I have learnt a lot reading through this thread and basically understanding that just about anything is possible if you know what your doing. Well a little bit of knowledge is dangerous in my case.? I would like some help to confirm what I need to buy next.

I have an Prodigy MRC Elite DDC system. Which is running the layout and controlling the UK made Mega points system.

I also have a wireless MRC computer USB connection talking to the Prodigy DDC and then using JMRI is controlling my points (Switches) and routes.? All works brilliantly. ?So so far I no connections other then wireless from the Windows PC to the DDC system. No wires running down the walls.

I also started to install Mega points block detection in anticipation of a future solution to talk back to JMRI.? ?However, I additionally purchased Digitax BDL168 and RX4s primarily??ready for transponding to work with a Surroundtraxx purchased but yet to be installed. Then of course I realised these BDL168 also have block detection capability. I basically duplicated my block detection hardware.? Reading and learning a little everyday I realised the Digitrax can and or should feed back to JMRI via locoNet the block detection.? Plus perhaps transponding?

?

So what do I need to connect these BDL168s back into JMRI? is it ?the ?“PR4 USB to LocoNet Interface with Decoder Programmer “ ??I also read about needing a ?“LocoBuffer-USB” Do I need both of these and or is there something else I am missing?

The good news is the Mega points block detection I already got, I can use for other tasks so I can and will re-purpose these.

Layout Mildura Station, Victorian Railways, transition era
PanelPro 15.4.4 (this was the latest test release when I started implementing automatic train running and I was loathe to try newer releases as I got things functioning before the Exhibition)
MacOS 10.12
DCS100 command station
PR4 interface
Layout with full block detection via loconet devices.
All cars with resistive wheelsets
All mainline turnouts and loop turnouts controlled via loconet.
Signal Mast Logic implemented with simple 3 aspect model train signals on panel.? (The visible layout has minimal working semaphore signals appropriate to the era.)

This weekend I have had my layout at an exhibition running trains with Dispatcher and Automatic Train Running.?? The layout has a bidirectional single track mainline with a central 4 track station and yard visible to the public.? At each end I have hidden balloon loops/staging to reverse and hold the trains.? One loop has 4 staging tracks the other has 2 staging tracks.?? Each train has its own home staging track and I use the station yard Track #2 for Westbound trains and Track #3 for Eastbound trains.? Track #1 is reserved for Passenger services and Track #4 for a high priority Express Freight.

A Westbound Transit starts from its designated East staging track and travels onto the single track mainline and into Station track #2.? After a brief Safe Working Pause the train then proceeds on the single track mainline to the West staging and return loop.? Again a brief Pause before returning Eastbound along the single track main to Station track #3 and then back to its home track in the East Staging.? Once the train completes its transit it waits a fixed time before restarting.? Each train has a different wait time resulting in some randomisation of trains appearing on scene.? Often while paused another train in staging will depart and the Paused train will wait until the portion of the transit to the next Safe section becomes available.? Along each transit trains vary in speed as appropriate, whistle at road crossings and do stop, pause restart in the station yard.? Three trains live in the East staging and one in the West Staging always leaving one track free for other trains to pass through on.

The setup worked very well with generally at least one train on scene at all times and often 2 active trains visible to the public.
Other modellers at the exhibition were most impressed with the capabilities of JMRI and even the General Public were enthralled with the constant activity and variety of trains appearing on the layout.? I was able to run the layout single handed and still spend a lot of time interacting with people where previously it has required 2 or 3 of us constantly trying to keep the traffic moving.

With 3 auto trains dispatched the system appeared bullet proof but with 4 trains one train would occasionally fail to stop at a "held" Red signal. (SPAD - Signal Passed at Danger)) This would happen at a frequency of once every few hundred train movements and could be accommodated with manual intervention (To Manual on whichever auto train misbehaved)
With 5 or more auto trains the occurrence of a single train failing to stop or the simultaneous release of 2 trains into a single line section was very common. (maybe in in 10 train movements)
Am I pushing the boundaries of the current automatic train operation or are there maybe some different Option settings that would help?

My current Dispatcher Options are:
Use Layout Panel and use SML
(on) Trains from Roster
(on) Layout has block detection hardware
(on) Automatically allocate Sections to Active Trains
(on) Automatically set points when a Section is allocated
(off) Trust Known State of Turnouts
(on) Use Short Active Train Names
(on) Place Train name in starting Block
(off) Place Roster Entry in starting Block
(on) Use alternate color for allocated Blocks
(off) Support Virtual Sound Decoder Positioning
Layout Scale HO
Units Scale Feet
StoppingSpeed Medium
Min Throttle Interval 100 milliseconds
Time to Fully Ramp 10,000 milliseconds
(off) Open Dispatcher with Panel

Activate New Train Allocation Method
allocate to next Safe Section
Is there any help on how the Train Priority works?? Is 1 the highest or lowest Priority?? It did not seem to make any difference in the order Dispatcher automatically released trains what Priority had been set for an individual train.

