Throttle Developers Guide - Overview

These pages are a brief set of notes to help people write/create their own software or physical/hardware throttle/controllers to use the DCC-EX EX-CommandStations.

The EX-CommandStation can communicate with either Native/Serial Protocol or the WiThrottle protocol. Only the Native/Serial Protocol is discussed here. If you wish to use the WiThrottle protocol see the JMRI Web Site for more information.

General

If you are creating a physical throttle using an ESP32 microcontroller, you are strongly advised to make use of the DCCEXProtocol library.

The commonly used speed, function, loco programming and diagnostic commands are discussed elsewhere with users in mind. However, there are a large number of commands designed only to be used by other programs such as JMRI, Engine Driver or other throttles specifically aimed at the DCC-EX Native/Serial Protocol. (not WiThrottle)

Many commands that have been implemented to assist throttle authors to obtain information from the EX-CommandStation in order to implement turnout/point, route/automation and roster features. Some of these commands are deliberately multi-stage requests to avoid timing and blocking issues caused by massive transmissions (e.g. a full list of turnouts/points with descriptions) that can cause EX-CommandStation issues.

Broadcast replies are also designed so that a throttle can maintain loco speed and function states, turnout/point positions and route states.