Point Mimic direction wrong

[St1ngr4y]

Hi Chris,

I still can't see what the purpose of the arrows is. The arrow doesn't indicate which way the point will switch if that button is pressed. It would make more sense if there were 8 buttons of each colour with the arrows pointing to 0 45 90 135 180 225 270 and 315 degrees to cater for all (including diagonal) point orientations. I've also noticed that there are two shades (dark and light) of the two colours red and green. The light colour indicates the button just pressed and its partner then becomes dark. The arrows, if used, change colour too - white if the background is dark, and black if the background is light. In my opinion, it would have been more interesting if the arrow only appeared on the button last pressed (i.e. the light colour), leaving its partner (temporarily) without an arrow. This, then, would have been an alternative to the blue/gray route indicator for showing the set direction of the point.

Ray

[Chrissaf]

The arrow doesn't indicate which way the point will switch if that button is pressed.

.

It's not supposed to provide an indication of the direction the point is switched, that is the function of the blue/grey lines.

.

Perhaps this will help. In your mind, for the red button replace the left facing arrow with the letter L and the green facing arrow with the letter R........does the function of the button graphic make more sense then.......all I can say is that it makes total sense to me. The direction the arrows actually face has no real bearing.

.

Personally, I would rather have the blue/grey indicator lines than buttons with appropriately facing arrow directions indicating route direction. The blue/grey lines are instantly readable when glancing at the track plan quickly. I too, like you, have the button arrows disabled and can't see the point of them.

[St1ngr4y]

"the left facing arrow with the letter L and the green facing arrow with the letter R"

 

Why do I get an image of a pair of wellies with L & R on them?  😆

 

"The direction the arrows actually face has no real bearing."

 

That's my point exactly  😆

 

Incidentally, have you noticed that if you click on the blue/grey indicator, it toggles the point one way then the other. You still need the buttons to be there, of course, because that's how you configure the address etc and you can't have the blue/grey indicator without them.

 

Ray

[geochoice]

Good morning Geo,

Can I just go over the terminology you have used in your last post to make sure I fully understand.

First of all, by the "arrows" do you mean the small arrows on the red/green buttons themselves or do you mean the blue/gray route indicator?

Second, I'm not sure what you mean by "jump but don't move".

 Also, when you click the buttons for the fictitious point, do the actual points on the layout fire?

Ray

 

Hello Ray, sorry to be a pain. The arrows I was referring to are the actual grey indicators the point is turning. Not the red/green buttons. So when I fire point 17 ired/green button it changes 17 and 150 because they are connected in tandem, however only point 17 grey direction changes, meanwhile point 150 the grey arrow does a sort of jump/flicker but does not change direction. If I click on the red/green buttons point 150 the arrows change but no point movement anywhere. Hope that makes sense. At all times the point 17 direction grey arrow is correct to the point blades and point 150 follows that but nothing happens when I click point 150 other than the grey direction arrows move depending which red/green button I clicked but nothing else at all.

 

[Chrissaf]

Geo, the other thing that I have just noticed as a difference between Ray's screen shots and your screen shots, is the order of the red and green other point button configuration for point 17.

.

See below:

.

/media/tinymce_upload/886ea67c9c0e1db85e704d4814e369c3.jpg

.

In both cases, in Ray's configuration the green point direction is the first in the list. In your screen shots point 150 has the green point direction first, but red is first for point 17. I am assuming here that the image of the blue configuration boxes is an accurate representation of the screens you actually see on your setup.

.

It may be the order makes no difference, but just trying to find anything that appears different between Ray's and your configuration. Particularly as you say the point indicators shudder as if trying to do something and then revert back.

[St1ngr4y]

Hi Chris,

When I read your observation, my first thought was that it shouldn't make a difference, but to be sure, I tried it with the directions the way you describe. It still worked ok. Then I tried to deliberately change the "other points" commands to the wrong logical ways, and whatever I tried I couldn't get the gray indicator on 150 to do a "jump/flicker" as described by Geo.

 

Geo,

Could you post an image of the configuration box for each point 17 and 150 please. I notice that you seem to have taken a photo of the computer monitor screen for your previous posts. What I prefer to do is to carry out a "screen dump". What this means is that by pressing the keys Ctrl + PrtScr, an image of the current screen is "captured" and put onto the Windows clipboard. Then by opening up the Windows "Paint" application, you can paste the image in there using Ctrl + v and save it to your hard disk as a file. Before saving it, you can crop the picture to cut out only the point configuration box, instead of the whole screen display. I find that an image created this way is much easier to see when it arrives in a post on the Forum.

 

Ray

[Chrissaf]

Is by chance the point circled in red one of the two points in question. If it is, the point operating buttons have not been set-up correctly.

.

EDIT: Looking back to page 1 of this thread I see from one of your text comments that the highlighted point is point 18 and not 17. So see additional edit at bottom of page. This point 18 still needs fixing though, as described below.

/media/tinymce_upload/9b758593e8dda1120a988da179b79a6d.JPG

It is a well documented fact, that buttons that are not aligned on the correct position on the point can cause operational errors.

.

If the circled point is one of the two points in question. Go back into the track design window and delete the point operating buttons from the plan.

.

Now drag a new red point button from the left hand side over to the point, and this is the important bit. Do not try and place the button manually onto the point. Instead put your MOUSE CURSOR (not the red point button) onto the MIDDLE of the point and release the left mouse drag button. If you have done this correctly, you should see BOTH the red and the green point operating buttons SNAP to their correct locations on the point and be in perfect even alignment (whereas your current buttons are not).

.

