[Nicholas Savatgy]

Well the new [SSS] system has arrived AKA Super Savatgy System.... some months ago i was talking to Greg E. and he was asking how i controlled the bell and horn on my QSI equipted locos under DC power. so after a little conversation Greg asked me if i had a TE and some accessorie receivers. i said i did he said ship them to him and he would come up with a way to use it with DC powered locos equipted with QSI. Greg said he enjoys tinkering with things and he would figure out a way to make it work.
A month and a half later this is what i received back from Greg and all i can say is he did a fantastic job, it looks as if it came from the factory this way and it works perfect as you will see by the video. also i cant say again how pleased i am with what Greg did here and i cant say enough how much fun it is to run my QSI locos without having to stand at the power pack and flick the power direction switch back and forth to make bell and horn ring. Also he made the receivers interchangable so if one blows another can replace it in a minute of work, also mounted them with velcrow so they will pull rite off the main board. he also labelled everything #1 and #2 system. outstanding job Greg and i do ow you one. also i would like to thank RJ as well, he gave me a great deal on some spare assec receivers for the system and some great conversation and ideals. its great talking to RJ and Greg on the phone, so much better than talking VIA email because you can get a sence of how people are by hearing them talk by phone, bolth are a class act and theres only a few people on this forum that i would talk to by phone and they made the list. thank you guys and look forward to more phone conversations in the future..

 

[Nicholas Savatgy]

More pictures... Also thank you Greg for doing a great job..

 

[lownote]

That's pretty neat that Greg managed to do that. Pretty cool--nice work and clever, makes use of Aristo's existng stuff. But I have to ask--why not just either go to DCC or barring that, go to something like QSI/Airwire? The QSI Airwire combo lets you do all these things plus it has the full DCC command set. And you can run it on straight DC if you want. That's what I do, just put 21 volts on the rails and control the trains with the Airiwre throttle. That way all the lights in passenger cars stay at a constant brightness.

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Nick (and many others ) already use the Aristo TE in a trackside configuration. Many people do not necessarily want to purchase one decoder for every loco / convert every loco all at once. Thus the popularity of a "remote throttle" concept on a loop of track. The popularity of the Aristo TE system speaks for itself .

So, for just a few bucks, I added the ability to control the bell and horn/whistle.

For many people who run DC on the rails and have a trackside TE set up for a loop of track, this is an inexpensive way to add control of these functions, a one-time cost.

You are right, more control if he added the Gwire to each loco and then got an AirWire or NCE controller. Or you can go full boat with a full DCC track power system.

But that was not the point, it was an inexpensive and simple add on to a TE system, that would still allow normal DC locos to function.

Regards, Greg

 

[aceinspp]

Thanks Nick for the kind words. Always nice to talk with you also. Glade i could help Greg and you on this project even tho not that much help. After all the conversations with Greg I never did see the finished project till now. It's nice to be able to use what one has available and not have to spend a lot of bucks to do what was accomplished here. Great job Greg and Nick cool Idea. Later RJD

 

[lownote]

Greg:

makes sense-I see the point

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Mike, on the Aristo site, you can really get a feel for how many people use a single TE, and assign it to it's own loop. Many people run a single train per track, and have really designed their layouts like that.

Of course, my preferences is for tons of locos all on the same track independently controlled. But I need to respect the groups of people who have different goals and priorities.

So, the idea was an inexpensive add-on for people using the TE in that manner, I have not totalled the parts cost, but the most expensive component is the Aristo accessory controller.

The rest of the parts are all available from Radio Shack (that was a goal of the design).

The other goal was for people to be able to use their stock TE handheld.

So, that's kind of a better explanation of how Nick and I got from "A" to "B".

Regards, Greg

 

[lkydvl]

Greg,

Any chance of a thread on how to do this or is it going to be on your web site? I have two overhead loops this would be the perfect setup for as I already use a TE on them.

Andre`

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Yep, VERY good chance!

The only fly in the ointment is that there is a range limitation on the accessory controller on certain channels.

(The TE system has 10 frequencies, and for every frequency, there are 10 different "codes" - called "tracks" by Aristo)

The accessory controllers work very well on freq 1, track 1, but range is a lot less on freq 1 track 2... I'm going to do some more experimenting, since I found that the range of the accessory controllers is affected by tuning, and EVERY one I used needed re-tuning... simple procedure, but necessary.

Regards, Greg