RailPro User Group
RailPro => RailPro Specific Help & Discussion => Topic started by: Ken Z on February 11, 2018, 08:27:04 PM
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My layout travels through the whole basement. My DCC radio controls occasionally seem to get lost when the basement is really full of people and I am trying to communicate to the other side of the basement. Yesterday with the RailPro I did not see that happen however i would like to do more testing. I am having a RailPro controller installed into a brass RS-11, I will see how it works. Thanks for the discussion about how control of the locomotives gets consisted.
About the horn, if I run the consist around the train and head back the second unit would sound the horn. Well if that if the only drawback, I can live with it.
I am building my RailPro fleet and we have another RAilPro user here in town so we will be able to push the envelope more.
For my guests, this was the first live and in person opportunity to see RailPro in action. They had seen you tube however I think waking around with the HC-2 and a train showed them how impressive the system is.
Ken Zieska
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Ken:
How many PWR-56's do you have scattered around the layout?
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Ken, when you run the consist around a train you should break the consist and remake it with the new lead unit. That way the new lead unit plays the horn correctly and the lights as well.
That is how the prototype does it. My hometown is the last stop for the local, and when they finish their switching they run around the train and the previously following locomotive now becomes the lead. The crew now occupies the new lead unit and the train is now identified by the new locomotive (ie the crew previously communicated with dispatch as "BNSF 1668" but now communicate as "BNSF 1836").
Load sharing will work better if you switch the lead after you run around. Don't forget that load sharing is all based on what the "lead" locomotive detects (whatever locomotive you have set as lead). Therefore when pulling a train you always want the locomotive in front of everything to be the lead in the MU on the controller.
-Kevin
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Kevin, Thus is great information. I am going to cut and paste this into a page I can keep with my notes so I can be sure to explain it correctly when I have visitors. These would be good discusion pages to have in a file here for people to learn the neat details that are available with RailPro.
ken
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for the question about the PWR being scattered around the basement. My layout is full Digitrax's. Divided into power blocks with a good bus wire system. While I might see migrating away from it to the straight RailPro power supply I have all my frogs powered by Tam Valley frog juicers and I have a Tam Valley reversing module on my wye. I will need to find out if there would be an issue. It is not a big issue as i have a number of DCC locomotives that I will need to change out and everything is running just great now. I don't see I am likely to add more DCC locomotives.
Ken Z.
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Ken:
Don't forget that the PWR-56 also acts as a repeater for the RailPro communications network. I don't think you need to rip out your DCC but plugging in a few PWR-56's (to the wall, not the rail) might help with some of your dead spots.
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Jacob, I was not aware of that. I will do that.
Thanks,
Ken Zieska
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Does the PWR-56 need to attach to the track, or can it just be plugged in to be a repeater?
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Just be plugged in.
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I'm pretty sure you also have to also add the PWR-56's to each HC (find product) so they know about each other.
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I'm pretty sure you also have to also add the PWR-56's to each HC (find product) so they know about each other.
It seems odd you have to do that. Don't doubt it, just seems odd.
@Dean - Can you verify this for us when you add the additional PW56s?
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Page 25 of the HC-2 manual covers repeaters:
http://www.ringengineering.com/RailPro/Documents/HC-2UsersManual.pdf
IMPORTANT: In the Advanced Settings of your HC you need to specify which RailPro
products will be repeaters.
Your HC can use from one to four repeaters. To Setup the Repeater from the Main
Page, press the “Adjust Settings” Button and then the “Advanced Setup” button. To add
a Repeater, touch the “Press Here to Select Product” button. Select a product to use as
a repeater. To remove a repeater, touch the “Remove” button under the product you
want to remove.
It's more involved than I thought!
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So this means if someone takes their HC to a friend's layout they must add the friend's PWs to their HC?
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So this means if someone takes their HC to a friend's layout they must add the friend's PWs to their HC?
Looks that way.
