With DC Analog, lights and other
devices work when the train is going, and stop working when track voltage
is turned off. There's no getting around this without using batteries
or other such devices. And there is no method to turn them on or off
at will without having manual switches on the loco.
One of the nicest things about DCC
is that you have control of the headlight, rear light, and any other
electrically-controllable device on the train - even when the train
is stopped. You can control lights, sounds, couplers, smoke units, passenger
car lights and doors, you name it. Whatever your modeling skills and
patience allow you to contrive with electrical control can be controlled
from your hand-held throttle.
One of the other nice things about
DCC decoders is that you can take the loco directly to a DC
Analog-controlled layout and run without having to change anything.
The only problem is, you no longer have control of lights and smoke
like you do on the DCC layout. But with DC Analog Function Operation,
you can program each function to be on or off when operating on an analog
layout. You still won't have on/off control of them while operating
the train, but can have them be on or off, whichever you specify when
you program the decoder.
This feature is handled in CV13.
Bits 0 through 5 control functions 1 through 6, respectively. Bit 6
controls the forward light, bit 7 controls the rear light.
For example, let's say you want the
front and rear light on. Simple, turn bit 6 and 7 on. You wouldn't want
the whistle or bell on continuously, so you'd leave bits 0 and 1 turned
off. But you would want the smoke unit to work, so if you had that hooked
to function 4, for example, you'd turn bit 3 on. See CV
Bit Manipulation for more information about bit control.
With CV 13 programmed this way, you
will still have direct control of all functions when running on a DCC
layout. But when running on a regular analog layout, the whistle and
bell won't work, but the lights and smoke unit will be on. Not only
will the lights be on, but if you have any special effects programmed
into them, those special effects will work as well. Front and rear lights
are normally directional. So, when the loco goes forward, the Headlight
will be on and when going backwards the rear light will be on. Of course,
this is also programmable for non-directional
operation with yet another CV. Further, if you have a Mars light programmed
into a function, for example, you will get the Mars light effect on
a DC analog layout too.
But there is one caveat with this.
Unlike when operating on a DCC layout that has full voltage all the
time, the DC analog controlled track won't get any voltage until you
start increasing the throttle to make the train go. It takes a certain
amount of voltage for the decoder to start working, generally between
three and five volts. Therefore, it takes this amount of voltage for
the lights to come on and start producing the special effects. |
