Five More Great New Gadgets For Your Model Railroad From DCC Concepts (160)

I know that this is a little late for the Christmas gift giving season but hopefully you can find something here to go with those new locos you received. In this video I'll share with you a little info on how each product works and how they are used. Then in future videos I'll go back and install them or use them on either the modules or my Piedmont Southern layout. Below is a list pf these products so you can easily find them on the DCC Concepts website (www.dccconcepts.com) and I check and found these on the Hatton's website (www.hattons.co.uk) website. While you're browsing take a look at the DCC Concepts Zen decoders.
Multi-Gauge Rolling road DCM-RRA12
Legacy Models Occupancy Detector LM-ID.1
Legacy Models Power Points LM-PP.4
Super High Power 2-Wire Stay Alive DCD-SA2-SS1
3-Wire Stay Alive DCD-SAA-3W
3-W Harness DCD-3WH.3

[@ramkosuri1]

You are an Excellent Teacher and very Patient and your Videos are Extremely Informative.

[@larryjanson4011]

i have a bunch of items just like these but fixed gauge. i only do standard gauge ho scale. no other scale or narrow gauge. but yes great way to set up a loco for some testing. but get some blank units (or build up a support track--non powered) to support the "other" axles.

[@rjl110919581]

thank you for your detail video

[@wolfpack4694]

Thanks Larry. Like the product reviews!

[@ricter591]

Very Cool, Thanks Larry, Ordered a six wheel set of the rolling road.

[@fredashay]

I have a set of rolling road that I bought a long time ago. At the time, no American company made them so I bough them from Hornby. I love them!

[@iangerahty3422]

Great overview. Looking forward to the detailed workshops in due course.

[@gsigs]

Your skewer is going to have to marry that occupancy detector.

[@TheDCCGuy]

I was hoping to just make more of them!

[@JDsHouseofHobbies]

I picked up most of my British stock from Hatton's. That rolling road looks great!

[@TheDCCGuy]

I have purchased stuff rom AJM, Kernow Rail Center, Rails of Sheffield, and Hattons and never had any problems with any of them but Hattons is my go to store. Shipping is cheaper from them than from my Walthers dealer just 60 miles away.

[@dkaustin98]

I love the DCC Concepts products. I have bought directly from DCC Concepts and a hobby shop in England. The killer is the shipping costs. So, plan to make a large order to spread the shipping cost across many items. Supposedly they have a U.S. wholesaler, but the wholesaler doesn’t carry much of DCC Concepts in stock and you have use a hobby shop that is affiliated with the wholesaler. It’s just better to buy direct.

[@TheDCCGuy]

On the orders I get from Hattons shipping is less than from my local dealer just 60 miles away and no sales taxes, VAT is subtracted for overseas customers. With their “trunk” service they will hold your orders until you have accumulated what you want and then ship when you tell them so it is easy to combine orders.

[@raymondjackson6069]

Hello Larry, thank for the videos! I have a quick question; I am building an occupancy detector you worte about in the May, 2015 MR magazine. I have it pretty much nailed down, except for the wattage for R1. I have settled on 1w, but, before I head into this project, is there a more ideal wattage for this resistor. Thanks in advance.

[@TheDCCGuy]

Inhope you haven”t gone too far with that one as I will have a different circuit this week that is much better and less sensitive to the light level.

[@TheDCCGuy]

Sorry, I just deleted your response by mistake. Anyway you could probably go as low as 1/4W since this is a pretty low power circuit. I too have a number of extra parts for planned future use but this new circuit is so much better I bit the bullet. Watch the video on Friday to see what I mean.

[@raymondjackson6069]

@@TheDCCGuy No prob Lar, this is the internet, so it's drifting around there, practically forever (my response). But, though I am not electronic savvy, it just felt a little heavy for the circuit. (Don't ask me why), and it's good to run it past a pro. I will probably go with 1/2w, just to cover my bases, and don't mind the effort, as I have been tooling around this project for a couple of years. Plus, I am discovering a lot of nice and neat little tools, toys and gizmos that might make this go a lot smoother than I thought. I am going to make a breadboard model, and if successful, ship the work up to a company to manufacture a PCB. This will be great training and practice. My layout is fairly large, so I will have plenty of room for the new and improved models you are coming out with Friday, ans will subscribe so I don't miss it! I love the way you explain the electronics and theory behind these projects, which make them a lot more fun and educational. Thanks again and cheers!

[@NicholassTrainChannel]

Those look like nice gadgets i might consider getting a rolling road.

[@TheDCCGuy]

The rolling road is nice, I used it to break in the little Kernow 0-6-0 and my new Dapol 2-6-0. iI haven’t had the courage to try my 4-6-6-4 out on it!

[@paulskehan6274]

Hi Larry Loved the video. Any shorter and it could have been less informative. I have some of the original alignment dowels. Do the new ones with the contacts align with the original ones? Future extensions may use the new ones. Thanks and stay safe Paul from Zillmere

[@TheDCCGuy]

I’ll check but I can’t see why you would want to intermix them as the electrical connection wouldn’t work. However if you are asking whether you could have the old ones on one pair of modules and the new ones on another pair that should be OK.

