Elink/RailMaster or not

[Augustus Caesar]

Not sure if I can say this here, moderator will prevail. Should I persevere with elink and railmaster or is it time to jump ship. I am in process of relocating layout from small garage to loft. Love hornby products. Tts in my limited mind is a major leap forward bringing sound to the masses. But should I be looking elsewhere for command and control, such as digitrax or the impressive looking z21. Your thoughts would be most welcome.

[Augustus Caesar]

This isn't an easy question to answer by anyone if you take out personal preferences by each prospective commentor. We also have to be careful about advertising or being seen to promote competitors hardware so advice may not be too open.

From my own experience and research I decided that some controllers were just too expensive to justify anything other than a really serious in-depth approach to the model I was to build.

With eLink and RailMaster you get the best of a lot of worlds and maybe not quite the best at other times.

The choice will always be yours ultimately but with the combination of the eLink and RailMaster in particular the potential is there for a hugely successful system. Looking at the issues Hornby have had financially recently it is hoped this can be turned around long term and one maybe then will see further additions to this setup on a faster scale.

Don't forget this system is fully expandable in ways we are yet to see so the future is bright. Other systems receive updates too but what do they offer against the setup you already have?

 

What I did was literally write down all postitives and negatives (without being biased one way or another) of each potential system and then tried to balance out what they each had and eliminated (as best as) each similar area. I was left with attributes that were good, bad, uninteresting, fabulous and just bordering on why too.

I looked at wiring potential (less is better in my view), add-ons and their costs and loads more besides.

Eventually I went with this pairing and even wrote a Help Site to go with it where some issues can be sorted easily. That apart I can see how operating via a PC or laptop appeals with this setup to myself way above and way ahead of all the others.

 

Each member will tell you of their experiences and why this setup may be better and you stick with it but others may just say get another system. It's an interesting question in that I would obviously like to see other members comments and thoughts not just on yor current setup but potentially on others.

 

What you don't say is what other equipment you have that may just help influence your choice to one system or another. I can see, however, why you ask what you have.

I hope others can give better advice than I have in that I know little of the other controllers in terms of user experience except in shows where modellers invariably use other systems. But that's shows and large scale stuff of which I know not a lot.

[rpjallan]

Are you having problems with your eLink and RailMaster? Have you thought about aquiring an Elite controller to compliment what you already have?

[Fishmanoz]

Short answer - stick with it. 

[96RAF]

Railmaster unfortunately is tied to Hornby controllers but supports many other make loco and accessory decoders.

 

It would be more popular I feel if there was a pull down list in the setup supporting other make controllers.

 

It isnt a difficult task to define these controllers into the software as they would be NMRA DCC conformant, hence would use the same protocol as the Hornby products, but as the user has no access to these files nor is it allowed to back engineer the product as per the licence agreement we are stuck with what we have and in the hands of the RM development team.

 

Rob

[Fireman_Ian]

You certainly won't get better value for money, Railmaster is a good product, 

I have used it with the Elite for many years, but not eLink.

 

The other alternative which is free is JMRI but you have to be really clued up in IT to use it.

 

As for controllers you get what you pay for, mostly.

[Chrissaf]

You haven't really said what it is about eLink / RailMaster that is making you consider jumping ship. Yes there are problems with it for some users who have special requirements, but many common issues are resolvable through product configuration changes. It may be that your issues are actually fixable, if you told us what they were.

.

EDIT: Just had a quick look at your previous posts. Most of your RM related issues seem to be around tablets and hand held remote control. Here I must agree with you, these issues have been in the RM product for such a long time, I doubt that they will ever be truly fixed. Also, I doubt very much that multi-screen support will ever be natively written into RM, not without a complete back to ground re-write of the application. This is just not going to happen IMO in the current Hornby financial situation. But the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence, JMRI has its issues too.

[St1ngr4y]

I wish there was a VBMRI .....  ☹️

 

Ray

[GWR Greg]

I have elink/Railmaster. The track plan display and operation is excellent. Control of Locos is good and easy, the pop up throttle is good. Only problem here is pop up throttle sticking to mouse pointer on occasion. For me the handheld "app" for android is not up to scratch. The throttle control is definately not as smooth or accurate as other makes. I have JMRI for cv programming, used prior to the recent upgrade to Railmaster to include cvs up 1025. JMRI is much more complicated to use beyond cv programming and loco control. Railmaster is great for easily creating programmes to run trains for you. Having looked at other systems what is definate is Railmaster/Ellink is value for money.

[96RAF]

You can also try Rocrail.

