The LoDi system
One PC, one network and three interfaces, one for each job. This page explains how the parts work together – and at the very end the layout planner works out what your layout needs.
The intelligence sits in your control software, such as iTrain, WinDigipet or Modellbahnstellwerk. It plans routes and runs the trains automatically; the LoDi devices are its eyes, ears and hands. You set them up with the free LoDi-ProgrammerFX for Windows, macOS and Linux.
The PC and the devices sit on your ordinary router or switch – with the yellow network cable that comes with every interface. No special cable to the PC, no interface card.
Running, switching and feedback go through three separate interfaces, each with a bus of its own. Setting turnouts never slows the trains, and you only build the part you need right now.
There is one LoDi-Rektor per layout, and one of each Commander is usually enough – a second only comes in with a great many modules. Behind them go as many modules as your layout needs.
Making the commands and putting power on the track.
The Rektor turns the PC’s commands into the track signal in DCC, mfx® and Motorola and drives every booster. On a short circuit a booster cuts only the district concerned and reports where it happened.
Turnouts, signals and lighting on a bus of their own.
Up to 480 switching outputs on one Shift-Commander, with no load on the track signal. The modules are daisy-chained with patch cables and recognised when plugged in; the timing for the room lighting is built in.
From the track back to the software: which train is where?
The detectors spot occupied track, read over RailCom which loco is there and pin a short circuit down to the block. The S88-Commander collects this from up to 96 modules and hands it on to the control software.
Every connection has its colour – on the cables, the sockets and the bus LEDs of the modules. So even under the layout you see at once what goes where.
Turnout and servo decoders for DCC need no interface: they sit straight on the track signal and work with any DCC command station, including one from another maker. That pays off for a few turnouts or servos. For many outputs, for signals and for lights the Shift-Commander is the better way – lights only go through it.
With the LoDi-Rektor it can stay on the layout as a hand controller.
Existing s88 and s88N detectors keep working on the S88-Commander LX.
The LoDi-Con hand controller also talks to command stations using the Z21 protocol, CS2/CS3, ECoS or Lenz, and the DCC decoders switch on any DCC command station.
Layout planner
Describe your layout; the planner works out which LoDi devices you need and puts them all in the cart.