Does anyone know anything about Revolution DCC?
Tom
Just enough to tell you it’s not DCC, it’s a stand alone system. Fewer bells and whistles and cheaper, I think. Spun off from Crest electronics which was affiliated with Aristocraft. has been picked up by it’s developer and is now a healthy product and the sounds are improving.
Tom,
Revolution is NOT DCC. Revolution is a proprietary control system originally developed and marketed by Aristo Craft under the Crest brand. When Aristo Craft folded up their tent, the owner tried to continue the Crest product line and soon closed that as well. As with most things these days the actual engineering and manufacturing was done by far east company, in this case in Korea. Today the new product under the ‘Revolution’ banner is manufactured and now supported by the same folks that did the engineering and manufacturing in the first place. Although I chose another system to go with for reason that were relevant at the time, today I would seriously consider the Revolution system for locomotive control. It works well with constant DC track power and either a track side controller (like our standard old time power packs) or an on board controller (mounted in the locomotive). Revolution will also work well with a battery power system, eliminating the wiring issues associated with track power.
I am in no way putting DCC down, it is a very viable control system, one I know very little about. I hope this will put some clarity in the Revolution story.
Bob C.
I am well aware of what the current Train Engineer Revolution is and what it does. I have been using it since it became available from Aristocraft. I agree that is not DCC.
Several days ago the folks at Precision RC revised the “Products” tab. There are now three sub categories under the “Product” tab. You will find “Revolution”, “Revolution DCC” and “Accessories”.
A few days ago there were a transmitter and a receiver shown under the “Revolution DCC” tab. There were some specifications described – such as CV’s and DCC operation.
On Thursday, 11/23, these were gone. If you select “Revolution DCC” it says “There no products matching the selection”.
The “Revolution DCC” tab remains. Here is the link to the “Revolution DCC” tab. Revolution DCC
I now ask again if anyone knows anything about ‘Revolution DCC’. Maybe some of you that appear to have much closer ties to Train Engineer Revolution can extract some information.
Tom
I’ll call in next week, clearly something being planned.
Greg
http://www.revoelectronics.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=DCC&cat=
I entered dcc in the search and this board showed up … does say dcc and 5 amp.
That looks like a combination of the Plug and Play Board for the Revolution receiver, and the PWC to Linear DC Board.
That would be handy for USA Trains radio control conversions. With Linear DC power the lights should work properly.
Well, reading the description, it is not a filter but a DC to DC converter, so whatever you throw at it, it produces DC
You only got the “hit” because of the 5th line below… do not think this is the DCC page that showed up for a short time.
The issue with USA Trains is that there are on-board voltage regulators and powering them requires electrical surgery to “remove” them from the power of the USAT “motherboard”.
So maybe this takes the PWM output of the Revolution motor output and turns it into smoothly varying DC, we shall see… I’d like to see the wiring diagram.
Greg
- Built in PWC to Linear DC/DC active voltage convert.
- Fast response to load fluctuations.
- Constant voltage is maintained even with various load changes.
- Works with any company’s model trains, sound cards, and light bulbs.
- Works well with any input power such as DCC/AC/DC/Battery Power.
- Output: Active Linear voltage.
- Current Rating:5Amp
- Over temperature protect
- Over current protect
- Low voltage output(+5V) for convenient LED usage.
- Output tap for Smoke generator and Sound card.
- Very Sipmle wiring for “USA TRAIN” ™.
Paul Norton said:
That looks like a combination of the Plug and Play Board for the Revolution receiver, and the PWC to Linear DC Board.
That would be handy for USA Trains radio control conversions. With Linear DC power the lights should work properly.
Paul this Board come out earlier this year I have 2 got them from RLD. I wanted something to run at Stan’s on his DCC and it works well on DCC, DC and Battery, have not put into a USA yet, right now in 2 Bachman.
Richard
Yeah, the new board pictured is an “active” board, and it has more features than the simple filter function pictured above.
Greg
Greg said: The issue with USA Trains is that there are on-board voltage regulators and powering them requires electrical surgery to “remove” them from the power of the USAT “motherboard”.
