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Digital Command Control (DCC) is a scheme for controlling locomotives on a model railroad layout. It allows more than one locomotive to occupy the same electrical section of track.
The most basic Digital Command Control (DCC) system consists of several parts: a throttle, a command station, a booster, a decoder, and a power supply to run it all. Most systems also use a throttle network which allows multiple throttles to talk to the command station.
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Selected article
Command Stations are the heart of the DCC system. They receive commands from a throttle network (such as the Digitrax Loconet), process them, and decide if it needs to make a DCC standardized packet to send to the decoders on a DCC system.
Full article Command station
Selected picture
A Tsunami DSD in relation to an N Scale FA-1 (Atlas), with an HO scale FA/FB-1 chassis in the background. Also note the speaker and it's size.
Did you know...
That the first system that allowed independent control was the Lionel Electronic Control system, back in 1946? The first digital system was the Hornby Zero 1? That General Electric (which built full size locomotives) developed a command control system for model railroads in the 1960s?
See DCC History for more information
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Categories
Related Topics
- DCC Manufacturers - A full list of DCC manufacturers.
- Top Level categories - Top level of categories
Topics
Understanding the basics
- Introduction to DCC - DCC Tutorial
- DCC advantage over DC - Why DCC is better than DC power.
- DCC versus Radio Control - Why DCC is better than R/C.
- Selecting a system - Help you select a DCC system right for you.
- Terms - Terms used throughout this website.
- Components of a standard DCC system:
- Command Station - Controls your DCC layout.
- Boosters - Getting power and signals to trains.
- Decoders - Includes stationary and mobile types.
- Power supplies - Getting power from standard electrical outlet to your booster.
- Throttles - Control your trains.
- Throttle Network - Connecting your throttles to the layout.
Intermediate Topics
Should include things like layout wiring, typical decoder installations, helper operations, basic decoder programming.
- Decoder installation - How to install a DCC decoder into a locomotive.
- Specific decoder installs - How to install a specific decoder for a specific application.
- Stationary decoder wiring - How to wire various stationary decoders, etc.
- Stationary decoder wiring#Wiring switches - Wiring switches
Advanced Topics
- Animation - Controlling animation with DCC
- Configuration variables - How a decoder stores data.
- Connecting your computer to DCC - Introduction to getting computers interfaced with DCC layouts
- DCC Software - Software for DCC - operations and/or programming
- MU consisting - Running more than one locomotive in a train.
- Signaling - How to wire signals, crossing gates, etc.
- Software - Software for model railroading
- Sound - Bring realism to your layout with sound.
Expert Topics
- Do-It-Yourself - Building DCC components from scratch - boosters, command stations, etc.
Appendix 1 - FAQs
- FAQ - Frequently asked questions