If you want to complicate things further, some EMD locomotives are equipped with "Switcher Mode." This may be turned on by a simple bat handle toggle switch somewhere on the control stand, or may be one of the lineup of on-off switches originally built into the stand.

When implemented, nothing is different until the throttle is moved to Run 3, at which time the amps and pull jump up significantly, goosing the locomotive and its cars into motion. It is extremely helpful when kicking cars. We do not often kick model cars, but this operating mode would make flat switching less frustrating than dealing with very slow starts of models.

If the throttle is held in Run 2 for, say, 10 seconds, then moved to Run 3, there is no sudden jump in loading. It stays normal.

You should be able to get the same effect by setting your starting signals to get the locomotive moving quickly in a particular throttle notch.

All the above is from personal experience in a relatively limited number of locomotives in a short line setting, with locomotives that had already had a long life, so I have no idea how or how much they might have been modified throughout their lives.

Steve Bartlett

Hi all, brand new to JMRI and DCC so trying to get my head around things. I have an NCE powecab with usb module setup on a test track and have that working correctly, also using Megapoints DCC module and servo controller. I have manage to control my loco from the on screen throttle but cannot seem to find a way to connect to the megapoints boards. I have the dcc module set to gateway mode and the servo controller as slave. Power to the dcc module is taken from the main control board.
?I have setup configured a set of points in layout editor and can control these. I cannot for the life of me get the NCE to talk to megapoints. I am hoping that someonehere? a lot more experienced in the black arts can point me in the correct direction. Many thanks in advance, I don't suppose this will be my last plea for help. cheers

Hi.? ?Yes there is only one command station the?PR4 is the USB to LocoNet Interface with the PC.? I have the MRC and point/turnouts system connected on coms port 3 of the PC with the? MRC 0001515 Wireless Computer Interface.
then the PR4 is USB connected to coms port 4 of the PC.?
The part I am struggling with is how to change a CV on the BDL168, as I do not have the command station. I think reading the JMRI notes you can do it from JMRI??

Thanks, have ordered the diods and resitor.

I have a question that while on the surface it may seem off-topic but this is the only forum that I feel I can get a knowledgeable answer. I am a Digitrax user and as funds become available, I am setting up a detection system using the SE8c for the signaling and the BDL168 for detection.

?

Now for the off-topic part of my question. As I accumulate funds for signaling and detection, I am working on other aspects of the railroad…at the present time, I am working on ballasting the track. There is not a single type of ballast product that correctly models the ballast on the railroad I am modeling so I have been blending three different types. One is from the company Superior Scenics. After blending about half a quart of ballast yesterday evening with this product in it, I discovered that Superior Scenic ballast has some MAGNETIC rock in it, probably iron. I have yet to lay any of this ballast down but I am now concerned that with a magnetic ballast, detection and/or signaling might adversely be affected. I know fully well that magnetic particles, should they get into a motor will destroy it and I am also aware that any tank mounted speakers could pick it up and the sound would be detrimentally affected. Does anyone know, or have experience with, detection/signaling over trackage with a ballast that contains magnetic particles/granules?

?

Thank you for any and all comments,

?

Jim Shellhaas

Westfield, IN

Good morning Dave
Sorry for the delay in replying, didn't get back until 0200 Friday.
I have run through your modified panel. I modified the original startup files as can be seen here. I hope this is correct.
With the above changes I tried the changes to the panel.
Observations:
SD2 and SD3 both have included unwanted signal aspects (Flashing Red & Yellow, Double Yellow) . The latter becomes apparent when SD3 is yellow - SD 2 becomes Double Yellow. I could not find a way of restricting these unwanted aspects
The indivual heads of the Mast SD2 do not display. SD7-9 are the heads that communicate to the Software Node via the Turnout Table. For this reason to hardware gantry signals do not update the physial signals.
Signalling follows the routing and, depending on the destination mast, displays the correct SD2 aspect.
I could not find an entry for virtual Signal SD2 in the tables.
I suspect I have an error in my loading of the startup files.
Thanks again for your support.

follow the link provided and download the .EXE file as it is the Windows version of JMRI 4.17.5 ...? Jenkins builds are one step before a JMRI Test Release.

Be aware that your Anti-VIrus app may flag the file as a potential malicious file. IF this happens tell the AV the file is safe.

Marc

I have a Gaugemaster (MRC) Prodigy 2 and what I did was to make a virtual ground using 2 diodes on the track output of the Prodigy, feeding into the then feed them into a 1k? resistor.? For the railsync signal which is required for the BDL 168s? as I was worried about the 15V output going into the 7v no 1 pin (White on a loconet cable) on loconet, I put another 1k resistor in the non return leg of the Prodigy. I now have a DCS 50 Zephyr running as a master for track detection and the Prodigy for loco control and the system works well. The link for the railsync is here?
and the virtual ground link is here.

