If I were to do a two-engine consist, can one board be wired to both locos from the trailing boxcar, essentially 'fooling' the board into thinking there is only one loco? I guess amp draw and speed matching are the concern.
If engines are similar (make/model/year), there shouldn't be much difference. It would be like wiring locos that have twin motors. There could still be very minor speed differences that can be neglected in most cases.
One alternative could be to have the second loco as a dummy and use this instead to house the electronics.
Also, we will soon be releasing the consisting feature via app/firmware update. That would require you to have two boards and both of them going in the trailing boxcar.
Thanks for the quick response. My layouts have won some awards, and I wanted to be in on the ground floor of Wifi controls. DCC was a good step, but it comes with such a learning curve and expense that I haven't tried it yet. Your product caught my eye, and I think it or something like it will be the way of the future. Considering the popularity of N, I would think that you will be bringing an N size board to market soon. I'm willing to try the boxcar approach. Is there any difference, besides size, between A & B?
Compared to DDLLHA, DDLLHB is primarily smaller in size, lower current rated, has a lower start voltage (7V) plus all the other minor improvements that come with new hardware.
WiFi devices need to be FCC approved. We currently utilize pre-certified WiFi modules that aren't as small as we would like them to be. As such, we will have to design our own smaller version of the module (because the underlying WiFi SoC is only about 5mm X 5mm) and get it FCC certified too. That will take some time. Rest assured, we will get to it.
We do know a few customers who have expressed their intents to install LocoFiâ„¢ in N scale. However, we have not yet heard of any success story. Hopefully, someone on the forum who has done it successfully would like to share.
That said, we do have a N scale specific module (basically more smaller) on the cards sometime in the future.
Apart from that, based on the conversations with various customers we can think of 4 different ways LocoFiâ„¢ can be installed in an N scale.
1. An F unit. They do have wide enough bodies but it is yet to be explored if there is enough room vertically in any model. The speaker most likely will need to be replaced by a much smaller one or not at all (if that is an option).
2. The module be housed in a permanently trailing boxcar. Even DDLLHA fits there. The pickup power comes from the loco and goes to the trailing boxcar and the motor/light outputs come back to the loco.
3. The setup described above combined with a deadrail setup where even the battery can be housed in the boxcar.
4. If there's only one DC loco on the track, the motor output from the module can be fed to the track.
We will try to see if we can get you some sample installation videos you may be interested in or if someone on the forum who has done it successfully would like to share.
If I were to do a two-engine consist, can one board be wired to both locos from the trailing boxcar, essentially 'fooling' the board into thinking there is only one loco? I guess amp draw and speed matching are the concern.
Thanks for the quick response. My layouts have won some awards, and I wanted to be in on the ground floor of Wifi controls. DCC was a good step, but it comes with such a learning curve and expense that I haven't tried it yet. Your product caught my eye, and I think it or something like it will be the way of the future. Considering the popularity of N, I would think that you will be bringing an N size board to market soon. I'm willing to try the boxcar approach. Is there any difference, besides size, between A & B?
We do know a few customers who have expressed their intents to install LocoFiâ„¢ in N scale. However, we have not yet heard of any success story. Hopefully, someone on the forum who has done it successfully would like to share.
That said, we do have a N scale specific module (basically more smaller) on the cards sometime in the future.
Apart from that, based on the conversations with various customers we can think of 4 different ways LocoFiâ„¢ can be installed in an N scale.
1. An F unit. They do have wide enough bodies but it is yet to be explored if there is enough room vertically in any model. The speaker most likely will need to be replaced by a much smaller one or not at all (if that is an option).
2. The module be housed in a permanently trailing boxcar. Even DDLLHA fits there. The pickup power comes from the loco and goes to the trailing boxcar and the motor/light outputs come back to the loco.
3. The setup described above combined with a deadrail setup where even the battery can be housed in the boxcar.
4. If there's only one DC loco on the track, the motor output from the module can be fed to the track.
We will try to see if we can get you some sample installation videos you may be interested in or if someone on the forum who has done it successfully would like to share.