RTCAdapter - Missing Link between a Remote and WTIU

"but I think you'll have a hard time selling a tether add-on device when the general public is beating you to market with the wireless solution for the DCS Remote we"

IF (or maybe when) my 2 TIU and 2 remotes fail, and I have to use a WTIU, I would NOT want a remote tethered to the unit. Way back when was it 2000 or so?) when DCS and the unit/remote came out, it was the ability to run a train WITHOUT tether wires and use a remote, that was 90% the attraction of the DCS system. Maybe I am alone in that thought! Maybe....MANY people feel that way.

More power to the people in this thread attacking this. I hope MTH pays attention.

Thank you to all involved. Greg (like Arnold said, my brain is mush, but my hopes are up!)

Mark is clearly the star in this show, the RTC Adapter is outstanding!  I have the pieces, I just have to find someone local with a WTIU and I'll join the testing. Since I have plenty of TIU boxes, I'm just not willing to park $400 or so in the WTIU at this point.

I'm thinking of a small PCB and 3D printed enclosure to make this a nice bundle.

I anyone working on making a DIY remote for those of us who don't have one?  That would be great.

John

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Mark is clearly the star in this show, the RTC Adapter is outstanding!  I have the pieces, I just have to find someone local with a WTIU and I'll join the testing. Since I have plenty of TIU boxes, I'm just not willing to park $400 or so in the WTIU at this point.

I'm thinking of a small PCB and 3D printed enclosure to make this a nice bundle.

Just yank the 900Mhz receiver out of your TIU and test it with the WIU. I agree, no sense in spending $400 to test it out when you already have the needed hardware in house.

@H1000 posted:

Just yank the 900Mhz receiver out of your TIU and test it with the WIU. I agree, no sense in spending $400 to test it out when you already have the needed hardware in house.

Not a bad idea, I can take out a TIU and "doctor" it just for testing.

@Craftech posted:

I anyone working on making a DIY remote for those of us who don't have one?  That would be great.

John

I had built one almost 10 years ago. It was designed to connect to an original TIU by radio. This was meant to be a very simple remote that you could give to a kid instead of your $1000 cellphone. The remote was hard coded to control a particular engine on a particular TIU. I had suggested that it be built with robust buttons, switches and joystick - something kid-proof if such a thing were possible.

You can see a demo at: http://www.silogic.com/trains/...pport.html#RetroXFMR

If we redesigned this, we could use an ESP8266 and connect via WiFi directly to the WTIU.

@Craftech posted:

I anyone working on making a DIY remote for those of us who don't have one?  That would be great.

John

Why re-invent the wheel? Can we not just reprogram a WiThrottle to work with the WTIU? Just asking since I'm not a programmer, but I think it should be possible to replace the DCC commands with the needed DCS ones?

Was looking at something like this project WiTcontroller.

@Darrell posted:

Why re-invent the wheel? Can we not just reprogram a WiThrottle to work with the WTIU? Just asking since I'm not a programmer, but I think it should be possible to replace the DCC commands with the needed DCS ones?

Nothing is so easy as the job you imagine someone else doing.

You saying that does not answer the question or help in any way those poor souls who do not have a DCS controller. I never thought or said it would be easy, I know the RTC program runs on windows, but could it be ported ( the parts that send the DCS packets anyway ) to an ESP32 board? If that can be done then would not a DIY DCS remote be feasible? At least for the WTIU/WIU equipped layouts? Like I said, I'm not a programmer so I don't know if it could done or not, but it seems to me that using a DCC Wifi DIY controller as a base starting point might be better than trying to do one from scratch?

If I'm way off base here and nobody wants a new remote than I won't mention it again.

I've been converting my loco's to DCC anyway so I have many options for wireless controllers already, but I would be willing to help in someway any effort to make a new remote for DCS happen if at all possible.

@Darrell posted:

You saying that does not answer the question or help in any way those poor souls who do not have a DCS controller. I never thought or said it would be easy, I know the RTC program runs on windows, but could it be ported ( the parts that send the DCS packets anyway ) to an ESP32 board? If that can be done then would not a DIY DCS remote be feasible? At least for the WTIU/WIU equipped layouts? Like I said, I'm not a programmer so I don't know if it could done or not, but it seems to me that using a DCC Wifi DIY controller as a base starting point might be better than trying to do one from scratch?

If I'm way off base here and nobody wants a new remote than I won't mention it again.

I've been converting my loco's to DCC anyway so I have many options for wireless controllers already, but I would be willing to help in someway any effort to make a new remote for DCS happen if at all possible.

Mark's 900mhz <-> WiFi adapter doesn't have to be ported to Windows as it runs on the ESP32 board.  It's a stand-alone box, which is pretty keen!

Yes that is a great thing!

@Craftech posted:

I anyone working on making a DIY remote for those of us who don't have one?  That would be great.

