Hi all -- I thought Paul's answer to Bob Lampe about Easy DCC might be of interest to the whole group. I have known Paul for at least 20 years and he doesn't beat around the bush. He holds monthly TT&TO operations on his large HO layout.
Bill Winans Prescott Valley, AZ ------------------------------------- From: Paul Catapano Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 9:23 AM To: Robert Lampe Cc: Bill Winans Subject: RE: Easy DCC Robert, I have been running East DCC for ten years now. It is, as the name implies, Easy to install. I would guess that aside from soldiering drops to the track and actually running the throttle buss through out the layout, it took me one hour to install the entire system and have it running. I run 8 wireless throttles and about 8 more plug-ins for a total of some 16 throttles, not counting the two at the command station. My layout requires that 13 positions have a throttle. There are six switching positions, that is jobs that do a LOT of switching. What that means is a lot of commands going to and from the command station. Stop, go, back-up, go forward, etc Since the up-grade I purchased about six years ago at the Anaheim NMRA convention I have to say , honestly, I have had NO, that's ZERO, problems with the Easy DCC software. If I were to break down my "problems" it would be, 95% operator error, and 5% hardware breakdown. It works flawlessly, all the time, every time, with no maintanence by me. Period. I get around. I have used a LOT of other systems at a lot of other layouts, under a lot of other situations, all over the country. Easy DCC is nearly the easiest to use. LIGHT YEARS easier than Digitraks. Now for the downside: 1) You must promise on the lives of your children or grandchildren that you can never use more than 8 wireless throttles on your layout, EVER. I do not care what ANYONE tells you, Easy DCC will not support the use of more than 8 wireless throttles. You will hear stories about how so and so is using 16, 24 etc etc, They have gone through MANY hurdles, and jump through MANY hoops to acheive that, and it is no simple up grade to do that. Frankly once you delve deeper and ask some searching questions you begin to find out that most of those stories all have a lot of caviates. Easy DCC will not support more than 8 wireless throttles. 2) Easy DCC's software, the way it is written is so back asswards, as to be almost incomprehensible. Why they chose to use the procedure to assign throttle ID, something that should only need to be done ONCE in the life of the throttle, the way they did; The reason for about 90% of my operator errors, is so totally beyond me I have nothing to compare it to. Easy DCC's position that it is operator training, "Paul, you just haven't trained your crew well enough", after ten, that's 10, years of operation with the same crew is total BULL SHIT!! The key pad should have some sort of lock out, or something, ANYTHING!. No one I know that has Easy DCC has found a solution to this problem, and they ALL complain about it. 3) Easy DCC will not allow you to consist locomotives together at the throttle, you must do it at the command station. This has become a bigger and bigger problem for me as the years have gone by, because my op session has grown in scope and complexity, and that ability is a necessity. I'm living without it, but on my next Comand Control System purchase it WILL be a deal breaker. Now, knowing what I know NOW, and when I build another layout I'd probably go with NCE, but only because of the ability to consist locomotives during Helper operations and for NO other reasons. And if I were to build another layout that did not have such a focus on Helper Operations I would stay with Easy DCC. Also your layout size will be a huge factor. I run a relative giant layout, if it were significantly smaller I can think of NO reason not to go with Easy DCC. Paul Catapano
