New--Building Lighting With DCC Control (274)
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2022
- Lights can add that lived-in feeling to your model railroad scenes. However finding the right lights, providing the correct power supply, calculating dropping resistor values, and doing all the wiring can get tedious. However DCC Concept's new Cobalt Alpha Mimic structure lighting kit can make this process pretty close to plug and play requiring soldering only a couple of wires. In this video I'll show you what comes in the packages and demonstrate what it takes to light up your structures in just a few minutes. These are available directly from DCC Concepts, their UK dealers, and from Iron Planet Hobbies in the USA.
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I am always amazed at the technology that has been developed for this hobby. It's amazing, especially to a guy who had an American Flyer setup in the fifties! Every accessory was electro mechanical and when you lit up a building as my dad did, the whole building glowed as though the sun was on the inside instead of the outside! Wow.... Keep up the great channel!
Thanks for a very helpful tutorial Larry. I’ll certainly be referring back to this when I come to install lighting on my layout.
Way ahead of me but I always learn something from you. Thanks!
👍👍👍Great video Larry
very interesting new lighting! thanks for showing it to us.
When I built my gravel plant I used a TCS FL4 fleet lighting decoder for the lights. It has been working for over a decade.
Very interesting video Larry. I think this is a great idea. I would rather spend my railroading time building on my layout than learning Arduino programming.
thank you for the detailed video and for sharing with us
Thanks Larry
Great video
Nick Australia
Molto interessante. Grazie
It's worth noting that NCE has a product called the Illuminator that runs off the DCC bus that uses Just Plug compatible JST connectors and is otherwise fully compatible with the Just Plug system. This carries the NCE disadvantages of poor documentation and high defect rate. However, the whole Just Plug product range is available if you want to use the DCC bus. What I've found is that if you use DCC addressing, the more decoders you have, the higher the likelihood of address conflicts, so if you turn off the headlight in loco 2325, you can also turn off the lights in City Hall.
Yes and on Friday I’ll show you how to use the Just Plug lights with these.
Whoops, sorry, forget that, Settle *is* in North Yorkshuire. Was confusing with Shap 🤕
Thank you for interested video and where you purchased the digital board control and it P/N.
Interesting device makes lighting pretty easy. Thanks!
Though I'm looking forward to trying Arduino boards to control everything but the trains.
The code for basic sensing, timing & switching is quite simple really.
I built my lighting rig with a nano. It controls 32 lights, individually addressable with PWM. I need to build a second one for my layout. I used an 8 port ethernet box as housing. I added wifi and want to make a simple app for easy controls. Getting there, but a fun homegrown project for sure.
I know there are power users like yourself who can pick this stuff up easily. However my neighbor decided to try them and ended up spending 6 months “learning” and now just has a box of junk that doesn’t do anything. So for folks like him anything that is near plug and play probably is a better option.
@@TheDCCGuy Ah yes. Well, that is true to an extent for sure. I have a passing interest in electronics and had programmed back in the late 80's on my old XT class computer.
I definitely like the simplicity of this system. What do you think of woodland scenics system. It doesn't connect to the dcc system, but it has a dimmable feature that I think is pretty cool. I don't know how these systems compare in price, I haven't got that far yet.
I did a video a couple of years ago p the WS system. I like the lights but the hardware had a couple of issues I pointed out.
Will you be reviewing their new track?
We’ll see.
Question, do you recommend removing the springs when mounting turnouts with a Tortoise switch machine. Would sincerely appreciate your thoughts. Thank you
Yes, various studies have shown they potentially cause early failure of switch machines and most manufacturers recommed this.
Maybe its me since i am a newbie but where does this hook up to the zephyr. Thats what i have and would love to control all my lights like this. Since i have Kato unitrack can i just plug a cable from the board to an empty input jack on my kato dcc bus splitters?
Larry, I just started setting up this on my third level layout. Is 1L and 1 R the same address or two different addresses. I have two leds plugged in one in 1L and the other in 1R I setup the address to 501 On my Power Cab Sel ACCY type 501 then do 1 or 2 and the LED in my Building goes on and off The one in 1R does not change. I tried using 502 and nothing changed on 1R Any ideas or suggestions Thnkas
Yes 1L and 1R are the same you just select accy control and turn it on or off. If you want both on at the same time then you have to reverse wire one of them.