Ken,
This whole discussion is my fault and the results of my laziness. Instead of doing it myself I wanted the easy way and have someone tell me the answers. It turned out for the better because it forced me to do it myself.

I have everything from the throttle to the Base station, the LCS devices as well as logic and protocol analyzer. That's how
I was able to see and verify what was what. I even captured the hex sequences on the knob rotation. With that I created
as design map in excel that lets me see whats needed. I learned NetBeans and its debug to see what Java is doing.
Now its just a matter of inserting the necessary code to carry out those instructions. My plan and next step is to build a GUI interface and run it parallel. If it compiles I'm done But the point of all Self Development. Which is why I'm happy with the way
it turned out.

Always think to the future and Always have a back out plan. Because any plan without a back out plan is called a suicide mission.? Thanks for the input
Inobu?



?

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Howard,
I am assuming that the MRC Elite is the "command"? station that you? use to control the trains also for controlling the turnouts.
The BDL168 needs a Loconet which you? have attached at PR4.? One of the "rules" with a DCC system is that you should only have one DCC command station.
If the PR4 is also a command station, it would be better that it not be attached to this Loconet.? What is the purpose of the PR4 that is attached to the Loconet??
The BDL168 when on a "stand-alone" Loconet (one without a command station) will require the "rail-sync" signal from the command station, in this case? your MRC Elite.
The BDL168 is the? only Digitrax accessory product that requires the rail-sync signal.
Also, the BDL168 has the "pull-up" you are mentioning.? It is one of the CV settings on the board? (check the BDL168 documentation for the CV number).? If you are using more than one BDL168, only one of them needs to have the pull-up? CV set.
I work on two layouts which are NCE with Stand-alone Loconet implementations.? One is very similar to yours but we use an NCE command station and it required connecting the rail-sync wire in
the Loconet cable to the rail-sync of the appropriate wire in the NCE cable (serial bus or the cab bus?).? In the other implementation, I use a RR-Circkits Watchman for block detection.
In this case rail-sync from the NCE command station is not needed or required and this is entirely why I went with this implementation as well as it was less expensive.? I tried the resistor / diode setup? and blew the NCE command station.? It went back for repair.
Hope this helps you.
Marshall

Being new to this what do I download from the Jenkins page there are a number of different items that I do not understand. I Thank you for your help in this matter.?

My view is that some of the things that may come from this and later LCC
will expand the flexibility of the throttle concept. My thought that
currently it only has one variable value (speed) is one limitation. Things
like brakes, intensity, volume, rotation, etc... these are all things that
might come around needing a second variable (knob on throttle). I don't know
if we'd conceive of a need for string input (voice announcements?) and
multi-state things like radio buttons could ride as Booleans (which we do)
but not as clean.

I think our basic design is flexible enough to gain some more features.
Finding examples that have them will really drive this. If we don't have
hardware to show the path, it is really hard to plot a good course to get
there.

-Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
www.jmri.org
www.fingerlakeslivesteamers.org
www.cnymod.org
www.syracusemodelrr.org

Dave,

The users interface is the throttle. The throttle in JMRI is written for TMCC-1. The foundation is there, the coding needs to be
added to support the command structure of TMCC-2.

I have completed all the testing, it's just the point of coding now.

This is like facing a revolt where the masses are screaming No! We want half rations! and a faint voice yells quarter rations!
which erupts with the masses yelling Quarter Rations!

Inobu

Ken,

If you look back a few weeks ago? posted a link for the Lionels Hand Held throttle.?



Look at the addressing Function ---- Those buttons control the Parameter index in the 3 word command format.?
So the user will press different buttons that will create the command syntax. When the command word is completed the
command string is sent out. If the user does not complete the 3 word command nothing is send.

So to blow the horn, the ENG button is pushed setting up setOpCode F8, at that point the hand held will look for the address of the engine. The user will enter the ID. This TMCC ID will be appended to the command. Next the hand held will change the display from the digit pad to an icon pad. That icon pad will then allow the users to press the icon representing the command they wanted to execute. At that point the complete command is sent as the 9 hex code string. Note that the last hex value is a checksum that will be checked. That comment itself would be a trigger word as no checksum was written in TMCC-1.?

The JMRI Throttle needs to have those Parameter buttons in order to construct the command. As of right now the TMCC commands are relegated to the function keys which are predetermined. That limits the users ability to access the full complement of commands.
This whole bantering falls under the you don't know what you don't know. Every one thinks its ok because they don't know the full capabilities of TMCC-2.

