Active Braking and Railmaster

[GWR Greg]

Railmaster functions are either momentary such as guard's whistle or "latched" first click turns it on second click turns it off. Sound decoders and other  non basic decoders now have "active braking". Set a running locomotive straight to stop, with say a 20 second deceleration,  then using the active braking function bring the locomotive to stop by applying the brakes. This requires a third function key ability. Short press slight brake application longer press fuller brake application. Currently Railmaster cannot do this. Other software such as JMRI can. Something for HRMS to add to Railmaster in a future update.

[St1ngr4y]

Hi Greg,

Have you tried the braking function as a momentary function in RM? If so, does it perform the "slight braking" action? Also, what is the function number for the active braking?

Ray

[GWR Greg]

Hi Ray

The braking function is on F2 of my Zimo decoder. Railmaster momentary functions appear to default to 2 seconds duration after pressing and release. I have reset F2 to 1 second using the macro in the loco set up screen. This is the shortest time. So each press and release is the same time so whilst it works it is not ideal and the braking does not function as it should. I tried setting it as latching but the time between click on and click of is not instant so is even less controllable. As I previously mentioned I also have the ability to control locos using JMRI via Sprog. With this a short press is slight breaking, longer press more prelonged braking.

[St1ngr4y]

I was thinking that maybe you could use other currently unused functions with macros. For example, if F21 thru F23 are unused at the moment, maybe you can assign macros to them like this:-

F21 F2~P3~F2

F22 F2~P4~F2

F23 F2~P5~F2

These should then give you 3, 4 and 5 seconds of braking respectively. You may also have to set F2 to latching for this to work

The way I see it is that two commands need to be sent to this function, the first to switch the braking on, the second to switch it off, a typical latching function. On other systems, the amount of time the button is pressed seems to equate to the amount of time between the first and second command being sent. The first is sent when the button is pressed, the second when the button is released.

For momentary functions, RM sends two instructions about a second apart, but the first is sent when the button is released. For latching functions, only one command is sent per button click.

Ray

[Fishmanoz]

Greg, seems to me you should contact HRMS by email from within RM and ask them the question directly, assuming they don’t come back in this topic soon. 

[96RAF]

Greg

The methodology behind recent decoder dynamic braking is usually just to reduce the CV4 set decell value by half. Hence you cannot have tap the brakes or hammer the brakes, only apply them at that reduced fixed rate for a shorter or longer period.

 

My preferred alternative to having fixed rate brake by function button is to have a brake slider alongside the throttle slider. I trialled a software application throttle with separate braking long ago (not Hornby), but I can’t post a picture of the actual screen throttle because I can’t get the software to open again to get a screen grab.

 

The way it worked was when you dropped the throttle the loco went into coast mode, i.e. on a sound equipped loco the sound dropped but the speed stayed the same, until you applied brake by slider, which was proportional in that a little brake slider movement slowed the loco slowly, but a large slider movement braked the loco proportionaly that much harder. On a sound loco this could also be linked to squealing brakes.

 

If you,braked against a set throttle then a sound loco would work harder. Altogether a very effective and I think a better way than brake by button.

 

Rob

[GWR Greg]

Rob, Using JMRI a long press "brakes" applied hard and stop very quickly. Short press slows more slowly.

[96RAF]

Greg

JMRI code obviously runs a variable which the length of button press modifies then applies that changing value to the decell rate (CV4 value).

 

As it is open source code you could look in there and see what is being adjusted.

Rob

[GWR Greg]

Rob. That is way beyond me. I will work with what I have for now.

[96RAF]

Greg

Even if you can't write code you can often read it and understand the gist of the author.

 

Here is a screen grab of the braked throttle I have. As you can see the throttle is set back to zero but the loco speed remains steady until I apply brake. It was nice to go back and play with it as it drastically changes how you drive a loco. A bit like how an automatic car creeps when you take the brake off and sneaks off without you noticing.

 

/media/tinymce_upload/691b119b9df0aa095ed5467ffd5c7ea6.PNG

At present it is a single stand alone throttle but no doubt I could write the plan so it comes up in a bank like the simple throttles here.

 

/media/tinymce_upload/84654fd5b7e292b4d95259e1cc263436.PNG

 

Rob