Railmaster & Elite

[colin142]

I am thinking of upgrading from Elite to Railmaster with Elite. My question is would I have to re-program my Locos and accessory decoders or does Railmaster pick up the Elite settings. Also would I still  have an option to use the Elite on its own or do I have to use only the Railmaster once set up?

[Yelrow]

Hi, Colin, welcome to thr Forum. Many of us here have exactly, what you are looking at. Nothing needs to be changed, and you have the option to use as Stand alone. If you are quick, and look on Hattons Hornby sale, you can pick up Railmaster, for £5.  You then will have the  Official number.  Download updated version on line, and use your Official number to Register Railmaster. john

[96RAF]

You,can use the Elite with RM or on its own even with RM running, for example RM can be running one or more locos through the Elite and you can be shunting manually using the Elite knobs.

 

All your locos will be kept in the Elite only if they have been named, but otherwise the Elite is dumb and only remembers the list of up to ten locos if you have selected them in a session. Once you shut down that list goes Until next time.

 

The loco addresses will still be there as they are recorded in each loco decoder.

 

You will still have to list your locos in RM, quite easy as you can call them up by their R-number and give them the same address as they have already, and if any are sound then you must specify the functions if the loco is not in the RM database.in RM. You do not have to physically reprogram each loco again just list it in RM.

[Chrissaf]

1) would I have to re-program my Locos and accessory decoders.

No

.

2) does Railmaster pick up the Elite settings.

No - you would have to enter in all your current configurations into RM to match what they are currently set up to. The Elite does not hold in memory your loco and accessory decoder settings. The configured details are held within the decoders themselves. The Elite is just a device (a relatively dumb device) to send the commands you enter by knobs and buttons to the decoders. Railmaster is different, in that the details about what locos you have and what accessories you have are entered into the RM software and remembered in the RM database files. In comparison to an Elite, RM is a very intelligent controller. The Elite (when used with RM) is relegated to just providing the electronic interface between the PC(RM) and the track & decoders.  

.

3) would I still  have an option to use the Elite on its own

Yes - see full comment reply to Q4 below for more details.

.

4) do I have to use only the Railmaster once set up?

No - once set up with the Elite, you can use both Elite and RM simultaneously together in real time. Not only that, but if you select a loco to control on the Elite and use the Elite control knobs and that loco is also configured into RM. The same software loco throttle in RM will move in synchronisation. You have to have the entry "Elite feedback=1" in the railmaster.ini file for this feature to work.

[96RAF]

Gr no edit button...

same thing generally applies to points and their accessory decoders. Tell RM which point is which and which acc decoder it is controled by.

[colin142]

Hi, Colin, welcome to thr Forum. Many of us here have exactly, what you are looking at. Nothing needs to be changed, and you have the option to use as Stand alone. If you are quick, and look on Hattons Hornby sale, you can pick up Railmaster, for £5.  You then will have the  Official number.  Download updated version on line, and use your Official number to Register Railmaster. john

 

[colin142]

Thanks fo the info, I had ordered the Railmaster from Hattons already, I just wanted to confirm a few things.