Hey there, I have had a DCS system now for the past few years with a couple of PS3 locomotives, and recently decided to also integrate in TMCC (ebay had some good deals and I couldn't resist).
I picked up the following:
- Cab-1 Remote (6-12868)
- TMCC Base (6-12911)
- TMCC PM-1 (6-24130)
- MTH TMCC Adapter (50-1032)
- PH-180
I did some basic testing (just making sure TMCC engine & equipment I bought worked) with TMCC Command Base wired to output post of TIU. I'm looking to integrate the PH180 and am wondering the best way to wire in TMCC permanently (and hopefully modular so I can drop-in a replacement legacy command base if I ever dive into that).
I have 3 different ways I could go about wiring up to work nicely with the TIU from what I've been researching over the past few days:
- PH180 -> TIU (Molex Adapter) -> SERIAL to TMCC -> Command Base
- PH180 -> Powermaster -> TIU
- PH180 -> TIU, TMCC Command Base to TIU output
As far as track setup, I have a relatively small O-72 Loop w/ a few fastrack switches, and 3 PS3 engines (Mix of railking/premier), 1 TMCC-Odyssey engine.
One thing I would like to try and keep from TMCC is ability to serial control from a PC (JMRI/Decoder-Pro) (looking into layout automation for a development project).
Is there any big benefit to one off those 3 options over the other? I plan on adding TVS diodes (1.5KE36CA), if I ran to powermaster first it appears I would need a 22uH choke to keep DCS signal alive (unless that is only for the powermaster 360 variant), as well as possibly needing to buy a PSX-AC (which sounds like I should probably buy one anyway). Hoping to figure out what the best options were before I end up buying into multiple ways (which as I have a CB and TMCC Powermaster, I pretty much have already started).