John

This was the post I was responding to though. The RTCAdapter is a great development for those that already have a DCS remote and they want to use it with the WTIU, but if you are just starting out with DCS you can not get a remote to use with it, you are stuck using your phone or tablet until MTH releases their adapter that will allow you to plug in a DCS remote - but again you need to already have the remote! Since the DCS remote not only sends the command packets but also generates them as needed that is what a DIY remote would also have to do. Unless I'm mistaken, the RTCAdapter just takes the command in from the radio and then resends them out on wifi, it doesn't generates the commands. The RTC windows program that Mark developed does generate the commands and can now even send them to the WTIU through the PC's wifi. Any DIY remote would have to do this as well, which is why I was asking if RTC could be ported from windows to a ESP32. There are already designs out there for wifi controllers, I was just thinking it would be great if we could adapt Mark's great work into one of these designs and make our own WiFi DCS remote!

Since I am not a programmer I asked here if it was feasible, but haven't heard if it is or not yet.

I think my first post was too short and not very clear, sorry for the confusion.

@Darrell posted:

Yes that is a great thing!

This was the post I was responding to though. The RTCAdapter is a great development for those that already have a DCS remote and they want to use it with the WTIU, but if you are just starting out with DCS you can not get a remote to use with it, you are stuck using your phone or tablet until MTH releases their adapter that will allow you to plug in a DCS remote - but again you need to already have the remote!

OK, I got confused since this thread is about the RTCA adapter.  When multiple topics get discussed in a single thread, things get confusing.

Latest update- testing 2 remotes at the same time with the WTIU and RTC and yes it works.

https://youtu.be/iBfhWm0gsZA

@H1000 posted:

Well, that scratches my previous project. I think this will work out much better than waiting for the Tethered adapter from MTH.

My original tether box ran into issues with translating the TIU ID to the proper device. I eventually had to program all of the receiver boxes to recognize TIU ID 1 and then set the remotes to speed mode to ignore return messages. This solved most of the problems but I digress, what has been developed by Mark is what MTH should have done from the get go.

Are you still working on your idea to map a gaming controller to the MTH app?  Since MTH is no longer making remotes, IMO this is a longer-term answer to having a tactile way of operating DCS.

The remote works great with the wtiu. Thanks Vernon and mark

@Mallard4468 posted:

Are you still working on your idea to map a gaming controller to the MTH app?  Since MTH is no longer making remotes, IMO this is a longer-term answer to having a tactile way of operating DCS.

That is still in the works. I just haven't had a lot of time to devote to this project lately. Mark's work is very extensive and detailed which lead to me tossing around a new idea of building a whole new app that would replace the DCS app all together with handheld controller interface integrated.  This may prove to be easier than building an overlay app that runs on top of the current DCS app.

Then I brainstormed this into my next wild idea, how about a single app that will interface with both the WTIU/WIU and the BASE3. So now you can launch one app and run both Lionel and MTH command systems from a single interface with a handheld controller interface built in. Maybe I'm biting off more than I can chew but I think there would be demand for this. Finally, a single remote (app) that works for everyone's command system.

While many here like the traditional remotes, they were also the source of many frustrations for me. After seeing how much faster and smoother I could issue commands on the DCS App, the remote became history to me. It was slow, the scroll wheel was slower. The LCD screen of the CAB2 & DCS remote had the horrible refresh rate that LCD screens are known for. I could press buttons and issue commands faster than the screens could update. A phone made 10 years ago simply has better technology and a faster CPU to facilitate a user interface that responds as quickly as I'd like. I suspect that any new hardware remote from Lionel or MTH will be built around their respective apps and not with an in house dedicated hardware remote like the CAB2 or the DCS Remote. I'm for a new remote, but they need to use modern tech, better screens, and don't just reproduce your 20 year old design.

@H1000 posted:

Then I brainstormed this into my next wild idea, how about a single app that will interface with both the WTIU/WIU and the BASE3. So now you can launch one app and run both Lionel and MTH command systems from a single interface with a handheld controller interface built in. Maybe I'm biting off more than I can chew but I think there would be demand for this. Finally, a single remote (app) that works for everyone's command system.

This sounds like an interesting idea!

@H1000 posted:

I'm for a new remote, but they need to use modern tech, better screens, and don't just reproduce your 20 year old design.

My problem with the phone, or any similar device, is no tactile feedback from physical keys.  I can agree that it's quite possible to improve on the existing designs, but the existing designs are better than a plain phone app, at least IMO as well as a host of other user's as well.

@H1000 posted:

After seeing how much faster and smoother I could issue commands on the DCS App, the remote became history to me.

As long as your eyes are on the phone the whole time.

@gunrunnerjohn is spot on here.  Once you take them off the screen to look at the train your fingers-and-thumbs skills slow down dramatically because of the lack of tactile feedback.

Most of us want to watch the train while we're controlling it.  A phone as a controller, to me, is too slow as a result because of the need to constantly move your eyes back and forth from the train to the phone -- something that's especially critical, when it becomes necessary, to initiate an emergency stop to avoid a wreck.

(This is not trivial.  Several postings in the last week have referred to wrecks when using the new Base 3.  True, these have been apparently because of slow response by the system, but it doesn't help if the operator can't the activate the controls quickly enough in the process.)

Mike

Vernon I now have all the parts to complete one of these RTC Adapters. I have purchased the same boards as you have. I see the wire connections on the ESP8266 board via your picture however you don't show in your pictures the connection to the CC1101E radio board. Could you provide a picture of the wired connections to the radio board. I have a friend printing the cases and Mark sent me the latest RTC file to flash the board.

Thank you in advance!