Lost function

[G8B4Life]

Here's a new one, today I lost a function from the LM2-S. I believe I know what caused it (below), I haven't been able to find a solution.

I lost the auto flash ditch lights on horn function. It no longer works. I can turn them on individually and use the ditch button to flash them, which all works correctly, but when the horn is used, nothing, they stay on a full brightness (or if the ditch lights were off, pressing the horn turns just one ditch light on).

So this is what I did. I was reorganising buttons on the screen, moving various function between pages one and two. Because we don't have bells over here (well, they are a rarity, a few loco's now have them) many of our loco's with 5 chime horns have a feature called "low note" which is just a few of the trumpets so one doesn't get blasted by the full horn when moving about yards, depots etc.

With this in mind, I created another horn button and set it to the main horn as I don't have a low note recording yet.  After saving the setup I tested the buttons and noticed that the auto flash ditch lights was not working.

So, I am lost for ideas. I tried making the second horn button "not used", no luck. Tried making it a light, no luck. Tried making it another sound, still no luck.

I think an email to Ring might be in order.

- Tim

[nodcc4me]

It sounds like you may have confused the module (is that even possible? 
 You can try deleting all the horn buttons, reset the power to the locomotive, then start over, adding the buttons one at a time.

[KPack]

I'd try to move the buttons back to where they were before and test it.  It sounds like with two horns on there the LM is getting confused as to which one should activate the ditchlights. 

If all else fails, resetting the module to factory defaults should solve it.  Never done that myself, but it's an option.

-Kevin

[KPack]

Also, check that you have your buttons set in the right order.  Sounds like you may have either changed one of the pictures to something that won't work, or you have them in the wrong order.  The button pictures are more than just pictures....there is some coding built in behind the pictures to give them special functions.

From the HC-2 manual:

Auto Ditch Lights on Horn
This option will cause the ditch lights to start cycling for some amount of time after you
press the horn button.

The above button pictures (shows horn first, then ditchlight button)  must be used for this option to work. Also, you can setup a
button for each independent ditch light (as type On/Off). If you setup buttons to
independently control the left and right ditch lights, then these buttons MUST be located
after the Ditch Light Button that is setup for the Ditch Light Effect. For example, if the
Ditch Light button with the ditch light effect is in button position 4, then the Ditch Left and
Ditch Right buttons must be in locations 5 and 6 or higher.

I'd be surprised if this doesn't solve your problem.

-Kevin

[G8B4Life]

Thankyou all,

Kevin nailed it, and Ring confirmed it. The Ditch light button must be before the ditch lights for the auto function to work. I guess I should have re-read the manual first! ...and you can have more than one horn, which is good. The second horn won't activate the auto function though which isn't a problem.

Now, do I leave auto ditch lights on as a gimmick or turn it off, this loco didn't have flashing ditch light in the period I model. hmmmm   

- Tim