Amateur help please

[Caroline72]

I know nothing and I have just purchased the below system for a friend as his start up track.

R1184
Hornby
Western Express digital train set with eLink with TTS sound Hall steam loco

i have just realised, he doesn't have a bloody PC and only has an apple. Will he be able to enjoy his new track and train with noises at all or will it only work with a pc?

if it's just that he cannot fully appreciate all that hornby can offer without a pc but can run his track normally that will be fine. His wife has a laptop. Is there an ipad app which he could use whilst the program is running on the laptop.

[Chrissaf]

RailMaster (RM) will not run natively on an Apple Mac, but some have reported success running RM within an Apple Mac Windows emulation. Although, this is not officially supported by Hornby.

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Yes there is an iPad app (a small app charge is payable). The iPad app does not however run stand alone. It is in effect a wireless controller that communicates via the domestic house wi-fi router to RM running on a PC. Not my area of experience, but I believe that the iPad app may have issues communicating to RM if it is running within an Apple Mac Windows emulation (others here may be able to confirm or not). It is necessary to set up static IP network addressing between the RM PC and the iPad for the app to work 100% correctly. The PC with RM on it needs to be connected to the eLink box (supplied with the Train Set) via USB. Thus ideally, the PC running RM is best co-located with the eLink and Train Set in the same room. All the Train Set software configurations and setting up are done within RM on the PC, not the iPad.

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One thing I would recommend however. Whichever device it is decided to load the full RM application onto. Do not use the CD installer included in the Train Set. The chances are the version on the CD will be 'out of date'. The license key printed on the CD is all that is required. The latest installer can be downloaded from the clickable link located at the top of this section of the forum.

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The drawing below gives a connectivity overview:

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[Fishmanoz]

Note in particular from Chris's diagram that the wife's laptop must have the elink connected to it, and the eLink also connected to the track, even though it is then possible to run the layout, loco throttles and point changes, from the iPad.  If you want to run RM programs, these would have to be done from the laptop.

 

But do check running in Parallels from the Mac, others certainly report success.

[choralc]

Do you have access to an old Windows laptop/PC? I use Mac but have an old Vista OS laptop which I run RailMaster on. The iPad has been tested to run locos.

[Chrissaf]

Here in the UK, you can still find (from small specialist ebay traders) refurbished laptops with Windows XP or perhaps Vista (basically 'end of life' Windows versions) for about £40 GBP or less. These are ideal for running RM on.