Large Scale Central

Revolution VS Train Engineer

Electronics Power and Sound
#1

I have been using an Aristo TE for many years now and it is great in that it gives me remote control over my engines. I never bothered to put the extra receivers in the engines due to cost and simply use the TE to power all the trains on the track at once. All my siding are isolated so I can park a train on them while the others still run.

Lately I have been slowly adding sound to my locos and I have been considering getting a Revolution system. After having a nice chat with the owner of Dallee sound at the Amherst show this year I found out that his sound boards are plug and play compatible with the Revo.

I do understand that I would need to wire in a receiver to reap the benefits of the Revo like playing the bells or horn but would I need to do that with all my locos at once?

Can the Revo be used like a TE, connected to the track to power all the trains or will it only work with a receiver?

If I bought a Revo system with diesel sound or used a dallee board, installed it in my GP38 could I still run my Heisler or NW2 which wouldn’t have the receiver?

If say the GP38 had the revo installed could I use the TE to power the rest of the fleet at the same time?

Thanks. Inquiring minds want to know.

#2

First, plug and play normally implies plugs in, with a plug… Dallee is no more plug and play than wiring in an extra light bulb. It sounds nice but it’s just not a correct description.

There are plug and play units for your aristo and other locos. Specifically Aristo has a socket that some units plug directly in.

There is a manufacturer that makes a replacement main board to allow this for USA trains.

Not to rag on Dallee, but it is NOT plug and play, and it’s unfair to the other manufacturers who have gone to the effort to make plug and play products.

So you have been running the rails from a single TE, and you ask if you can to the same with the revo? Yes, they make a high current version designed to be a “trackside” unit, but in their wisdom, have not called it this, but base station / super receiver.

All receivers have a motor output, they “receive” signal from a transmitter, but they output power to the motors or in this case the track, and then the motors on the track.

But it makes no sense to have one bell or whistle from a unit attached to the track, you need receivers in the locos themselves… so when you graduate to sound, the receiver needs to be in the loco.

If you put a revo in a locomotive, it needs power from either the track or battery, but if track powered, you really need constant track power, so basically the rest of the locos will run full blast if they don’t have a receiver.

There are ways that you can run the track from a variable speed control, and then have a few locos on individual remote, but you need enough power on the track to run the remote control ones.

Basically that will be a pain in the butt and not work very well. The Revolution is so cheap, you need to outfit each of your locos with it.

Greg

#3

The Revo works along similar lines as the old TE. You can use it either as a base station which controls the voltage going to the track (hence any out-of-the-box locomotive on that track) or as an on-board controller specifically for the locomotive into which the receiver is installed. For the trackside installation, you’ll want to use the Revo’s “Super Receiver.” It’s got a 15-amp capacity. For the on-board installation, the smaller boards will work well unless you’re trying to drive multiple diesels from one receiver (such as an A-B-B-A lashup or similar). Note that while the Super Receiver has all the “bells and whistles” of the smaller units in terms of sound and motor function, they lack the headlight outputs.

You cannot run an on-board Revo-equipped locomotive on a track also powered by the trackside Revo, as the on-board installation needs a constant, linear voltage supply. You can run the Revo-equipped locomotive on a separate track, provided the power supply to that track is constant and linear.

Later,

K

#4

Actually, you are wrong Kevin, you can run the onboard revo and also the track from it.

(How come you just don’t read the previous posts or believe people that know more than you do?)

It has limitations, and I don’t recommend it, but it can be done, (as I already stated) and I believe Dave Bodnar has this setup documented on his site.

sheesh…

Greg

#5

Greg, Kevin said “the on-board installation needs a constant, linear voltage supply.” So in my mind you two are basically saying almost the same thing.

The onboard Revolution (or any controller on board) would need a constant voltage on the rails. A locomotive without on board control would be running flat out if placed on the track. To vary the voltage on the track (with the TE) and then place a locomotive with the Revolution in it on the track just will not work very well. Unless the TE is set to full tack voltage at the time.

So Todd. If you go with the Revolution, you would have to run only the revolution engines at the same time with full track voltage, or run only the non revolution locomotives at the same time, controlling the track voltage with the TE you have. You are basically talking about mixing radio control engines with non radio control engines. The have different needs as to track voltage. Non radio control engines need the track voltage varied to control them. RC engines need full track voltage.

