Railmaster Elite - New Set Up

[LDMitch]

Hi,

We have received our Hornby Railmaster Elink and have installed the software after setting up the track and trains.  The DCC has been recognised as active, however is not communicating with the trains.

 We are running Windows 10 if this is relevant, and have updated the driver to 1.42 from the website.

 We have checked numerous times that the train is all connected up properly and that the track is correct per the map.

Can you suggest something that we may have missed.

 Thank you in advance for your assistance.

 

Kind regards

 

Luke 

[RB51]

Hi Luke - is your query about an Elite, as per the title you have used, or an E-Link, as you have said in the body text?

 

Don't worry, many folk, me included make the same error.

 

Welcome to the forum by the way.

 

R_

[Chrissaf]

Luke, welcome to the forum with your 1st post.

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The downloadable 1.42 Firmware (1.42 is Firmware not a Driver) is for an Elite controller not an eLink so not sure what you have done or thought you have done there.

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EDIT: just seen Roger's comment. Hadn't noticed the contradiction he has highlighted in the original post. My suggestions below are valid for both Elite & eLink the only difference is that with an Elite the Check controller entry will be =0 not =1

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EDIT: Best if you confirmed what controller you actually have, for the elimination of future doubt. Also, whilst in confirming information mode. Can you confirm that the Railmaster activation (entering the license key to aunthenticate RM as a paid for copy) completed without error. If it did complete OK then this should eliminate any issues with your PC security interferring with RM operation.

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EDIT: Also confirm if you have you got a steady Green (not greyed out) Controller Icon (looks like an audio cassette tape) in the top right hand corner of RailMaster. When you hover the cursor over it (or is it a right click, can't remember) do you get a pop-up saying something like 'Controller Active or Inactive'? If so what does it say?

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EDIT: If you DO have an Elite (two knobs with buttons on it, eLink has none), then does the Elite control the locos OK from the knobs and buttons, if it doesn't then your issue is with the Elite and needs to be resolved first before moving on to looking at RM.

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First things first, even if you have installed RM from the CD only yesterday. Download the very latest RM installer from the link at the top of the RailMaster section of this forum. At the time of writing this reply, it is still showing revision 3 dated 30/11/15 the text is out of date as the download file was updated yesterday to revision 4.

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Just run the installer, there is no need to uninstal the previous version of RM, the installer will just overwrite the relevant updated files.

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Secondly, go back to where the RM download link was found on the website. There are three locked threads (yellow icons) read and work through the third one "Railmaster: Setting Up and Getting Started".

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Thirdly follow the instructions given by HRMS in their post located here. Fifth post down, pay particular attention to the section about adding two lines of text to the Railmaster.INI file for eLink these are "Alternative comms =1" and "Check controller =1" these need to be present in your .INI file particularly when using Windows 10 as you are. EDIT: for Elite change Check controller from =1 to =0

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How to access and edit your .INI file is described on page 33 of your Railmaster 1.63 user manual.

[96RAF]

Also you refer to driver 1.42, which is Elite firmware.

 

eLink is at v 1.07 and Railmaster is at v1.63 Rev 4. You can the current update state of these from within the Railmaster screen by hover over the controller icon (top right of screen) and the version number (bottom right of screen).

 

I assume that your locos are DCC and have decoders fitted. If not then do not put them on the DCC track as you stand a good chance of burning the motors out.

[Chrissaf]

Thanks Rob, for highlighting the basics - i.e. does the locos have decoders in them.

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Duh !!! what a simple one for me to overlook.

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Luke, I take it you have got locos that are DCC fitted (they have decoders inside them) and are NOT just DCC Ready. If you put a DCC Ready loco on a DCC track you risk burning out the motors. DCC Ready locos are meant for Analogue DC controlled layouts. The DCC Ready means that they have sockets inside that make them 'Ready' to accept a plug-in decoder to make them DCC operable.