Rick jones shares:
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"I put the BLI E1A, that I mentioned having trouble programming in another thread, on my programming track at home today and discovered that the address had reverted to 3 with the factory reset. Trying to read the address at the club after the reset kept telling me it was still at the address I thought I had programmed. Long story made shorter
- for some reason I have to remove power from the engine after making programming changes for those changes to take effect."
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Several brands/makes/models require a power off after a reset before the reset takes effect.?
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When you took the engine off the rails at the club to bring it home, that powered the decoder off long enough for the decoder to actually complete the reset.
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“After it "reboots" then I can control it as expected with the new changes. I hadn't taken it off the rails at the club and so it appeared to have locked up. I think these Paragon 4 decoders are weird birds at this point, but it gets crazier."
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They are engineered differently and behave differently as a result.
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“Once that one was working to my satisfaction (I hope) I put the E1B unit one the programming track. In Decoder Pro I followed the usual routine - New loco, then Read Decoder. At this point the B unit began to move on its own on the programming track and I couldn't get it to stop from the PowerCab. It would move forward, make various engine and braking noises, reverse, change directions again, all the time ignoring the zero speed command from the PowerCab. I had to remove it from power.”
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The back and forth movement is likely the decoder responding to the read process.? A very simplistic version has the decoder asking “Is the value of CVx = 1?”? If that is true the decoder will pulse the motor as a means of saying “Yes”.?? Some decoder models will respond “Yes” in one direction for a response, then in the opposite direction for the next response.? The throttle will have no effect on the decoder on the program track while the command station is in Program Track mode – that’s why you couldn’t control it.
“I put it back on the rails and went back to Decoder Pro but couldn't seem to read anything. At some point I noticed the two messages in the lower left corner about the programming modes were red. Unplug and plug in the USB cable, check the serial port configuration, power down the PowerCab and restart multiple times, as well as shut down Decoder Pro and restart multiple times, nothing worked. When DP is restarted those two messages on the programming modes are green for a few seconds and then they turn red.”
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Sometimes the command station, the USB interface, and the computer get out of sync.? It has been mentioned by folks far more familiar with the behavior of JMRI than I that while JMRI screens shut down quickly when one exits the program, there’s quite a bit of background activity continuing for up to 30 seconds or more – restarting JMRI too quickly cause “interesting situations” between the copy of the program ending, and the copy of the program just starting.? This could include the new copy trying to grab the USB ports, etc. that haven’t yet been released by the old copy of the program.
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When all else fails, start over by rebooting the computer, then starting up the command station, and finally JMRI.
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Best regards,
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Steve
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Steve Haas
Snoqualmie, WA
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??? Gave up on programming the E1B for now but need some advice on how to get Decoder Pro back into normal operation. What else to check besides the things I've already tried listed above?
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?????????????????? Rick Jones
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Cats regard people as warm-blooded furniture.
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Rick Jones