Layouts and layout building

Morning all, I need to pick the brain of a DCC expert or two.

I am jumping back in to Model Railroading after about a 10 year hiatus due to being active duty Navy.  I was an electrician and studied solid state electronics so i understand the communications aspect of DCC in pretty good detail, but I have been trying to research what brand to buy that will meet my needs and haven't came up with much.

I am looking for a system that can be 100% controlled from a computer if need be, aka, completely automated operations.  I can take care of blockocc and such, but I am having issues determining which DCC manufacturers offer either RS-232/485 or USB interfaces.  Lenz has a USB interface, but I cannot find any documentation on how to write software for this protocol... an API would be great.  Digitracks also has a USB and a RS232/485 interfaces, but the digitracks website states its for monitoring only.

Anyone ever attempt something along these lines?

I have never used any computer automation, but on the Tony's Train Exchange website I have seen several automation items listed.  They are also very helpful.  I would call them and ask.

Quite a bit has been done with regard to automation and full PC contol.  Digitrax, Lenz and NCE are the 3 most likely systems due to availability of PC interface.  I would suggest you take a look at the JMRI suite of open source software at http://www.decoderpro.com/ many of the software tools to program the things you want to do are there.  Digitrax has quite an array of detection and signalling products that connect to the loconet and can all be monitored/controlled by the JMRI suite.  http://www.digitrax.com/menu_detectionsignaling.php  Finally, if you really want to get your juices flowing with what can be done go to

http://www.thetrainshow.com:80/screening_room2.htm

look at the videos on the McKinley RR.  While this is a UK prototype it has some really excellent explanation of a fantastic implementation of PC control with a Digitrax system.

USB ports use a unique user VID for identification.  You would need to know that ID to 'talk' to the USB device.

The Lenz DCC cab bus is open and should be available for programming.

I believe the protocol is RS 485 or 486.

I would try contacting Lenz North America at

http://www.lenz.com/

 

Here in the US, the "big three" that have a PC interface available are Digitrax, Lenz, and NCE.  There are others, but these three have the largest market share and widest support.

  For complete Layout  Automation, I would have to argue that Digitrax would be your best bet.  It has the largest compliment of available components, both Digitrax-brand and aftermarket.  Plus, it has the distinct advantages that come with LocoNet. 

   The Digitrax interface is into the Loconet itself and supports sending commands as well as monitoring.  Since LocoNet is event-driven and not polled, and is very much like Ethernet, it is very robust. And since your computer is interfacing directly with the command buss, you have access to ALL of the system's traffic.  This could well come into play when it comes to automation.  The LocoBuffer USB (available here) is a better interface device than the Digitrax MS100, sort of the same way an ethernet switch is better than a hub when it comes to collision avoidance.   

  NCE has a command station with an RS-232 port, but that port does NOT echo all the command buss communication.  They have also announced an interface for their smaller PowerCab system, but it is still unavailable so it's abilities remain to be seen.

  Also, as you mentioned, Lenz has a USB interface, but again, I don't believe it echos all of the command buss traffic. 

  All three of these interfaces, as wll as many others, are supported by JMRI so your automation could be done with Jython scripts.  However, if you prefer to "roll your own", the Loconet Personal Edition doc is available here.

HTH,

Steve

You may want to check out ZIMO/STP. A system made exactly for what you have in mind. While ZIMO supports the RS232 interface for layout control, it is much faster using its own CAN bus when using the STP software. I use this system on my own layout for more than 15 years now with 45 trains controlled by the PC and any number of trains operated manually at the same time, without informing the PC about it first. The MX1 command station manual has many pages of RS232 information if that's the way you choose to go. You can download the manual here: http://www.mrsonline.net/html/manuals.html A ZIMO catalog is also available here: http://w3.zimo.at/web2003/pdf/ZIMO_Systempr_DCC_2006_E.pdf Regards, Art ZIMO Agency of North America www.mrsonline.net

No takers on that last post eh?  Well thats kinda disappointing...

 Anyways, I have researched the major 4 DCC manufacturers and I can say, that from a computer interface perspective, Easy DCC wins hands down.  All of them are compatable with several commercial software packages out there, but only Easy DCC actually has some of the API documented for those of us who think that the existing commercial software isn't all that great.  JMRI seems like a great idea, but just isn't getting the dev time it needs.

Does anyone have any info on programming in VB6/VBA as it pertains to linking a PC to LocoNet, eXpressNET, etc?

You may find what you need to use VB with USB port communications here:

http://www.intel.com/intelpress/usb/examples/vboverview.htm

I was a Software Developer for 42 years and had used VB for at least 10 years before retiring two years ago.

Since retiring, I only a computer user... no more programming! 

 

The whole USB thing is more of a nice-ity as serial comms with a command station/ command cab is perfectly fine.  What I am looking for is a list of commands for each of the platforms so I can make a quickie API in VBA and start coding.

After looking over some code snippets that work with the EasyDCC rs-232 connection, it almost looks as if you use telnet to issue commands:

---

Dim MyString As String, MyMsg As String

    mdiSOCS.MSComm1.PortOpen = True             ' Open the COM port
   
    mdiSOCS.MSComm1.InBufferCount = 0           ' Empty the input buffer
   
    ' Request the Version Number
    Screen.MousePointer = vbHourglass           ' Set cursor to hourglass
    mdiSOCS.MSComm1.Output = "V" & Chr$(13)     ' Send "V" (request version number)
    WaitPort (12)
    MyString = mdiSOCS.MSComm1.Input            ' Return string
    Screen.MousePointer = vbDefault             ' Reset cursor to default
    MyMsg = "The Command Station's version is: "
    MsgBox MyMsg & Chr$(13) & "'" & MyString & "'", vbInformation, "Version"
       
    mdiSOCS.MSComm1.PortOpen = False             ' Close the COM port

---

The bold faced line has my interest.  Does one know if/where there is a set of standardized commands for DCC? or is there a standard when it comes to the control cab?