There were several other bugs I have noted.
1. I was running a x4 fast clock with 24 hr display.? If a train arrived back into staging at say 23:50 with a 20 minute delay before being redispatched, Dispatcher would Display 24:10 as the next dispatch time.? However the Fast Clock would roll over to 00:00 and never get to 24:10.? Hence the train would never restart.? I haven't tried with a 12 hour display.

2. Within a Transit each Section has an option to have a "Pause Allocation Sensor".? My interpretation of this is if this Sensor is Active on a Train entering this Section the Forward allocation of Sections in this Transit would be inhibited until the Sensor went Inactive.? This would be very useful to hold a train mid transit (eg while Paused) without blocking the forward mainline for other train movements.? I was not able to get this to work as expected.? Is this feature implemented now, a future development, or just I am misunderstanding its function?

3. Other than the Pause Allocation Sensor is there any other way to hold the forward allocation of sections while a train is paused mid transit?

4. Occasionally a train would fail to stop at the Held Red at the end of a Transit.? It would be very nice to have an action to Stop a Train at the end of a Transit but still allow it to be redisatched after a given delay time.? Pause will only Pause a train for a defined period and Set Speed does not allow setting a speed below 10%.

5. I found that occasionally a Sound Decoder equipped loco would fail to receive the horn off command after a Sound horn action was issued, leaving the horn sounding continually until the next horn action was issued.? This is very annoying with a horn sounding continually at the end of a transit or during an "in Transit" Pause!? This was easily overcome by adding a delayed Action "turn function 2 off" each time a Sound Horn Action was issued but painful to have to enter for 10 or more sound horn actions for each transit.? It would very nice if a double turn horn off command was issued (maybe with about a 100ms delay between commands) each time a turn horn on function or sequence was issued.? Also I could not get the sound horn sequence to work as I expected and resorted to multiple single Sound Horn Actions with suitable delays to get double or triple blasts of the horn approaching road crossings.

I would like to thank those who are working on the Dispatcher, Transit and Automatic Train Running portions of PanelPro for the great job they have achieved so far and while it was a fairly steep learning curve, to have exhibition standard operation with 4 trains running back and forth over multiple sections of birectional main with constant crosses at the central station for a full a weekend has been a great satisfaction both to myself and fellow modellers.

many thanks

Don McGilvery
Melbourne, Australia

#self.fwdSensor = sensors.provideSensor("ISIS1")

to 

self.fwdSensor  = InstanceManager.sensorManagerInstance().provideSensor("ISIS1")

the BackAndForth.py run

Doron

A fix is in for this on GitHub. I don't know if it will make JMRI version 4.15.8 (and 4.16), or be in 4.17.1.

Jerry,

Just checked and Dave Sand types faster than I do. He knows a lot more about Layout Panel editor than I do too. Perhaps some different information is provided here anyway.

Splitting your queries into three separate, but related topics:

First issue is that the rotated arrow isn't level with the non-rotated one even though they both have the same y position.?

Based on the fact that the properties for the Arrow 5 file, show the height to be an even number of pixels, and the fact that the image is not symmetric with the center line, which is impossible without altering the actual file, there is always going to be a discrepancy of one pixel up or down when rotated.

The easiest way to combat this is to make a copy of the file and save it in your profile:resources\icons\decorations or your settings:resources\icons\decorations folder and then edit the copied file to be symmetric with respect to a center line. Increasing or decreasing the height property by one pixel will make that task even easier.

Second issue is that the text is inverted in the rotated arrow - is there any way I can get the text to be rightside up??

You could try using the property of "Overlay Icon with Text..." from the right-click pulldown menu, but I am getting two copies of the text, one upside down and one right side up and both on top of each other. Maybe a bug?

A safer way would be to make a rotated copy of your edited version from the suggested fix for the first question. That may be cumbersome, but at least you will have the final control.

Third issue is that I can't size the arrow, either by changing the size, or by going into the XML of the panel file and changing the scale (scale doesn't show up on the pulldown in the Layout Editor when I right click over the icon) .?

The size option in the icon's "Size & Position" tab of the "Properties..." menu item in the pulldown menu seems to provide an offset option in my testing. The size option is one that I don't remember using. Someone else will have to provide some suggestions.

That is, unless you are willing to go back to suggestion one and change the size of the copied Arrow 5 image file.

Perhaps the size option has a bug too?

Cliff in Baja SoCal

On 9 Jun 2019, at 2:47 PM, Warren Baker <warrennbaker@...> wrote:

How do I print the CV's page/sheet onto a single page ?

I was able to do this on an old (2.12) version but can’t find how to print the whole CV’s sheet onto a single page with version 14.4

I’ve tried reducing the print size to 50% but it still prints two pages.

On 8 Jun 2019, at 11:33 PM, Dave Roberts <dccdaveroberts@...> wrote:

I am slowly wrapping my head around what I need to do next and with what hardware. I must say that I would prefer to stay with Apple’s OS now that I have left Windows behind some considerable time ago now.

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