@@TheDCCGuy thank you
Two more questions, Larry, but you don’t have to answer them on your Sunday. Will this work on a Digitrax loconet? And do I need a separate bus for powering all this or can I hook up to my track bus? My layout is of medium size with no power boosters aside from the one built into my Dig 210.
It isn’t connected to the Loconet, just to the main power bus or an auxilliary bus. I was using a DTX Zephyr for the bench-top tests and it worked fine, but I also have a DCS210 that I will try it with when I get time.
Hi Larry. What's the connector type for the mimic link? I presume we have to buy those separately. Or is one included in the expansion kit?
I won't ask if DCC gave you a hint about availability in the US. I'm going to guess they'd like to have them in US shops & online by Thanksgiving for Christmas. Hope they make it!
Thanks for the review!
As I said in the video Iron Planet Hobbies has them and actually they are on sale right now! Also as I showed in the video you get 24 wiring harnesses in the basic kit along with 24 LEDs.
@@TheDCCGuy Ah, I misunderstood about the availability, Larry. Getting old is a treat!
The wire connectors I was referring to are for the two daisy chain connectors, one on each end, rather than the 24 small connectors along the sides. Those two daisy chain connectors appear to be much larger.
Very nice review. Thanks.
I am not sure where those link connectors are, I’ll have to ask. I looked on their website but don’t see them.
That's our error, guys! Sorry! The link cable should be in the box with the building lighting! If anyone needs one, just email us and we will send one out straight away! Production packs should have these link cables included in the box! Sorry again!
Are they using the same JST connectors as Woodland Scenic, and if so I wonder if the LEDs are interchangeable? It’d make a nice way to migrate from WS to DCCC. On the other hand the DCCC programming/panel looks pretty clunky to me.
Maybe I’ll waste one to find out.
@@TheDCCGuy DCCC only specifies a max draw of 50mA, no idea about the voltage so you may need to break out the multimeter!
White LEDs have a typical operating voltage of about 3 VDC at about 20 mA. What exactly were they referring to when they said 50 mA? Could that have been per address on the board? That would be consistent with their stated limit of 3 LEDs per address.
@@TheDCCGuy At the bottom of the Mimic Owners (sic) Manual first page, in red, they say max 50mA per output. So yeah, that works for 3 LEDs if you don't drive them too bright.
Ok, thanks. I noted that in their latest email on these yesterday they now say 2 lights per socket which is consistent with white LEDs drawing 20 mA each. Three lights on a socket for a total of 60 mA would go over the 50 mA level.
Can you use this same device to throw switch machines, or do they make a similar device for powering multiple switch machines?
I think their Cobalt iP Accessory Decoder FX Stall Motor Drive (8-way Output) will do what you want but let me shoot them an email to be sure. I know it works with their Cobalt switch machines but need to ask if it will work with Tortoises. I don’t know how or if the death of the Queen affects their work schedules so it may take a few days for an answer.
@@TheDCCGuy thank you so much for responding so quickly. I appreciate your research and all that you do although much of it is over my head. That’s why I’m trying to simplify things. I’ll look for your follow up on this. God bless.
Ok, the folks at DCC Concepts say these will work well with the Tortoise.
@@TheDCCGuy thanks, Larry.
Hi Larry
I have been in touch with Mike at DCC Concepts about using a 3v DC Relay with a coil taking 33mA. This is below half of the stated max load of each output of 75 Ma. He has stated that the manufacturers of the board have told DCC Concepts that the max imput to board is 250mA. Therefore 3 outputs of 75 Ma would overload board. He told me they were going to add the maximum outputs over the 12 outputs should not exceed 250mA.
Hope you have not cooked your board.
Thanks for that info, I’ll contact them for an update.
I just heard back from DCC Concepts and they say you must have misunderstood Mick. The boards can take 75 mA per address (channel). Here is what I just got from them:
I have confirmed with Mick that the advice given was 75mA per output channel.
I think this chap (suspected by Mick) is someone who wanted to use Mimic to drive multiple 33mA relays - this is somewhat pushing the board outside its operational design of powering LED lights and Mick advised against this.
So for now I think we are safe with the limits I laid out in the video. Thanks again though for getting back to me on this so we could get it cleared up-Larry
Not trying to be pedantic but you might like to note that DCC Concepts are in Cumbria, not North Yorkshire!
I guarantee you that we are in North Yorkshire ;-)
Yorkshire has a little spur that sticks out just so we can stay in God's own county 😉