[@paulskehan6274]

Hi Larry I am in a group and everyone has their own module. I was wondering if someone used the new dowels on a new module if it could still align properly with the old ones. The electrical connections would not be an issue. Paul from Zillmere

[@TheDCCGuy]

Paul-it would depend. With the alignment dowels, in each pair one is male and the other female. With the males there is a projection so it can not mate with another module that does not have a female dowel or a hole drilled where that female should be. The females are flat on the surface so could mate with a module having no dowels.

[@paulskehan6274]

Thanks Larry Paul from Zillmere

[@karguy1720]

Will the Super High Power 2-Wire Stay Alive DCD-SA2-SS1 work with any HO decoder? Is installation simply tapping in to the left and right power pickup leads? Do you need to set CV 29? What is the shipping cost from Hatton's to the US?

[@TheDCCGuy]

They should. See my video on connecting stay alives that I provided a link to in the video. With all stay alives you need to turn analog conversion off in CV29. I get a package from Hattons about every couple of months and the shipping is less from England than my local dealer just 60 miles away in South Carolina.

[@karguy1720]

@@TheDCCGuy Thanks for the helpful response. I've been studying your earlier videos concerning stay-alive fabrication. I had concluded that those stay-alives would have been too big for easy intallation. The DCC Concepts stay-alives appear to be very compact and easier to install.

[@berkeleygang1834]

The 3 wire Zen Stay Alive sound too good to be true, but it's nice to see some competition to ESU. The caps they use look tiny! Looking forward to reviews comparing the three Zen Stay Alives to ESU's two, especially with regard to how much power they actually provide.

[@seanspennywisemiserrr]

Hi Larry, can the block occupancy device be used for signalized grade crossings?

[@TheDCCGuy]

There is a high lower output on the detector board for driving relays and it should be able to easily handle a Tortoise switch machine. Circuitron sells a kit for Tortoises to lower and raise crossing gates so it should be an easy enough project. If you visit the DCC Concepts website and look at these they have a link for downloading a newsletter with a more complete description of these. It would be really helpful to have a tech tip sheet showing ways to wire these up but they are just too new right now so maybe down the road that will come. I’ll mention it to them.

[@jamessutton9319]

Larry, for the Legacy Models Power Points LM-PP.4, does one carry positive and ground both like a coaxial cable or do you have to use one set for positive and another set for ground?

[@TheDCCGuy]

You would install 2 Power Points, one for each bus wire. This makes sense anyway since you install a PAIR of alignment dowels to get a secure alignment between modules. These are installed using the same process and tools as I showed in the earlier video. I’ll do a demo when I replace the existing dowels with these new ones. It will probably be soon as I am tired of crawling under the layout to disconnect the Anderson Power Poles.

[@jamessutton9319]

@@TheDCCGuy sometimes folks also have a separate 12V bus for non-DCC accessories so a coaxial arrangement would have been best in that regard. Just a thought.

[@jerryugland2432]

It seems that "keep alives" are better than wiring frogs. And wiring frogs would be unnecessary.

[@TheDCCGuy]

For a small switching layout with inly a few locos I would definitely consider putting stay alives in the locos instead of powering the frogs.

[@rayshowsay1749]

Neat stuff. Magazines in NoAm should start paying more attention to innovations on the other side of the pond. (About something completely different: Who let the live-stock loose ...?)

[@MoosesWorkshop]

Video does not have captions. :(

[@TheDCCGuy]

What kind of captions are you expecting?

[@MoosesWorkshop]

@@TheDCCGuy the ones that are usually on your videos. The free youtube auto captions. Once and a while your videos don't have them.

[@TheDCCGuy]

AFAIK I have no control over that and it is not a setting that I have ever seen or changed.

[@geraldjones2278]

@@MoosesWorkshop They are called "closed captions" and yes, his videos do usually have them and they can be helpful.

[@MoosesWorkshop]

@@TheDCCGuy actually you do have control over them. When uploading a video, make sure the closed captions box is clicked with English chosen as the language. It is a free youtube option.

[@purkissyung2123]

Dear Mr. Pucket, It should be EP160 instead of 159.

[@duncanwatson9054]

In the UK look up Jenny Kirk. She has done a review on these. They work very well.

[@lewisdean8964]

Your constant poking of the skewer through the hole was more than just a little disturbing.

[@TheDCCGuy]

It always amazes me what annoys some folks. But I bet you never forget that the wire gies through the hole!

[@farmerdave7965]

It was like watching a porn video.

[@grantv2313]

Lmao 😂

[@berrysipsma2382]

I like the products that are shown here. Also his explanation is clear, except for the fact that the 5 min. story that should be told is stretched out to a boring and irritating half hour asif his listeners are mentally disabled !!!

[@TheDCCGuy]

First it was less than 23 mins cut down from 60 so I could have droned on even more. I doubt anyone would have gotten anything from a review with just 1 minute on each product, hardly time enough to do more than show the item and move on to the next one