Santa Fe GP9u 2244 switches the piggyback facility on Stephen M. Priest’s St. Louis Division layout. This layout and many other fine examples of modeling will be on tour during the convention.
The Decoder Calibration Testbed is designed to make the process of configuring, tuning, and calibrating digital command control (DCC) decoders. The default settings for the configuration variables (CVs) in DCC decoders will typically allow the locomotive to run, however, these settings tend not to be consistent from one decoder to the next, one locomotive to the next. The prototypes we model probably don’t run very consistently either, especially in the case of steam locomotives which tended to be very individual in nature. From the modeler’s standpoint, operating locomotives with different, and often unpredictable behaviors tends to detract significantly from the enjoyment of the hobby. And while the DCC specification clearly spells out the mechanisms for tuning and calibrating a decoder’s function, properly configuring a DCC decoder can be a very frustrating exercise. This testbed is a combination of hardware and software designed to automate the decoder calibration process and implement the operator’s desired configuration without a complex, time-consuming, and frustrating series of hundreds of button presses on a clumsy throttle. This system takes advantage of the open-source Java Model Railroad Interface (JMRI) software which provides the necessary programming support, hardware abstraction, and graphical user interface (GUI) needed to achieve the goal.
This clinic is designed for anyone interested in understanding how DCC decoders work and how to work with them. There will include a discussion about the DCC CVs involved in controlling a locomotive’s movement.
