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This topic is now closed. If you are having issues or have questions regarding using a specific system with JMRI, please start a new topic. -- Peter Ulvestad Linux Mint 22.1, JMRI 5.11.3plus, Java 21.0.5 JMRI Users Group Moderator ( /g/jmriusers ) JMRI Developers Group Moderator ( ) Tam Valley Group Moderator ( ) Sprog-DCC Group Moderator ( ) Edmonton Model Railroad Association ( )
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All re ESU CabControl,
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I received an email from Lee Ryan at ESU support yesterday afternoon.? He confirmed that the connection listed in JMRI is correct, and that it applies to The CabControl unit as well as Ecos.
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RailCom's ability to talk back to a command system is a marvelous thing, right behind DCC's ability to talk to the decoder!
Dialogs are much better than monologues...
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Thank you to JMRI and MERG for all the work the volunteers do, truly amazing accomplishments.
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Ken Moordigian
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Michael,
Your comment might elicit some eye rolling from the 15-20 NMRA
folks that currently meet monthly to discuss DCC standards.
(including an official representative from MOROP)
Unfortunately there was a rough patch when the NMRA board left
things strictly up to the manufacturers to accomplish. The result
was what you saw below. Fortunately, that was another decade, and
the volunteers and new manufacturers are back.
Dick :)
On 3/22/2025 9:05 AM, Michael Smith via
groups.io wrote:
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John,?
It's not RailCommunity that has a problem it's the NMRA and
that was one of the reasons why RailComunity started issuing
their own specifications in the first place was because the NMRA
was not keeping on top of things!
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Michael?
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John,?
It's not RailCommunity that has a problem it's the NMRA and that was one of the reasons why RailComunity started issuing their own specifications in the first place was because the NMRA was not keeping on top of things!
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Michael?
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Michael,
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I admire the work you put in for MERG members in translation. It would seem maybe the railcommunity may need to come to terms and have their documents in English rather than just German. Then perhaps the main player will adopt them sooner than later.
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Since TCS and now MRC are going into RailCom, I think the understanding and interest in RailCom is going to grow in the US. But just like the adoption of LCC, it will take a while. As more products becomes available in the US, more users will get more understanding etc.… ? At some point that will include some willing AND able to help keep the NMRA involved. Right now, I suspect the number of people who feel comfortable with the technology are way too busy with what they are doing either with RailCom or other technology. ? -Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
? ?
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Dick,
It was not a cheap shot at the NMRA as you put it. The fact that the RailCommunity’s RailCom spec. RCN-217 is the fastest changing and largest spec. out of all the DCC specifications and needs updating for the user’s sake. For your information I was contacted some time back by a NMRA member apparently part of the team updating the NMRA’s version of the RailCom spec., he requested a copy of the latest English version of RCN-217 which I duly provided him with (so they have an English copy) and was told they would keep in contact, never heard from him since.
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To clarify my position in all this, I’m a member of Merg and have taken ALL the RailCommunity’s ??DCC specifications and translated them into English, and keep them up to date. I’m a totally non-paid volunteer and have made all these DCC specs. available to the Merg membership only through their website. So, if Merg can do it the NMRA should be able to as well. If you wish to read the latest DCC specs. join Merg.
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I’m not sure that it’s a problem of unpaid manpower more the interest in RailCom. I have been involved in the bidirectional element of DCC for quite sometime now and it seems that the North American market doesn’t want to know about RailCom. Digitrax has quite a large hold on the DCC market over there and promote their own Transponding system which is not NMRA compliant and is incompatible with RailCom which is compliant.
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jmri is the poorer without RailCom and the required hardware is cheap, simple and many decoder have the option built in already. ???
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Back to the topic? "Best Command Station to use with Decoder Pro
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I have a Z21 command station from Roco. This works wonderfully with DecoderPro and reads even complex ESU decoders in a few minutes via PoM (Railcom as feedback). The speed advantage over the DCC programming track method with ACK pulses is about 1:15.
