NCE (North Coast Engineering) equipment

General:

I love this stuff. I do not use transponding, so I don't need the unique features of Digitrax, and I think the wired and wireless throttles are the best. I have more in the planning section of how I made my decision.

I will only talk about the 10 amp NCE systems. Do not waste your time getting the 5 amp version, it's REALLY easy to go over 5 amps in Large scale.

The company is US-based, and very helpful and professional about their products. There is a Yahoo forum where real experts live and you get great help. If you really have a problem, you can get a real engineer on the phone at NCE who WILL understand the problem, not blow you off.

Hardware:

The 10 amp system has a separate booster and command station. They interconnect with a short phone cord. There are wired throttles of various types, but I prefer the Procab, that has all the controls, and it's only about $150.

There is a wireless system that adds on, with a base station that plugs into the cab bus (where wired throttles also connect). This base station has 2 outputs, each of which can drive a repeater radio station.  In turn each repeater has 2 more outputs, each of which can drive another repeater. This arrangement can be expanded to 31 total radio stations (1 base and 30 repeaters). If it's not obvious, you can cover an enormous layout.

The range of the radios is about 100 feet or so. They are bidirectional, a big plus, you KNOW your commands get to the loco, because your throttle displays the results back from the command station.

Tips:

http://www.siliconvalleylines.com/dcc/presentations.html

Tips for the command station:

You might want to split the cab bus right at the command station. I ran one line to the wireless base station (RB02), and the other to a long phone cord to have at least one wired cab. Remember to use a splitter that has 6 pins, not the normal 4 pin ones, and that splits the line the same to all ports, not tries to split out line 1 and line 2.

Tips for the Booster:

My best tip: use a regulated power supply. An unregulated supply will have noticeable voltage sag. This not only exhibits itself as slower speeds when more locos are running, but it can even affect reliable operation if the load makes the input voltage fluctuate. It happened to me.

Voltage:

You need to set the maximum output voltage at the booster. As delivered it is usually set at a max of about 16 volts, way too low for Large Scale.

Turn the output voltage up full. If you are using the screw hole, you turn it clockwise, looking from the back panel and going through the back panel to engage the trim pot. I do not recommend doing it this way because it is easy to damage the pot, and the holes don't always line up, and you may not "feel" the pot correctly. Also, this normally does not really turn it all the way up.

Take off the cover, and look at the unit from the front to the back, front panel closest to you. You want to rotate the trim pot counter clockwise now. Look at the trim pot, it has a metal front, an insulating layer of light brown (bakelite) and then to the very back is the plastic adjuster, usually blue. It has a small tab that you can see move as you rotate the adjustment. Normally this tab is at the 12 o'clock position. Turning with a screwdriver usually gets you to about 10 or 9 o'clock.

Look closely at the base where the circular part stops and the base flares out. The blue tab needs to nestle right there, putting it in the 8 o'clock position. I had to GENTLY help it there with a screwdriver. BE CAREFUL! Excessive force is not necessary, and you will break the trim pot.

When you have done this, you can expect a max of 20.1 to 20.3 volts rms DCC to the rails, given your DC power supply is at least 3 volts above that.

You may still have trains running slower than you want, remember you lose about 3 volts in the decoder, so 20 volts to the rails might be 17-18 volts to the motor. If you cannot get a good top speed you can do what I did. I contacted NCE and they modified my booster to put out 24 volts.

Tips for all cabs:

Yard mode does not work if you have the "radio fix" turned on. It's on by default. You should be running the radio fix if you have radios.

Avoid address 8 on procabs, avoid address 49 on engineer cabs... addresses 0, 1, and 18 are reserved for all cabs.

Addresses 2-17 update the screen on procabs, procabs outside this range will work, but their displays will not be updated.

On a radio 

Tips for the wireless throttles/cabs:

On the radio procab, the timeout value is TWICE what you select. Set to 0, it never turns off. 

The backlight can be extended for 10 seconds by hitting the shift button (not the enter key). 

Get the radio upgrade if you have older throttles, it is GREAT! $25 to retrofit, and the range is greatly enhanced. Also, the system seems to react more quickly (that's also from the better signal).

With the newer radios, some people use the smaller 1/4 wave antennas, as opposed to the 1/2 ones supplied. I'm fine with the larger antenna, but you can get the smaller ones from Digikey, ANT-916-CW-RH-ND, about $6 I think.

Replacing batteries: the batteries are hard to keep in place, the spring contacts are way too strong. They will not stay in place to allow you to just put the battery "door" on.

Put all 4 batteries in place, and hold down right where all 4 meet in the center with your thumb. Make sure the ends of the batteries are down in place firmly. Lay the door on the batteries, and then keep pressure on it as you slide the door up to your thumb, and then past. (This tip from R.J. De Berg.)