 

It supports every device known to man, it does everything you could ask of it, it has many rail system infrastructure (track, signals, etc), it is open source and surpringly easy to use, fully supported by an on-line manual written by the users and a multi-language forum and its free but you can donate.

 

Did I mention overnight updates every night.

Did I mention most problems are resolved within 24 hours.

Did I mention f you want to back engineer it you can as its open source.

 

I even wrote a Wiki about using the Elite with it in the very early days.

Rob

[Fireman_Ian]

 I have JMRI for cv programming, used prior to the recent upgrade to Railmaster to include cvs up 1025. JMRI is much more complicated to use beyond cv programming and loco control. 

GWRGreg, what interface do you use with JMRI? I tried with my Elite, it can write cvs but wont read them.

Ian.

[GWR Greg]

Ian. I have Sprog II. Greg

[Chrissaf]

I too have a Sprog II (less than £50) for use with JMRI ProDecoder (Free)....an excellent low cost combination.

[Fireman_Ian]

Thanks guys, i'll have a look for one.

[jodel]

Hi all contributors,

After a long silence on this forum , just a short topic to say i leaved RM for few month and i start now a new experience with Traincontroller and DR5000 Digikeijs... 

with this configuration :

• i have no problem to connect the DCC central to my PC, (USB loconet or IP )
• i have no problem to configured correct speed scales profiles for any locos whatever the manufacturer,
• i have no problem to have a good occupancy feedback from blocks with a good automation in the trafic,

But of course, Traincontroller is not the same price than RM...

Bye and good luck 

jodel

[Fireman_Ian]

Sprog ll ordered  😆

[perfectionist]

Thanks guys. Started with rm and elink as cheap intro to dcc. Was just wondering if I should now be upgrading. Reading between the lines it seems rm is as good as anything out there.

As an extra question, as the handheld app appears to be pants is there any other mobile cab that can be used with rm/elink, sat at laptop is a bit tying.

[Nick_]

I find the app works reasonably well on an iPad, but it does appear that it doesn’t work at all well on an android device. 

[96RAF]

Anyone using the devices the app was originally  intended for i.e. those redundant PDAs.

Rob

[Fireman_Ian]

I too have a Sprog II (less than £50) for use with JMRI ProDecoder (Free)....an excellent low cost combination.

I have a 12v DC 1.5Amp power supply, will this work with the sprog 2 or are the amps to much?

Appreciate your help.

Ian.

[Chrissaf]

It is voltage that is the key specification to consider. A device will only draw as much current as it wants. If it wants 1 amp, then that is all it will take.

.

As an analogy, think of your car battery. The starter motor draws 200+ amps from it when starting, but your turn left indicator bulb in the dashboard only takes 30mA. Both the starter motor and the bulb both want 12 volts though.

.

So as long as your power supply is 12 volts regulated DC and gives the right voltage polarity on the output connector it will be fine.

.

Obviously if your device wants 2 amps, but the power supply is rated at 1 amp, then that is an issue (not applicable to the SPROG II though).

[Fireman_Ian]

Thank you  😀

[zeroOneman]

 I too came very close to jumping ship last year, mostly due to the lack of any info on loco detection. I really wanted to stick with Hornby - my railway is n-gauge, but as I've had Hornby railways since I can remember there is some brand-loyalty there. I have now decided that I can get by without loco detection so long as I use decoders that support ABC braking, this has given my railway a whole new lease of life with all of it now being automated.

The 'programming' side of Railmaster is excellent, if a little simple, & the Elink is perfectly priced, leaving you with spare cash to spend on exciting goodies like locos, rolling stock, signals.....

 

[BadgerV8]

 Railmaster and eLink is my first forray into the world of DCC. I reckoned at my age that I'd get flustered with a hand-held controller, forget what I was doing in a moment of panic and crash expensive stock. The laptop screen size suits me, the use of a mouse works well for me and I'm learning more about it every time I use it. So far, I'm pleased with it (other than the odd niggle mentioned elsewhere, such as losing loco pics at random a couple of times) I just wish it had the option to turn off the track plan and give me more visible throttles.

I did download Rocrail to have a look out of curiosity, but I can't fathom it out so I'm sticking with Railmaster.

[96RAF]

Badger

Rocrail will work with an Elite and many, many other controllers but not an eLink so unless you are moving up or along in controllers it probably isn't worth struggling with, although I found it much easier to get up and running than JMRI. It is similar to RM but caters for everything and any problem is usually fixed overnight being open source, whilst we wait patiently for RM to fix those niggles and for loco detection to hit the market which should improve its controlled running abilities (...don't mention LD).

Rob