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Uli
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On Fri, Mar 21, 2025 at 06:53 AM, Mark Granville wrote:
Do you know if there is a command station manufacturer with a lazy coder who made the “if it ain’t 0 it must be 1” assumption?
I'm aware of one that validates bit by bit as "is it zero" and if there is no ACK then it is assumed to be a one, however, after checking the eight bits it attempts to validate the assembled bits with a follow up PROG packet (0b01110100 as cmd byte). This would generate nine packets on the PROG track per CV to be read.
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Mike
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I recommend Digitrax. I want to see if they were the first ones to adopt USB as a connection point. And it’s been pretty darn solid in the 20 years I’ve been using it. Larry Sloan Eat, Sleep, Work, Play with trains
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On Mar 21, 2025, at 9:04?AM, Ken Cameron via groups.io <kcameron@...> wrote:
? I posted that as ‘here is what JMRI knows’ as I know very little about ESU beyond the decoders. Like “what is CabControl” vs the ECoS stuff? ? -Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
? ?
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Michael,
The NMRA version of RailCom, S-9.3.2 was published, in English,
back in 2012. See:
The fact that it does not include the latest updates that are
being worked out with the Rail Community is hardly any excuse for
the lack of participation by most US manufacturers.?
On the other hand, the lack of US support for RailCom (which is
virtually unknown the US market place) may be the root cause for
the lack of NMRA volunteer resources available to keep everything
current. The NMRA is its membership, and runs on its volunteers.
My guess is that the NMRA consists mostly of folks from the USA.
If it is lagging behind with RailCom, it is because there is no
volunteer running with that project. Taking a cheap shot at the
NMRA is not really a useful way out of this catch-22 situation.
JMRI does amazingly well at supporting what is being used by its
various contributors, but again, you don't see very much support
for products that we don't use. My guess is that JMRI DecoderPro
support will follow along very closely with NMRA standard product
capabilities and customer choices. I.e. we should purchase systems
that support the best programming options, not expect DecoderPro
to somehow magically make old slow designs work faster.
Dick :)
On 3/21/2025 5:01 AM, Michael Smith via
groups.io wrote:
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Yes the RailCommunity specs. are all in German but if you are
a Merg member they are all available to you in English and all
up to-date unlike the NMRA versions.
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RailCom+ is known within the RailCommunity specs. as DCC - A
(for automatic login).
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Michael
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Ken (Moordigian),
first question for JMRI is whether the Cab-Control system is actually supported.? The pages linked are for the ECoS system, which isn't the same thing.? ?
On networking,? you should be able to solve things.? ?There's an ethernet port on the Cab-Control, so if you've a spare port on an ethernet hub/switch which can be reached from the train room, then that provides a wired connection between things.? ?(There
may be some network address ranges to sort out).? ? ? But, without anything in software to support the device, you're still stuck,? so first question needs addressing first.??
Nigel
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------ Original Message ------
Date 21/03/2025 15:29:20
Subject Re: [jmriusers] Best Command Station to use with Decoder Pro
Ken Cameron,
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You mention JMRI support for Ecos but there is no mention there of the CabControl system.
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I've been using the CabControl for some months, but haven't yet implemented JMRI on the layout since I'm not to that point yet.
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I assumed there would be JMRI connectivity with no problems.? I still feel that should be true but in checking on this computer it appears to be thru a wifi link to the CabControl's "esuwifi".
As with many, I have an older computer in the train room, with an ethernet connection to the outside world, and it's not connected to the "esuwifi".?
I know I can run ethernet to the esuwifi but then it gets dodgie...
The CabControl will not hook up to the Internet via ethernet or wifi that I know of, but then again I don't know a lot.
I have yet to figure out how to connect 2 outside sources at once:? I have an ethernet port and the wireless port, but the computer, a Dell XPS, doesn't seem to want to use both at once.
Being a greedy soul, I would prefer to have both Internet and JMRI connections from the computer to the CabControl at the same time...
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I suppose it's an ESU support issue, but if you have any insight I'd appreciate it!
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Thanks,
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Ken Moordigian
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I posted that as ‘here is what JMRI knows’ as I know very little about ESU beyond the decoders. Like “what is CabControl” vs the ECoS stuff? ? -Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
? ?
