Set up questions

[Tom Tee]

Long time on board battery 0 scale R/C user,  newby RailPro user.

Just had a failed emergency stop situation when the "STOP" button provided no response.  What may I have missed or done incorrectly to have preempted the stop feature?

I will be reinstalling my RP into a prime mover.

Thank you,  Tom

[jordanhd87]

Are you certain the locomotive module was in range and communicating with the hand held controller?

[Tom Tee]

Thank you for your reply.  yes and yes.  The loco was at a 4 foot distance and I was actively at the throttle.  This is the only RP loco I have and  it was on the screen.  The RP loco was entering an incorrectly set of points.  (My bad)

For what other reasons would the "STOP" feature not work?

 

[JRad]

If the loco was on the screen at the time, why would you not just reduce the throttle to zero?

I think the one time I tried the All Stop function, it didn't work for me. I'm battery power.  Might this command only affect the PWR-56's ??

[G8B4Life]

The two stop methods work differently.

"Set all speeds to zero"  communicates to all the detected LM's in the HC to set their speeds to zero. It also, if they have been detected, communicates this request to other HC's as well.

"Power off Stop", kills the power on any detected PWR-75 and PWR-56. A battery powered LM is not going to be affected by this and keep on going.

- Tim

[Tom Tee]

Thank you for the input.

This RR uses MTO #09 14.8 volt batteries in all my R/C locomotives.   Based on what you said that may possibly be the reason??

When the train topped the grade at speed and entered the station area supposedly on the express track, with a turnouts points set wrong, in panic I hit the red STOP.   

Total elapsed time one second or less.  Not a time for contemplation weighing the various actions which i could have selected.

So...with battery power only what should I have done to perform a sudden death emergency stop?

What is "Set all speeds to zero"?

I appreciate the replies, RP is all new to me and I need to understand it's nuances.

[G8B4Life]

So, probably the easiest way to explain it is "Set all speeds to zero" is akin to you using the big round knob on your HC to set the speed to zero on every LM loaded into the HC and doing so for all of them in a split second. This let's the trains(s) slow down instead of an abrupt stop.

"Power off Stop" is akin to you walking over and pulling the track power plug from the wall. If your models were track powered with Rings PWR-75 or PWR-56 power supplies this would command them to turn off track power (basically pulling the plug wirelessly). This would bring the trains to an abrupt stop.

As your models are battery powered and not track powered using Rings power supplies, as you have found out, "Power off Stop" does nothing as you don't have anything that that command from the HC can turn off.

There isn't really anything RP-wise that you can do to perform a sudden death emergency stop when using battery power. Perhaps this is something Ring could program into LM's, a user set flag that denotes the LM is battery powered and if Power off Stop is pressed the LM can check the flag and kill power to the motor if it's battery powered.

- Tim

[Tom Tee]

Tim,

Thank you for your concise answer.  RP stopping action is very prototypical.  There are 115 turnouts involved and being a solo operator I just need to step up my game.   This incident with it's attending minor damage was a wake up call.

Second set up question if I may:
Is there something I can do to align the chuff sound rate to track actual steam locomotive side rod action?
Being on the verge of reinstalling my RP into a prime mover so I am holding out hope it can be made to track better in it's present host, a C&O 2-6-6-6 H8 Allegheny. 
The chuff frequently has a delayed start,  it runs at a much different rate than the driving rods and runs on at a mainline speed when slowing down to stop.
This RP installation was performed by a RP professional who has been doing RP work for years in various scales.
Thank you.

[G8B4Life]

I don't know much about the chuff feature as I don't do steam so I'll have to bow out to anyone who does (might take a while for someone to reply, we're not ultra fast around here sometimes.) however the G series modules, at least the LM-4S-G, you can use the input wire as a chuff trigger. There is some info in the manual for the LM about it.

- Tim

[JRad]

Yep. Don't know if the chuff input (purple) is active in any other than the G modules.

Even in the modules with the active input, the timing is far from perfect. Start up is pretty good, but deceleration and stop can be very off, similar to the voltage based chuff.

For voltage chuff there are a few tweaks. In the loco setup screens there is a Chuff Rate setting, but it isn't always very effective either. In an attempt to improve the sync, Doug (MtRR75) wrote a document on setting up the speed table. This is a lot of work, but does help a little.  I don't have a link to where that that document was posted on RPUG, so I'll attach a copy here.

[Tom Tee]

Guys,

Thanks for the replies.  I seem to have made a mistake going to RP for steam. 

I have about a dozen large articulated steam and just as many large non articulated Class 1 steam each of which I was looking to add RP battery with sound.

My 2 rail 0 scale RR is quite large, just wish I discovered onboard battery before I went through 6,000 feet of 10, 12 & 14 ga wire. 

It seems as though RP may be best used as a prime mover control due to the lack of need for absolute matching of sound to the locomotive's movement .

Thanks for the link JRad.  However if the steps involved still lack accurate sound/movement tracking I'll just continue to look for transplanting into a Diesel loco.

[JRad]

OK Tom.  Diesel is really good and tracks movement well -OR- can be manually controlled.

I live with the drawbacks on the steam side because consisting is so easy. I do a lot of making & breaking of consists on my RR and RP is blows everything else away with its ease of setting up consists of dissimilar locos.

If enough of us contact Ring and ask that it be improved, we might get heard.

[Tom Tee]

Is there an accurate steam sound for battery RC?   Really desire continue on with wireless.

Our Lionel and MTH,  although track powered, have excellent steam sound. 

The indoor RR fills up 2k sq ft with AC, DC and battery over both two and three rail track.

[JRad]

The sounds themselves are very good. Especially the recent ULT files.

When you say accurate, are you talking about timing with the cylinder movement?

The timing is adjustable, but never perfect.

Again, for me, the pros of RailPro far outweigh any limitations of the steam sounds.