#6

Greg, I didn’t see your response. Please look at the time stamps–they’re only one minute apart.

I think you’re misreading my post, anyway. You can run the on-board Revo and a trackside Revo at the same time from the same transmitter (I said as much), but you cannot power the on-board Revo from the output of the trackside Revo (essentially daisy-chaining two Revos.)

In other words, if Todd has his “out of the box” Heisler and NW-2 on the track being powered by the trackside Revo, they’ll work great. If Todd has a separate track for the GP-38 that is powered directly by the same power supply that’s feeding the trackside Revo, then the GP-38 will work just fine as well. All Todd would need to do would be to toggle between the receivers on his transmitter to alternately control the trains. The “all stop” button would stop both trains in quick succession in an emergency.

What Todd cannot do is set his GP-38 on the same track being powered by the trackside Revo (running the NW-2 and Heisler) and expect the GP-38 to work. At the risk of sounding redundant, the Revo needs a constant linear supply voltage to operate properly, and the variable PWM output of the trackside Revo is anything but.

Later,

K

#7

Yes, he can… you are wrong, it can work, not well as I said… did you BOTHER to check Dave Bodnar’s site or are you still convinced you know everything?

Greg

p.s. go ahead and ding me again for contradicting you, I don’t give a rat’s patoot…

#8

Such egos…

Todd, IF you continue to control your track voltage with the old style TE you CAN run a Revolution controlled locomotive on the same track with your non Revolution locos. The restriction will be that the Revolution controlled locomotive will be limited in it’s operation to the maximum voltage supplied by the TE. The scenario would work like this. You adjust your TE to 50% (for discussion say 12 volts) running your non Revolution engine at half speed. Now you grab your Revolution controller and ramp it up to 50%. You will be providing 6 volts to your Revolution engine, or 1/4 speed. To get your Revolution loco to the same speed as your TE controlled loco you need to run the Revolution controlled loco at 100%, or 12 volts.

My percentages and voltages may be off in precision, but my explanation is spot on how it will function. I personally would not try to do that simply because the potential for disaster starts to rise dramatically when mixing control styles. Greg is correct in that it can be done, and Kevin is right in stating it would not be recommended. In one way or another both said the same thing I just said, but without giving and example of functionality. Some of our best resources forget that everyone does not have their experience or background.

#9

Greg, if the GP-38 is getting its supply voltage from the output of the Trackside Revo–even when filtered–the onboard Revo needs a minimum voltage to even turn on. If it’s not getting that minimum voltage, it’s not going to work. End of story at that point.

Sure, you can jack the voltage of the Trackside Revo above that threshold, filter it, and keep it there. That will work, as the supply voltage to the on-board Revo is (a) sufficient, (b) constant, and © linear. That will provide power for an on-board Revo-equipped locomotive placed on the track with no other locos. If that’s all the operator is looking to do, then great. I know folks who do that, and it does work very well. Some also simply wire in a bypass switch which toggles the supply voltage to the track either from the output of the Trackside Revo or the ouput of the power supply that’s feeding it. It saves the trouble of having to remember to increase the throttle on two cabs just to run the trains.

If the idea is to operate the NW-2 and Heisler at the same time as the GP-38, from the variable output of the Trackside Revo, no dice. Here’s what will happen. At 0 volts to the track (we’ll call it Cab 1 for clarity), all locos are stopped. When Cab 1 increases to 6 volts to the track, the NW-2 and Heisler are moving; not necessarily quickly, but moving. The GP-38 is stopped, because the Revo on board is not getting sufficient voltage to even wake up. At 12 volts, the NW-2 and Heisler are moving faster, and the GP-38 has woken up. It’s not moving yet, but will as soon as the operator gives that specific cab (Cab 2) some throttle. The operator can start and stop it to their hearts’ content by using the controls for Cab 2. When Cab 1 is increased to 18 volts to the track, the NW-2 and Heisler are now running near warp speeds. Presuming the GP-38 is moving (Cab 2 throttle greater than zero), it has also increased its speed because the supply voltage to the on-board Revo has increased. The throttle setting on the transmitter for the GP-38 has remained unchanged. If the GP-38 is running and Cab 1’s throttle is reduced, the GP-38 will slow proportionally until such time as the track voltage drops below the minimum threshold. At that point, the on-board Revo shuts down and the GP-38 stops.