Right click these freshly placed point operating buttons and re-configure them again. I feel confident, that doing this will fix your issue.

.

If ANY of your other points have odd operational issues or have operating buttons that are not squarely aligned, then reapply them again using this described SNAPPING action. The requirement for this snapping action is described in the RailMaster manual on page 86. Extract of page 86 is below:

.

/media/tinymce_upload/0409262aa6e08772ebddcab4231869a2.JPG

.

EDIT: If the point I have highlighted is not one of the two points i.e 17 or 151 then I would still reapply the point operating buttons on the 17 and 151 points anyway to ensure that you observe this SNAPPING action. It may be that when you placed them on the plan originally, you didn't do it this way i.e you placed them manually, but close enough that they don't show up visually on the plan as being misaligned.

.

Since everything else in your configurations look to be correct, then this is the only thing left to try.

.

Its hard to tell, because the screen shot is taken at an angle, but this circled point looks to be slightly off alignment too. Is this the 151 point?. Given that the point 18 buttons? are clearly misaligned, then that puts into question whether other buttons (such as the buttons highlighted below) on the point plan have or have not been correctly applied. i.e applied with this snapping action.

/media/tinymce_upload/55151b82c6dce8a08ec3bc640cc0ebb5.JPG

NOTE: There is a configuration option available in RM that puts little text boxes next to the point with the configured point number on it. It might be prudent to enable (tick) this option, then you can more clearly see what point is which on the plan. See below for details.

.

/media/tinymce_upload/81a191e97366378d24b842ce7e1eb388.JPG

.

 

 

[St1ngr4y]

Well spotted Chris. Perhaps the "jump/flicker" Geo is seeing is the shades of red/green changing from dark to light and vice versa.

Ray

Addendum:

Just tried moving the set of point buttons slightly away from one of the points and surprisingly the gray indicator for that point remained there. When these offset buttons were pressed, the indicator on its own point  AND the "other" point both moved correctly. When the buttons on the other point were pressed, both of them (left and right) caused the point with the offset buttons to switch right only. No matter what I tried I could not get a "jump/flicker" effect.

Ray

[geochoice]

Thanks Ray & Chris, I am off away for a week so will pursue this on my return I appreciate your help and will get it sorted. Cheers, George

[Chrissaf]

Geo, regarding your issue, during your absence there has been a development in another thread with a similar issue that is highly beneficial to you as well.

.

As well as the obvious misalignment of point operating buttons highlighted in my posts above. Your previous screen shots are showing an error in the command syntax....a colon would appear to be missing.

.

See this linked page in another thread for the details. Your issue is more than likely attributable to a certain degree by the same syntax error. But do note that your plan does show point button alignment errors that also need to be fixed as well.

.

https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/forum/post/view/topic_id/23459/?p=4

[geochoice]

Thanks all you guys for looking into this so deeply. I am now back on the case and hopefully will find some time today to investigate fully your suggestions. I appreciate all your help and look forward to sharing my findings soonest. Cheers, George

[geochoice]

You guys are amazing thank you, I deleted the point buttons 17,18,150 and 151 and reset them all again. The arrows are now following the direction set and it starts up at the right direction and they operte as pairs as they should etc so all good from me. I havent done anything with the syntax you suggested and still a little confused what was wrong with it as the point buttons all looked to be set ok originally, it doesnt matter now as it is all good. Thanks again and a photo enclosed of how it all ended. I did set to display point numbers but not all of them did so I undid that. Thanks again fellas./media/tinymce_upload/4380fe2b8bd995256127d90aa29d9f39.JPG

[geochoice]

All done thanks to all, I posted earlier but with a photo so it must be getting vetted. Anyway all good now, not sure exactly what was causing the problem but I went through your suggestions and it is now fixed. Thanks Ray and Chris.

[westernwill]

Looks like the dreaded missing colon.

 

i.e Point 17 when it should be Point: 17 

[Chrissaf]

Glad to hear that it's finally fixed. When you re-added the point configurations back again, if you used the pull down selection box to define the point numbers, then the correct syntax will then have been applied automatically. Just to clarify what is meant by the colon " : " syntax.....see below:

.

/media/tinymce_upload/41a64558a38b2a7d12ae2568e6f2325f.JPG

.

Use of Bold above is just used for emphasis in this post. It doesn't have to be written using bold in RM.

.

A definition of the term "Syntax" in a computing environment.

/media/tinymce_upload/4065ea0ca5cec13efc447fb5f645a429.jpg

.

 

[geochoice]

I think that it was the colon problem Chris not misaligned buttons, anyway I deleted all the point buttons in that section and reset them after first phographing each previous setting, I selected the point dropdown and just deleted each number so the colon would still be in place and tped in the number I required. The buttons appeared aligned on screen before and after but if I had no dleted them then I probably would not have found the colon you were referring to. All done now and set to direction upon startup and that all works as it should. Thanks again. Till next time ......

[St1ngr4y]

In your last post but one, you mentioned that you had requested the point numbers to be displayed, but not all of them did, so you switched it off again. Are you sure the buttons without numbers are working correctly?

 

Ray

[St1ngr4y]

/media/tinymce_upload/4065ea0ca5cec13efc447fb5f645a429.jpg

.

In Prudhoe, County Durham, there is a pub/restaurant called the "Dr. Syntax". I've no idea how it got that name...

 

Ray

 

 

[St1ngr4y]

Oops - why did it not delete the top half of your message in my reply, Chris. I can't even see the top half when I try to edit my reply.

Ray

[Fishmanoz]

Probably the chef’s name is Pascal and he cooks by algorithms.