted:Has anyone given a reason why Legacy or DCS electronics being fed by 2 rail track as opposed to 3 rail track would make a functional difference? I thought Lionel had Legacy controlled S scale engines so maybe searching there might give some answers as well.
I know John Sethian has been running converted Lionel and MTH engines with DCS in 2 rail for a while now and is pretty knowledgeable about the electronics in 3 rail and 2 rail.
Good Morning.
I contacted the guys that were going to give the conversion a try after reading responses that made a lot of sense. "why would altering the manner of power supply possibly remove functions" The guys I was asking about this are Fn3, HO and G guys that work exclusively in the DCC world and were not familiar with either Legacy or DCS so they made the assumption that I wanted a DCC conversion with 2R conversion and were not certain that I would keep all the functions so they cautioned me it might not be possible. They did not tell me at the time they were assuming I wanted a DCC as well as 2R conversion.
My fault for not asking ALL the right questions.
They did say that If I was considering a "dead rail" option, like they do for Garden Rail projects, they would not recommend keeping all of the effects, as many of the steam effects would significantly reduce running time due to battery consumption of the steam effects.
Thanks to the folks who were pointing out that conversion to 2R would not affect the current control systems, as it caused me to re-contact them and get the full poop.
Being a solo act, I was keen on finding some alternative to having 3 separate controllers: DCS, Legacy and DCC (for the narrow gauge).
I do have (4) laptops laying around so (1) could certainly be cleaned out and turned into a part of the control system if that is the best way to go.
So thanks to all of you I am at least on a better path of understanding of these control systems and can better ask questions to help me to narrow down my options.
Very grateful.