If you want to call that scenario “it can work, but not well,” that’s your thing. If you want to tell me I’m wrong because I consider that scenario a non-starter, go ahead. If you want to be condescending towards me because I have a different opinion, that’s why Bob has the reputation button buttons here.

Later,

K

#10

The way I see this is if the base station is sending out PWC, any receiver on the track will see full beit pulsed voltage!!!

I did this with the 27mhz TE driving my track and had the 75mhz on board receivers working from track power along with a DC engine running. This surprised many visitors as no one thought this could be done. Only issue was when reversing the DC track power, the 75 mhz stopped but I did set the memory remember bit so after the polarity change the 75 mhz unit started up automagically where it was before the polarity change.

From what Greg states, this may be the same for the revo. The pulsed power out will be enough for an on board receiver to work.

If the base station has the filtering board added then one would have issues with receivers not getting enough voltage to operate at times.

#11

Nothing answers questions like a little experimentation, so I spent some time in my workshop with a trackside Revo and an on-board Revo to see what happens.

First, I hooked a Crest thottle the wired one) to my 13-volt power supply, then hooked the output of that throtle to an on-board Revo, and slowly spun it up to full voltage. As I expected, the on-board Revo did not like that PWM as an input signal, even when spun to full throttle. (Disregard, faulty test. See next post.) When I bypassed the Crest throttle so the voltage was linear straight from the power supply, the on-board Revo sprang to life. Operations were normal at that point.

Next, I hooked the Trackside Revo to the power supply, and hooked a motor to that output. Everything linked, and motor control was smooth and even throughout the entire speed range.

Then I hooked the on-board Revo to the output of the Trackside Revo, as we’re discussing. With the throttle controlling the Trackside unit set to 0, nothing happened (as expected). Next, I gave it some throttle. I still had a motor connected to the output of the Trackside Revo as well, so I could gauge what both were doing. As soon as I gave it some throttle (speed step 4), the voltage shot to 7 volts (50%) and the on-board Revo sprang to life. I removed the motor from the set-up, but noticed no difference in how the voltage reacted. By speed step 15, the voltage was at 12 volts. Dropping from speed step 4 to step 3 reduced the voltage to 6 volts, and the on-board Revo shut down. I tried different motors, with the same results.

My Aristo PWM-Linear filter board is eluding me at the moment, so I couldn’t see how that might make a difference. (See Addendum in next post)

Conclusions:

I was surprised to see the on-board Revo spring to life on the PWM output of the trackside Revo, given it wouldn’t do that on the output of the Crest throttle. There may be something different between the two PWM signals (I don’t have a scope to compare the two.) That’s good to know.

On the other hand, hooking the on-board Revo up to the output of the trackside Revo has what I would term a negative impact on the controllability of the output of the trackside Revo, where you squeeze your entire voltage range into about 1/4 of the throttle’s capacity. Going from 0 to half speed in 4 speed steps does not exactly smack of smooth control for the trains being controlled directly off of that output.

Applying these findings to the discussion at hand, I don’t know that it changes things all that much. The floor under which the on-board Revo will not operate is significantly lowered to almost the bottom of the throttle’s setting, which can be viewed as a good thing. However, the resulting compression in speed range on the output of the Trackside Revo reduces (nearly eliminates) any ability to smoothly control trains running on that output. If the goal of such an installation is to be able to control all the trains with roughly equal levels of control over speed and direction, this method still falls woefully short, and remains in my opinion a non-starter.

Later,

K

#12

Addendum:

I found my PWM/Linear converter (right under my nose, naturally), and tried things again. I put the filter between the Trackside Revo output and the On-board Revo, but used the PWM side to feed the motor directly connected to the Trackside outputs.

World. Of. Difference.

The peculiarities with the quick jump in voltage and greatly compressed throttle range disappeared completely. The motor control was smooth and even as it was in my initial test without the On-board Revo connected to everything. The On-board Revo kicked in at around 6 volts, which was about 35% on the throttle–a definite improvement over 4%.