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Ken (Cameron),
the JMRI support pages are for the ECoS system,? not the "CabControl" system.? ?There's nothing obvious on the JMRI pages about support for the CabControl system.??
The ESU pages say that connection is possible via the ethernet port, or via WiFi, but that's about it.? ?
- Nigel
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------ Original Message ------
Date 20/03/2025 23:45:19
Subject Re: [jmriusers] Best Command Station to use with Decoder Pro
Tom,
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The question is if the ESU command station will work with JMRI. If it does, then you have something. But I don’t recall what level of ESU command station support has been written for JMRI. But if you look at this page, it will help you
once your hardware arrives.
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Fundamentally it looks like some degree of support has been around for a number of years.
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-Ken Cameron, Member JMRI Dev Team
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Ken Cameron,
?
You mention JMRI support for Ecos but there is no mention there of the CabControl system.
?
I've been using the CabControl for some months, but haven't yet implemented JMRI on the layout since I'm not to that point yet.
?
I assumed there would be JMRI connectivity with no problems.? I still feel that should be true but in checking on this computer it appears to be thru a wifi link to the CabControl's "esuwifi".
As with many, I have an older computer in the train room, with an ethernet connection to the outside world, and it's not connected to the "esuwifi".?
I know I can run ethernet to the esuwifi but then it gets dodgie...
The CabControl will not hook up to the Internet via ethernet or wifi that I know of, but then again I don't know a lot.
I have yet to figure out how to connect 2 outside sources at once:? I have an ethernet port and the wireless port, but the computer, a Dell XPS, doesn't seem to want to use both at once.
Being a greedy soul, I would prefer to have both Internet and JMRI connections from the computer to the CabControl at the same time...
?
I suppose it's an ESU support issue, but if you have any insight I'd appreciate it!
?
Thanks,
?
Ken Moordigian
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On Fri, 21 Mar 2025 03:55:12 EDT Mick Moignard wrote: Actually, the decoder is not asked 8 questions, one for each bit. In Direct Bit mode, it’s as 16 questions, because it asks whether each bit is 0 and then 1, to be sure of a positive answer for one of the questions. No assumptions here; the bit can’t be assumed to be 1 if it’s not zero, because something could have gone wrong with the 0 question.
This makes sense. Mick – Is this ‘failsafe’ procedure in the NMRA Standards? I’ll try to check. Do you know if there is a command station manufacturer with a lazy coder who made the “if it ain’t 0 it must be 1” assumption?
Mark
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Yes the RailCommunity specs. are all in German but if you are a Merg member they are all available to you in English and all up to-date unlike the NMRA versions.
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RailCom+ is known within the RailCommunity specs. as DCC - A (for automatic login).
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Michael
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Nigel
The NMRA is on the case now on RailCom, in partnership with RailCommunity.
Mick
______________________________________
Mick Moignard
mick@...
p:+44 7774 652504
The week may start M, T, but it always ends WTF!
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Actually, the decoder is not asked 8 questions, one for each bit. In Direct
Bit mode, it’s as 16 questions, because it asks whether each bit is 0 and
then 1, to be sure of a positive answer for one of the questions. No
assumptions here; the bit can’t be assumed to be 1 if it’s not zero,
because something could have gone wrong with the 0 question.
In both Page and Direct Byte mode, it’s up to 256 questions, because it
asks 0, 255, then 1,2,4 up to 254, stopping when it gets an
acknowledgement.
Remember the decoder can only say “yes” as a positive answer. It can’t say
“No” and the command station should not take the lack of an answer to be
the end of the question. It will (should!) only pass back an answer on
positive receipt of “Yes” - ack pulse - responses.
Mick
______________________________________
Mick Moignard
mick@...
p:+44 7774 652504
The week may start M, T, but it always ends WTF!
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This topic needs to stay related to JMRI. Some comments are really pushing that.
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Peter Ulvestad
Ken Moordigian
Ken Cameron
@_Uli_
Mike Dunston