"IMHO ALL Command systems should be DCC compatible."
Ted, I also wholehearted agree!!
I got into O gauge in the late '90s. I built a layout and I used toggle switches for train control. Really, really hated it. I talked to a guy at a LHS. He said you need TMCC which was new at the time. At this time there was no OGR forum or anywhere other than the LHS to get help. I didn't know anyone else into these trains back then. Oh the troubles I had with that system. The constant flickering lights on the locomotive and the crazy crazy intermittent signal problems. I literally was pulling my hair out of head. Then MTH comes out DCS. I talk to Mike Wolf at a LHS and he tells that his system (and I quote him almost word from word) "was derived from [some sort of] military system. It will be VERY ROBUST." That second sentence is word for word. Eventually I got DCS and the same thing. Constant "CHECK TRACK" or "ENGINE NOT ON TRACK" messages and what made it worse was is it seemed I always got these message when a crash was imminent!! A couple of years later I discovered DCC. In my entire time using DCC only once did a locomotive get track voltage and not get the DCC signal. I think the electronics in that engine got temporarily scrambled and it took off like a bat out of ****. A quick reboot of the engine and all was well. But this is ONE TIME in about 20 years! And this what I love the most about DCC. The engine can't get the signal without getting the power and vice versa. It works! I have often said the most important thing to me in a Command Control system is when I give it a command the engine responds and obeys to that command. Now I have had an engine hit a dead spot on the track where it didn't respond but it didn't get any power either so at least no accidents occurred.
I have always said this: All systems have their pros and cons. I do agree the 3 rail proprietary systems do have their pros and they are easier to use, etc. I have wondered recently. Why have the 3 rail systems discontinued their remotes? None of the DCC system manufacturers have done this. I assume if Lionel and MTH can't get the chips for their remotes how do the DCC system manufacturers able to get chips for theirs?
I remember getting into arguments back in the early 2000s because I said Lionel should have started with DCC from the get go. But the answer from the some people was that the technology for controlling a Pullmoor motor with a DCC decoder wasn't available yet. I have never been able to find out if this was true or not. It's what folks said. Maybe they were right? There was a guy York in 2001 selling DCC decoders for 3 rail. His company was called 3RDCC but it didn't catch on because Lionel was building locomotives with TMCC and sound factory installed. He didn't have sound. He had a demo layout showing an engine running under DCC but I don't remember if it had a Pullmoor motor or a can motor. I think it was a can motor.
Anyway, I would have responded sooner but I went away for the weekend with the family. I never meant for there to be any arguing on this thread. I was just trying to learn.
I have read the thread that Darrell references and I agree with Darrell that it is some form of AC. I am not a scientist nor an engineer but I did study electronics in HS. When I first got into DCC I bought a book for beginners. The book is called Digital Command Control by Stan Ames, Rutger Friberg, and Ed Loizeaux. The way Chuck K explains DCC (in the thread referenced by Darrell) is the same way I always understood it from reading that book until the thread where Ed Rappe told me it wasn't AC. I agree with Chuck K's reason for believing it is AC and his two main reasons are that #1) all decoders have rectifiers and why have a rectifier if it isn't AC? and #2) and this is the big thing for me, back in the day when these systems could control one conventional locomotive (just two wires to a motor) by manipulating the DCC signal the system could control speed and direction of that one locomotive. It made the locomotive move by stretching the "0" bit. If it wasn't alternating from rail to rail then the system would never be able to change the direction of the one conventional locomotive. And also in the book I mentioned they do show a drawing very similar to the one I posted and next to the line that I said was Zero volts is "0v". So in my opinion I was right all along in thinking it is a form of AC and it really stinks that because of that other thread I went down this rabbit hole. I do appreciate your efforts in trying to explain it. One last thing I feel the DCC Wiki page is very confusing for a beginner but the book I have explains it so someone like me can understand. I understand you feel it is not AC and that's fine. We just agree to disagree.