One other thing bugged me about my earlier tests–that the On-Board Revo wouldn’t power up when connected to the Aristo wired throttle even at full tilt. I remembered that I had looked at the output of that throttle on a scope for an article I wrote, and it was linear or darned near so at the top end. The Revo should have powered up as it did when connected to the linear output of the power supply. So I repeated the test with the PWM output of the Aristo wired throttle, and the stupid thing kicked in at around 6 volts as it had done with the Trackside Revo output. (growl, grumble, snarl, snort) Loose connection, maybe, or just a quirk, or who knows. But it worked the second and repeated times after that, so at least it’s consistent between the two throttles. I did notice similar effects on the throttle range as experienced with the output of the Trackside Revo. It wasn’t quite as pronounced (about 50% throttle range instead of about 25%) but it was still there.

Bottom line, though, is that my assessment of the efficacy of such an installation remains unchanged. If the goal is completely independent control of the trains, you can’t have one train’s operation dependent on another. If Train A has to be running at a certain speed before Train B wakes up to hear commands to move, that’s not meeting the criteria of completely independent control of two trains. Once they’re both moving, if you increase the speed of Train A, Train B will experience a similar increase in speed. That’s not independent control. If they’re on the same track and one train is moving and the other isn’t because it’s still sleeping, bad things are gonna happen. That’s not “It can work, but…,” that’s “I hope you’ve got lots of glue to fix the damage.” That’s why I say it’s a non-starter for me, especially when the solution is very simple.

My suggestion would be that if you want to run two trains independently, first, put them on two separate loops to avoid the possibility of collision. Each loop is powered by the output of a toggle switch that lets you select between the output of the Trackside Revo or the power supply that’s powering it (constant DC). Put the “analog DC” trains on one loop with the toggle set to “Trackside” and the On-Board Revo-equipped loco on the second loop with the toggle set to “constant DC.” That eliminates all the issues surrounding what we’re talking about. You have solid, linear DC voltage available to both Revo receivers; neither is dependent on the other for its voltage, so changing the throttle on one will not have any effect on the other; and the toggles allow you to pick what’s going to power what on any given day, so you can run whatever you want wherever you want.

Later,

K

#13

WoW after all the back and forths it sounds like this Revo TE mix/matchup is beyond my capacity to equate. I like to keep things simple so it seems to be change everything to Revo or stay with the TE. Converting the 7 engines that see regular use on the RR plus the 8 or so others that are occasional rail riders would be an expensive and time consuming process.

It almost makes more sense to go battery RC on the GP38 but that would still mean having 2 control systems to fiddle with.

Thank you everyone for all the information.

#14

Todd, be careful going to battery/rc on that GP 38. You might find that you really like it, and everything else just sits on the shelf. You have been warned. :slight_smile:

#15

(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-surprised.gif)(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-undecided.gif)(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

Obakaybe Steve (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)

#16

I would just have the revo base station and the TE connect via a DPDT switch to the track.

I do this with my 27mhz TE and DCC system and I can run DC or DCC at the throw of a switch.

My DCC system will do pulse stretching, but I prefer not to do this as it can stress a motor if left sitting.

#17

In actual practical usage, Kevin is dead right on the money.

On another note, this reminds me that I have a couple of brand-new in the plastic package orange Aristo Train Engineers if anyone is interested in buying them. I’ve gone battery and won’t use them. Let me know if you’re interested. You can just email me through the site or at John@JohnPassaro dot com if you like.

#18

Steve Featherkile said:

Todd, be careful going to battery/rc on that GP 38. You might find that you really like it, and everything else just sits on the shelf. You have been warned. :slight_smile:

Double warned!!!

#19

The orange TE is 27 mhz (2.5 amp) and had several different frequencies available.

Are the ones for sale the same frequency or do you have different frequencies.

The round sticker on mine is 27.045 which is 27.045 mhz a citizens band radio frequency and this is between 2 existing channels.

Transmitter and receiver must have the same numbers!!

#20

Dan Pierce said:

The orange TE is 27 mhz (2.5 amp) and had several different frequencies available.

Are the ones for sale the same frequency or do you have different frequencies.

The round sticker on mine is 27.045 which is 27.045 mhz a citizens band radio frequency and this is between 2 existing channels.

Transmitter and receiver must have the same numbers!!

Hiya Dan…both them say 27 mhz. I remember when I bought them that I called Aristo, this was some time ago, and they said if I sent them in to them they would re-program them to another frequency no charge. I don’t know if this is still true or not. I’ll bet some sharp cookie like Kevin could re-program them for us.