The model railway module will have a slot for a 100 × 20 cm (40" × 8") panel for the control electronics, the purple rectangle in the track plan above. Connection to the layout will be made using multiple D-Sub connectors. This make it possible to demonstrate and test Traintastic using different electronic solutions for model railroad control.
DCC/S88 logic board
A commonly used setup, DCC accessory decoders for controlling turnouts and signals, and S88 for feedback sensors.
Technically the most different solution, DINAMO is a track driver system, each block has its own booster. This makes it possible to run Analog and DCC trains at the same time.
1x RM-C/2 - PC interface
3x TM44 - Track driver, 4 fold, 16 current detectors (4 per driver)
On the wish list, BiDiB is not yet supported by Traintastic due to leak of testing hardware.
It will take some time to build it and gather all the required hardware, some I have already, other hardware is sponsored and I will need to buy additional stuff.
Not yet, a future version of Traintastic will include this layout for different system types including simulation support, but that will take some time to develop.
DCC-EX would be another option indeed, I’ve already a DCC-EX system with ethernet to, that I use for testing, the DCC/S88 will be the first to build as it is most generic.
For the VPEB system there are a few dealers in Europe, but none in Australia as far as I know. The DINAMO system has one disadvantage, it can not operate without a PC, the PC must keep track of all trains and link/unlink the blocks so there are no shorts. They (VPEB) don’t have their own control software so the need others too support it. Last december I got a call from the main representative if I would support it in Traintastic as well, I said yes, so the donated some hardware DINAMO support will be added in v0.4.0 as well, still working on it.
Hope you get the chance to test also the Yamorc railcom-feedback modul YD6016LN-RC.
It will be connected with the yamorc YD7010 via loconet, but can be connectet via USB directly with the Laptop as second interface, means, this feedback-modul can be used beside (“with”) every other DCC-zentrale, for example also the z21, but also completely independent (even Märklins CS2/CS3 or others) if the RC-Cut in the DCC-Signal on the track is implemented. At least there must be a booster which is able to cut the RC-Cut and you can read by traintastic every RC-Messages from the Dcoder, sendet on the track.
Yes that would be nice, although I expect it to work with Traintastic, I’ve a DigiKeijs DR5088RC (16+1 input LocoNet RailCom detector), the DR5088RC was also designed by Karst Drenth, so the YD6016LN-RC most likely is an improved version of the DR5008RC.
That won’t work, the limit here is LocoNet, for standard RailCom the LocoNet OPC_MULTI_SENSE message is used, it can only carry an loco address and a detector address. The DR5088RC and YD6016LN-RC have an option to use the highest bit of the loco address or detector address as direction indication. Traintastic supports both. Alternative is the unofficial OPC_MULTI_SENSE_LONG message (also supported by Traintastic) that can be enabled on the DR5088RC and YD6016LN-RC, this message can carry more RailCom data, e.g. quality of service and some other.
For the ECoS these can’t be used, the ECoS LocoNet modules doesn’t forward OPC_MULTI_SENSE to the ECoS, only normal detectors OPC_INPUT_REP work, I’ve tested that about two year ago. (Might be added, but I think ESU prefers to sell their own RailCom detectors.)
Huge thanks to Drenth Design & Consulting B.V. for donating the command station and the three feedback modules.
DINAMO support will be added in v0.4.0 as well, still working on it.