However, in the mid-August update email from Model Railroad Hobbyist, I noticed an ad from Ring Engineering. It was actually the non-descriptive name that caught my eye, strangely -- I didn't know who they were or what they did so I went to their website. Their big product is RailPro. Not that they're new advertisers, or a brand new company, I just never happened to notice their ads before, or rather that RailPro was something other than just another brand of DCC. It's not.
They have two introductory videos on their site, so I obligingly started up the first one, not expecting much more than the usual marketing about how ours is better than theirs, but as the video went on I became quite fascinated. In short, RailPro is a direct-control radio system -- the locomotives get only DC power from the track, and all the control commands are sent via radio commands (2.4GHz, similar frequency and range as Bluetooth) directly from the controller to the locomotive. Moreover, the communication is two-way. Not only can the locomotive (or power supply, or switch machine, etc) talk back to the controller, but the components could actually talk to each other, as in their impressive demonstration in part 2 of the video on linking two dissimilar locomotives. (Note: I'm not 100% certain from the video if the locomotives actually do talk to each other directly, of if the data is centrally handled by the controller, but I still believe that peer-to-peer communication could be possible even if it's not currently handed that way).
I did get a chance to read through the manual of my NCE PowerCab, and the number of buttons on it, or any DCC controller, is moderately intimidating, especially since they have somewhat cryptic mapping between buttons and functions. I'm a computer programmer and am perfectly comfortable thinking in binary or hexadecimal, but it seems that too much of that is still apparent in the end user's hand in DCC controllers. RailPro, on the other hand, seems to have successfully abstracted the technical details of how the controller and decoder talk to each other behind a friendly touchscreen GUI (graphical user interface).My original plan was to buy a DCC system (most likely Digitrax) and locomotives with pre-installed DCC decoders. That has now altered with an eye towards RailPro as my next control system. Since no manufacturer to date ships with RailPro decoders preinstalled I'll buy DC locomotives and install the decoder myself. However, since I'm planning to start small (see track plan in previous post) I'm not likely to have more than 1 locomotive any time soon, so I can actually start with an inexpensive DC locomotive and an inexpensive DC power pack and get up and running with minimal investment, and save up the money for a fancy control system when I have more than 12 feet of mainline.
The RailPro system seems reasonably priced for what it is -- US$300 for the controller, $60 for a basic decoder, $100 for a sound decoder. My only concern was for the apparently high price for the power supply: $270 for the 75W version. I brought up the issue of the price of the power supply with Ring Engineering, and since it's basically a good-quality DC power supply (with a radio repeater, reporting and auto-reverse module) I commented that I would be able to get a top-brand (e.g. Corsair, Seasonic, etc) computer ATX power supply for a quarter of the price of the Ring Engineering PWR-75 (even half the price of their newer cut-down PWR-56). Ring responded very quickly and raised some good points:
The common power supply, such as a PC power supply, is not designed to be short-circuited. A model Railroad power supply is going to be shorted when trains come off the rails, metal objects are inadvertently put on the rails, etc. Therefore a model railroad power supply has to be able to be short circuited regularly. Further a model Railroad power supply should have auto recovery after a short so it will power up without intervention after a short is removed. A fused power (which is typical for commonly available power supplies) would blow the fuse and you would have to replace the fuse each time you accidentally shorted one rail to the other! Even further, if more than one is used they must be designed to load share. When a loco crosses a gap that isolates the two power supplies the two power supplies become connected in parallel through the locomotive! Most power supplies are not designed to be paralleled. Some will even damage each other when connected in parallel. Ring Engineering RailPro power supplies are designed to be short circuited, have auto recovery, are designed to be paralleled, and have special software and circuitry to do load sharing when paralleled. Additionally, RailPro power supplies have Direct Radio to allow then to be configured as a repeater, have remote monitoring (such as real time power consumption), they have overload protection and allow remote control of the output. Lastly the proper voltage for HO scale is not readily available in common power supplies. Our power supplies are calibrated to 14.5 volts. Some incandescent bulbs are very sensitive to over voltage. A little over voltage can drastically reduce their life span. So if you choose a common 15-volt supply and it actually outputted 15.5 volts that is about 10% too much voltage which can have an exponential impact on the life of bulbs. On the other hand if you picked a common 12-volt supply the power on the motor would be much less than 12 volts and the top speed of the locomotives would be noticeably slow.I'm not sure that any of the above is enough to stop me from trying (there's usually no shortage of ATX power supplies around a techie's house). For example, the over-current issue should be easily solved with the 1156 tail light bulb trick (see also MRH 2013-Mar p17). I plan on using an ATX power supply for layout power anyway, at least for accessory power.
I'll leave you with the two RailPro videos for your viewing pleasure.
Part 1:
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