So maybe this takes the PWM output of the Revolution motor output and turns it into smoothly varying DC, we shall see… I’d like to see the wiring diagram.
Agreed! USAT’s programmable LM317 voltage regulator did not like PWC. The only time the lights came on was at top voltage, because there no voltage variance to confuse the LM317.
The little battery power and radio control car shown was for an LGB 0-6-0. But I did try it on a USA Train diesel that had MU connectors added, and the lights worked fine. So I guess the filters did their job.
My preferred method was to gut the USAT diesel electronics and add my own LED circuit boards. I found that really extended battery run times. People blamed the USAT motors, but I think the USAT circuit boards and light bulbs had more to do with it.
Looks like a 2.4 GHz deadrail product, which is great, so the receiver connects to a DCC decoder.
Great, you can use the easy to use Revolution handheld, and any DCC decoder connected to the receiver. (note the receiver is only a receiver, not a motor driver, or sound unit)
Greg
RE: “…USAT’s programmable LM317 voltage regulator did not like PWC. The only time the lights came on was at top voltage, because there no voltage variance to confuse the LM317.”
With respect to DC track power operation:
I noticed what is suppose to be the flashing tail light in the USA Trains caboose would not illuminate (or flash on / off) using the Aristo / Revo PWC (PWM) track power base station receiver unless the TX “throttle” is increased to maximum, after which the tail light will flash and remain flashing, even when reducing the throttle to a minimal setting!
So for normal use of PWC, I am contemplating installing the accessory “PWC to Linear Board” between the caboose wheel power pickups and internal circuitry.
-Ted
Very interesting. Looks like a 2.4gHz version of the Airwire “Convertr” or Tam Valley Depot receiver. I’m hip to that. I like the bi-directional communication between receiver and transmitter–something that’s lacking with the Airwire protocol. Not being able to read your CV values when you’ve forgotten what you set them to is frustrating.
Definitely something I’ll want to try out when it becomes available…
Later,
K
I wonder if the new TX still saves loco info on it, or if its stored in the RX.
Bob McCown said:
I wonder if the new TX still saves loco info on it, or if its stored in the RX.
Bob add says saves to TX “25 locomotives and 25 accessory Separate memory slots are provided.” here is full description http://www.revoelectronics.com/product/revolution-dcc/revolution-dcc-transmitter.html
Richard
Sorry Bob now I see your Question it says the same thing for RX
Richard said:
Bob McCown said:
I wonder if the new TX still saves loco info on it, or if its stored in the RX.
Bob add says saves to TX “25 locomotives and 25 accessory Separate memory slots are provided.” here is full description http://www.revoelectronics.com/product/revolution-dcc/revolution-dcc-transmitter.html
Richard
Sorry Bob now I see your Question it says the same thing for RX
Yea, the big gripe I have with the Revolution is that I have to duplicate my settings in every controller, and its a manual process. Unlike plugging in a DCC controller and selecting a locomotive, where all the info is stored in the decoder in the locomotive. I wish they would fix this, or make it easy to clone locomotive settings from one controller to another.
Bob McCown said:
Richard said:
Bob McCown said:
I wonder if the new TX still saves loco info on it, or if its stored in the RX.
Bob add says saves to TX “25 locomotives and 25 accessory Separate memory slots are provided.” here is full description http://www.revoelectronics.com/product/revolution-dcc/revolution-dcc-transmitter.html
Richard
Sorry Bob now I see your Question it says the same thing for RX
Yea, the big gripe I have with the Revolution is that I have to duplicate my settings in every controller, and its a manual process. Unlike plugging in a DCC controller and selecting a locomotive, where all the info is stored in the decoder in the locomotive. I wish they would fix this, or make it easy to clone locomotive settings from one controller to another.
I really wonder what went through the minds of the designers when they decided they would store everything in the TX. I keep trying to think of a rationale, but all I can come up with is an engineer thinking “My boss is a moron!”(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
Well, if you only have one transmitter, then why not keep the settings there? Its when you have more then one that things get…funny.