TMCC-2 runs rule 17 where the lights dim when the engine takes off......That is why I used the ground light as example. Some people don't know you can access them or know they exists. Performing the simple task I persented would have reveal the short coming.??

Inobu

Forgive my intrusion into this discussion, but I appear to be missing something.

Take a look at the manual:



The controller has a lot of controls and includes a keypad that changes into different sets of icons which can trigger different features.

Since the JMRI Throttle is based on DCC practices, it cannot handle the complexity of TMCC2. I believe the real challenge of supporting TMCC2 is designing the user interface. Translating interface events into TMCC2 messages is probably trivial and is no different than translating JMRI throttle events into NCE/Digitrax/etc. commands.

Dave Sand

Charles,

Here is the solution for Conrad in the example:

<notch-sound>
<notch>0</notch>
<next-notch>1</next-notch>
<prev-notch>0</prev-notch>
<accel-limit>6</accel-limit>
<decel-limit>0</decel-limit>
<file>sounds/engine/Idle.wav</file>
</notch-sound>

<notch-sound>
<notch>1</notch>
<next-notch>2</next-notch>
<prev-notch>0</prev-notch>
<accel-limit>12</accel-limit>
<decel-limit>6</decel-limit>
<file>sounds/engine/FS0.wav</file>
<accel-file>sounds/engine/FS0-FS1.wav</accel-file>
<decel-file>sounds/engine/Idle.wav</decel-file>
</notch-sound>

What you (and others) see here is an excerpt from a config.xml file. The config.xml is a part of the Virtual Sound Decoder (VSD) file. The sound files and the license file are the other parts of a VSD file.

The excerpt shows how notches for a Diesel locomotive sound are defined. Conrad's question was how to insert an idle sound. And I suggested to insert a notch 0. VSD takes the lowest notch number as the idle sound. The notch numbering is free but the notch numbers must be unique. Alternatively a renumbering would have been possible, i.e., insert a notch 1 and renumber the old notch 1 to notch 2 and so on.

<next-notch> and <prev-notch> defines the sequence forwards and backwards. <accel-limit> and <decel-limit> defines speed thresholds. The loco speed is available as a value of 0-1. Speed multiplied by 100 gives the threshold value.

<file>, <accel-file> and <decel-file> are references to the sound files in WAV format.

Sorry, if my explanations were too detailed. But I wanted to take this opportunity to explain the VSD configuration in more detail using the example.

Klaus


Am 25.10.2019 um 05:12 schrieb Charles Meo:

I’m sorry you’re frustrated by this. If you’re done, you’re done. No need to reply.

But there are people who really do want to help you if they could just understand what you’re trying to do.

I very much understand that complex commands need to be sent over the line. I’ve written lots of code to do that.

What I don’t understand is why you seem to require that the command itself be surfaced through the throttle. Hence the question about what you mean by “formulate the command via key strokes"

I can’t learn what you mean by that by doing experiments with JMRI. I know what that part of JMRI does; you’ll notice my name at the top of the files you’re modifying. I’m trying to understand what _you_ want it to do.

Bob

On Oct 25, 2019, at 8:05 AM, Inobu One via Groups.Io <one2beros@...> wrote:

Bob,

Part of understanding a problem is to reproduce that problem. I offered a scenario that would
allow you to see the issue and hand and you flatly refused. It would have taken you a minute to
accomplish yet you want me to explain in detail an issue you could clearly see youself if you just
made a few mouses clicks. I have used setOpCode which is used by new AbstractMRMessage instance.
This is the center stone of the issue, if that does not trigger something nothing will as it is the heart of the issue.

As a test engineer, my job was to help in the development of new products. This is reminiscence of those times.
So to insure that the deliverable would be within the guidelines of JMRI it is certainly achievable. Do I need TMCC 2 working.
Yes. Do I need it as part of the build no.

In regards to your "Next steps are up to you, I think." Its not up to me to convince you to open JMRI and run TMCC-2 commands.
That's up to you.

Because I know if JMRI would issued this command ......F8 5F 72 FB 5E C0 FB 5E B2
a Legacy engine with the TMCC ID of 47 would announce "Stillwell Ave,Coney Island"

I think I'm done with this discussion.
Inobu

--
Bob Jacobsen
rgj1927@...

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Start up a TMCC connection in simulation mode. Open the TMCC monitor and Send TMCC command windows.

??? JMRI was started by (Bob) to program decoders in plain English for DCC users back in the early days.? It has really expanded since then.? But it's roots are so the average Model Railroader can be a Model Railroad Engineer and not a software Engineer.

??? Remember there are a lot of Model Railroads still using DC (or AC)!

-- 
Jon Miller
For me time stopped in 1941
Digitrax  Chief/Zephyr systems, JMRI User
SPROG User
NMRA Life member #2623
Member SFRH&MS