Have spare batteries around, when they get low, replace them, don't struggle on. A battery tester is a good idea if you are having problems and you think it's the batteries.

Sometimes pressing the emergency stop button does not turn the cab on the first time. Try either pressing the side of the button, or press the enter key at the same time. The emergency stop button has a second set of contacts, and there is a design issue that can make this happen. It can vary from cab to cab.

There is a turnon fix for the radio if you want to solder: Click here for Mark's fix

Apparently you should avoid setting cab address 8.

Functions over F12:

You can program the option button to access functions 11-28. Go into cab setup mode (power on cab with select loco button down).. set value for option button from 94 to 122. Now when you hit the option button, buttons 0-9 access functions 10-19.. press option a second time and buttons 0-8 access functions 20-28.

EXTENDED FUNCTION CONTROL (F10 - F28)
Control of functions F13 through F28 has been added. To access these unction numbers program the OPTION key to a value of 122 (see CAB
SET UP, below).
Pressing OPTION will display "F10 through F19 on the bottom line of he cab.
Pressing a digit will toggle that number plus ten. For example: pressing 6 will issue an F16 command.
Pressing OPTION a second time will display "F21 through F28" on the ab. Pressing a digit with this display will toggle that number plus wenty.
Pressing OPTION a third time will return to the F10 through F19 isplay.

Pressing Prog/Esc at any time will abort the operation.

 (I need to put the option key programming here)

Radio system just "quits":

Recently my radio system just failed to work. The radio cabs booted up to the first screen, but not the second screen where you see the loco number, the time, etc. The light on the cab did blink fast like it should, and the RB02 appeared to be dead.

I called Larry at NCE and asked about sending in for repair. He told me that sometimes the layout ID changes in the RB02, and referred me to page 6 of the RB02 manual. Well, that was it, it had changed to 1 from zero. Great, saved me a couple of weeks!

(RB02 units come default at layout 0, I had used layout id 1 to avoid problems)

The setting of the Layout ID in the RB02: (be sure you have the layout ID the same on the other radio cabs too)
1. Unplug the RB02 from the cab bus. Do not turn off the system power.
2. Plug a ProCab into the PORT A connector of the RB02 using any standard Cab Bus cable. If a repeater cable is in the expansion port, remove it.
3. Restore the Cab Bus connection to the RB02
4. Type the desired layout id number then press enter.
5. Unplug the ProCab from Port A to enable the RB02, It will not operate until you remove the cab.
6. Restore any repeater connections that were disconnected in step 2.

This has happened a couple of times. Maybe the best thing is to use always use zero at your own layout?

Decoders:

This is the first company (in the early days of large scale DCC) to have decoders that can not melt down from high current motors. The D808 (pictured upper right in the picture below in a USAT F unit) will handle 8 amps continuous and 30 amp stall!

Checking Software versions:

(in general, you should be at the latest version of firmware in all units. All the updates that are done that I have seen are bug fixes or performance updates).

Cabs:

When you first apply power to the wired cab or turn on a wireless cab, it presents it's version. (the firmware version flashes by quickly on a wireless cab)

Current versions: (as of Jan, 2009)

Wired cabs:

Firmware version - 1.3

Radio cabs:

Firmware version 1.3

Radio - 1.5

My cab status:  

Command station:

To get the firmware version of the command station, go into program, then select set command station:

Current version: (as of Jan 2008)

March 1 2007A

My command station status:

March 1 2007A

Radio base station status:

When configuring, the screen says "NCE PROCISION 1.0"

Programming Tips:

Sometimes the horn will not stop blowing after releasing the button. Try increasing the "horn off packet" from 2 to 4.

General Programming:

In accessory mode, NCE uses different terminology than other manufacturers, so here are the equivalents:

Cab & track termination:

from Mark Gurries on the NCE forum:

1) Track Bus RC filter: 100 Ohms with a series 0.1uF Cap.

The 0.1uF centers the filter's frequency to focus its work on the
typical noise we are fighting on the track.

The resistance value is not as critical in making it work but the value
does determine the strength of the filter.
50 Ohms (Strong) Needs high power resistor. 2Watt for HO.
100 Ohms (Standard)
150 Ohms (Minimal)

For the latter two, more information is found here:

http://www.wiringfordcc.com/track_2.htm#problem_blown_solution

2) Cab Bus Terminator: 120 Ohms with a series 0.01uF cap.

This terminator is less common in terms of discussion. This RC filter
IS really intended to be a bus terminator per the cab bus RS-485
standards. The 120 Ohm matches the typical phone line cable impedance.
The 0.01uF primary purpose is only to reduce current draw on the cab bus
and less about frequency. 0.1uF will work but the larger cap value will
start to increase the dynamic current draw more than it needs to be. I
use 0.01uF myself.

NCE system notes