DCC Hacking

Project Logs

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A Quick Update
Jac Goudsmit • 02/05/2022 at 02:12 • 0 comments

I know it's been quiet in this corner for a long time. But lately there have been some exciting things happening to this project. So here goes!

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Exciting News: Incoming Data!
Jac Goudsmit • 02/16/2019 at 08:21 • 2 comments

I fixed a few problems in the Synchronous Serial capturing program that catches the output of the microcontroller in the DCC-175, and behold: this was scrolling up my screen while I was playing my Grace Jones - Island Life prerecorded cassette!

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First Signs of Life from the Analyzer (Update: Now in Hexadecimal!)
Jac Goudsmit • 01/22/2019 at 08:46 • 0 comments

I finally had some time to work on the Propeller software that interprets the synchronous serial data. The data in this picture are definitely completely wrong but at least the synchronous serial analyzer cog is generating data. For one thing, the Windows 98 computer was off during this first test and I don't know if the DCC-175 even talks to the chip in the DCC-Link in this state. Also the output format doesn't make sense: it should show a hexdump with lines that start with a memory address, followed by hexadecimal data, followed by filtered ASCII characters.

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The Turkey Lab
Jac Goudsmit • 12/25/2018 at 05:11 • 0 comments

A quick update to show off the "Turkey Lab", so named because I attached all the parts of the project to the bottom side of a cutting board that we used for cutting the Turkey on Thanksgiving Day until now. I used double-sided adhesive tape so that I can eventually detach everything again. At least I hope so: when I used the same tape to put blacklights on the wall for a Halloween party, it took parts of the wall with it when I tried to take the blacklights down again. Because of that, we now refer to this particular type of tape as Evil Tape in my house. So I suppose this must be a picture of the Evil Turkey Lab then ;-) .

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Good News! No News.
Jac Goudsmit • 11/25/2018 at 23:01 • 0 comments

The other day, I wanted to do some work on this project again after it had been put away for a while. But to my surprise and disappointment, the DCC-175 that I was using for the project before, had completely stopped working. Normally when you push the Play button (or Rewind or Fast Forward), a DCC-170 or DCC-175 shows a message on the screen saying "Power On". But the screen stayed blank.

This was depressing, because I got this DCC-175 a few years ago, after my first 175 stopped working in pretty much the same way. I couldn't find the problem in the first one, and I was afraid I would have to start looking for another replacement on eBay, and they are getting really rare. But then I thought: Maybe I should try connecting it to the computer and power it up that way? As you can see below, that idea wasn't totally successful but also not a complete failure.

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Analyzing, Please Stand By. Your Call Is Important to Us.
Jac Goudsmit • 08/19/2018 at 06:54 • 0 comments

As I mentioned in the previous log, I found out that the microcontroller in the DCC-175 and the custom chip in the DCC-Link cable communicate in blocks of 32 bytes each direction. I've been wanting to set up a Propeller on a breadboard to do some deeper analysis but because it's crunch time at work, I haven't had time.

Anyway, I thought it might be a good idea to do a brain dump of some of the details of my findings, along with some pictures of the logic analyzer screen for reference. That way I'll have all the information gathered here once I start programming. I'll also show some timing diagrams from the 3rd generation chipset datasheets.

Warning: This might get a little dry, technical and boring so if you're here to see circuits getting soldered together (or breadboarded) and doing useful stuff, you may want to "sit this one out".

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Now We're Talking!
Jac Goudsmit • 07/21/2018 at 07:12 • 0 comments

After the fiasco that I described in the previous log, where I had connected all the wires in the wrong order, I finally saw some usable data on the Logic Analyzer that made sense. In this log, I'll describe the signals for those who are playing along at home, and maybe haven't read the datasheets and service manuals (or haven't read them as many times as I have).

First of all, let's fix a mistake in the schematic in the DCC-175 service diagram:

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Log All the Fails!
Jac Goudsmit • 07/20/2018 at 06:01 • 0 comments

I finally started to do something that I've been wanting to do for over 20 years: use a logic analyzer to figure out how the DCC-175 communicates with the PC. It didn't go so well but I fixed my mistakes. If you want, you can skip this log to go to the next log which will have some juicy interesting stuff (arguably?). If you want to find out how I made a stupid wrong assumption that threw me off for a few days, keep reading.

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Introduction to the DCC-175
Jac Goudsmit • 07/18/2018 at 03:45 • 0 comments

It shouldn't surprise anyone that a DCC recorder is significantly more complicated than a regular cassette deck.

This article gives an overview of the general architecture of a DCC recorder, and the DCC-175 in particular.

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