Dave R,
I've done well with using the move option as is for the story you are
relating. What I found was I never had a mass of items to move from the
Internal to real system. As each board was finally added to the layout, I
was usually adding only a couple of items at a time as we would first test
them and confirm the wiring/assignments. I found this to be the better way.
Each board might show up as a handful of new sensors or turnouts. I'd play
with them via that system table to confirm they are doing what I want,
sometimes adding the invert option as needed to get the logical result I
wanted.
This concept stresses the build and test method. Don't build more than what
you can immediately test. This is important because you may find something
didn't work exactly as you planned. You don't repeat the mistake X times,
you make it once. Then on further installations you get it right the first
time. Sadly I know of many layouts that don't follow this concept. Finding
the problem when there has been six months of work of all types makes it
very hard to trouble shoot. Try finding the shorts in a yard (4 mainline
blocks and the rest 'undetected' as a power district) when 13 new, hand
built turnouts were installed without all the proper gaps cut in the
turnouts. Catching of them took a long while working. Oh, did I mention they
were also painted and scenic applied? Same goes for other parts, do one at a
time and test, then make the updates, then move to the next part.
-Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
www.jmri.org
www.fingerlakeslivesteamers.org
www.cnymod.com
www.syracusemodelrr.org
Ken Cameron