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The HC will not discover any RP products for the first time without pressing the "Find Product" button. Once it finds a product it will remember it the next time it sees it. If your "Find" a friend's PWR56, and set it up as a repeater, I believe it will recognize that PWR the next time it is within range. I have no way to verify that. Perhaps someone in that situation can try it and report back.
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Hmmm... with a limit of 4. Doubt that will matter much at the present time but what if a RP round robin group happens with say 6-8 layouts each with a PWR or two. Common in the DCC world. Sounds like you would operate sans repeater on most of them. Again, probably not a problem since all the layouts would have to be very large or full of RF blocking. I don't use RP power supplies so I guess my layout won't take up any of your repeater slots! ;D
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In that situation you could just delete the PWRs at the end of the day’s run. At the next house, find the new ones. It only takes a minute or two.
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The PWR-56 be could functioning as a repeater without having to be detected by each HC if it just picks up the broadcast from the HC's but I doubt this is the case given the potential (however remote) that your neighbor could be using RP you or they could end up repeating on each others networks so RE probably designed it much like any other wireless network and you must detect it to use it but again we don't have anything technical from RE about it to say for sure.
I can certainly understand this way of thinking and don't disagree with it but the limit of four needs to be increased or the power of the repeater needs to be increased (and adjustable). I'd also like to see just a repeater if the cost could be significantly less that a PWR-56 but I don't think the amount of components from the track part of a PWR-56 would amount to much.
If I was going to use a repeater (PWR-56 or otherwise) I'd be inclined to mount one up high, like up near or on the ceiling like you see wireless nodes in shopping centers and such, you should get great coverage from one repeater that way.
I think I might send RE an email about using repeaters, see what we can uncover.
- Tim
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It also says in the manual that if you are within 20ft of your train, you don't need a repeater. Most operators are, so this isn't really a big issue when visiting others layouts. Unless you are in the habit of staying in the corner while you operate your train on the other side of the arena.
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It also says in the manual that if you are within 20ft of your train, you don't need a repeater. Most operators are, so this isn't really a big issue when visiting others layouts. Unless you are in the habit of staying in the corner while you operate your train on the other side of the arena.
This is true, and even staying in the corner might not present any problem, I just went to the other side of the house (over 20ft), closed all the doors in between myself and an LM, pointed the HC the opposite direction to the LM and it was just fine, through three walls. I wouldn't call my house an RF hot zone though.
I am however thinking scalability, and when I say that I'm thinking mega layout (think FREMO size), in a club setting you may not be able to follow your train very well, at a train show you may very well be running your trains from one end of the layout, and also while the HC is portable the CI-1 in effect is not; not unless you want to carry a laptop around following your train or have a laptop in the middle of a room (thinking of future automation / monitoring etc more than individual control of a train by a person here).
I'd like to know how well RP scales up from simply running a train around the walls of a bedroom to controlling on a mega layout where you might not be able to continuously walk around with your train.
- Tim
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I believe the reason you need to 'find' the PWR-56 with the HC is the e-stop. One of the e-stop buttons is 'remove power' ( or something similar ). If you are not using a PWR-56, you can't shut off the power supply with the HC.
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I believe the reason you need to 'find' the PWR-56 with the HC is the e-stop. One of the e-stop buttons is 'remove power' ( or something similar ). If you are not using a PWR-56, you can't shut off the power supply with the HC.
That makes total sense.
@Bill or Tim - You might consider moving a bunch of this content to a new thread so we don't further trash out Ken's Open House topic.
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I asked Tim Ring...
Does the PWR-56 have to be setup as a repeater on the HC or will it be repeating by default?
Here is his answer...
The first PWR-56 you Find will be added as a repeater. However the save button is not executed. So after you Find a PWR-56 you should press the save button. If you want more PWR-56 to be repeaters you should go and select the ones you want to be repeaters. Only PWRs in the repeater screen will do the repeating. If there is no PWRs in the repeater selection screen then no repeating will be done.
Tim
Ring Engineering Inc.
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I am finding out so many neat things about RailPro in these posts. I just need to be sure I can find it to keep it fresh while I am learning.
Ken Zieska