e-link fault developed

[Traincliff]

Hi all. While operating my small portable layout at an exhibition at Yeovil Railway Centre weekend before last my e-link apparently developed a fault. I had an Elite with me so plugged that in to continue running the layout. Today i have had a chance to revew and see what is going on. Firmware on e-link is 1.07 and to be ceratin I have reinstalled it and my Railmaster is 1.68. After operating for about 20 minutes although the green light stays on the control function and dcc output disappears. Only way to restore is by resetting Railmaster and this brings control back for a few minutes only before same thing happens. No smell of overheating or anything like that.

Has any body else seen this problem and found a solution? As you can imagine I was embarrassed when this happened in public but fortunately had the good old faithful Elite with me.

Thanks for reading.

Cliff

[96RAF]

I presume if you simply swapped out to the Elite that you are using a 4-amp power supply for the layout, not the 1-amp wall-wart. The Elite usually won’t boot on the 1-amp unit. That rules out the little psu being the problem which was my first thought.

 

The eLink has a couple of self restting fuses, a 3-amp one for the DC input and a lesser rated one for the programming output. Maybe the main fuse is tripping early for whatever reason.

 

The fault could be a loss of comms as you say it will reset. When you say output is lost do you lose power to the track as measured with a multi-meter on AC volts or is it just loss of loco response.

 

It would be worth trying the eLink on a separate circle of track and load it up similar to the show layout to help prove the layout.

 

See here for the gubbins inside the eLink... http://www.halton96th.org.uk/page14.html

 

Rob

[Traincliff]

Thank you RAF for prompt reply and the useful link. When the unit "trips" the track loses supply but green light stays on. Only way to restore control and track feed is by rebooting Rail master. System then restores but for only a short period. 

I have not tried with the 4A power pack with elink and when I changed to the Elite I used its own power pack. I might try that. 

Just one more clue is that when you hover the cursor arrow over the controller icon on the Railmaster screen it says. Controller A inactive even when unit is working OK?

Anyway thanks for your help.

Cliff

[Fishmanoz]

As you swap between one and the other, you will of course need to change your RM Setup screen for the correct controller and baud rate, and change your ini file entries too. Have you been doing all of that?

[Chrissaf]

This reply assumes that when you reverted to using the Elite, you were using that with RM and not using it 'stand alone'. If you only use RM with the eLink and nothing else, then ignore the rest of my reply below.

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Do you normally use your Elite with RM, in other words the eLink isn't normally connected, but was chosen on this occasion to run the exhibition layout.

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Although RM supports both eLink and Elite there are quite a few configuration changes that need to be made in RM subject to which controller you are using.

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If you don't normally as a general rule use the eLink with RM then your RM configuration is probably optimised for the Elite.

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As others have said there are two areas in RM where configurations need to be changed subject to which controller you are using. The 'System Settings' screen and the railmaster.ini file. Just changing the controller in the 'System Setting' screen may not be enough to obtain robust reliable operation.

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Before I spend a lot of effort documenting the differences in detail, please answer the question about what controller you use most of the time with RM.

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Please also advise which Windows version you are using and post the contents of your railmaster.ini file back into this thread, that information will be helpful.

[96RAF]

Cliff that failure mode is all pointing to a pure comms failure twixt eLink and Pc as the green led is fed from the main PIC chip hence the device is booted up if that is on.

 

The resetting fuse is directly after the DC input socket so unlikely to be that, unless the green led goes out momentarilly at the failure point in time.

 

Can you reset the controller comms by use of the small red square within the big red STOP button on screen as opposed to a full restart of RM.

 

People have reported dodgy USB connections, i.e. intermittent USB sockets and/or pc controllers, you could check decice mamager on your pc to see if physical comms have been lost or if not then its lokely an RM software drop out Due to configurtion issues.

 

All else awaiting your response per requests by Chris, etc above.

 

Rob

[Chrissaf]

Rob's controller 'comms' suspicion, is where my questions are leading to.

[96RAF]

Apologies for the raft of typos in my post above, only spotted after the edit window timed out.

Rob

[Traincliff]

Hi all and my thanks for your replies all of which I need to look into before I can respond fully so it may be a while before I can get back. Please don't think I am rudely ignoring after you have taken trouble to answer my query. 

What I can say now though is that I usually have Railmaster at home connected to the Elite. The small exhibition layout has an elink for convenience. I have only been changing the Railmaster and laptop comms settings when changing from one to the other on my laptop and the RM screen. I had not realised other settings in the INI. files were needed when changing controllers.

Anyway fellas I will get back to you when I get a chance.

Thanks for all your help and advice.

Cliff

[Traincliff]

Hi all again. I have just had a chance to fire up my laptop and looked at the ini. settings and have found 3. One relates to resetting e-link on start and is set to "1". Then further down the page there are 2 more settings relating to checking presence of e-link every 5 seconds. One of these is for controller 1 and the other for controller 2. Both of these are currently set to "0" so presumably the one for no.1 controller should be set to "1" ? This being so I will give it a try when I get back to my shed.

Rob's note mentions a small square within the red on screen stop button. I cant see this on my screen so perhaps I am misunderstanding his note in some way. I have tried pressing the STOP button when I first ran into trouble but it did not appear to do anything at the time. Hence why I found Railmaster had to be re-booted. restarting "finds" e-link again so perhaps the change to ini. setting will enable Railmaster to "find"  e-link every 5 seconds. Am I thinking straight?

One last thing that I dont think I have answered - I am running Windows 10.

I will get back to you when I can.

Thanks again guys.

Cliff

[Traincliff]

Thank you again Chris. I think we are on the right track and if possible I will check it all out tomorrow.

I chose to use the elink because it takes up little space and is mounted vertically on a piece of ply on the edge of the board. One of my aims was to show what can be achieved with less expensive over the counter Hornby equipment.  Viewers can see my schematic screen and literally watch me control the layout with just a wireless mouse.

The layout is a rural branch line terminus with a run round loop and a siding.

Cliff

[96RAF]

As seen in Chris’s notes the small reset button only appers when you have the .ini file so configured.

 

Its a pity RM can’t be auto-configured for two pre-set controllers on an as connected basis. Can’t ever see it happening even if requested.

Rob

[Chrissaf]

When using Windows 10 my suggested 'railmaster.ini' settings would be:

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Elite controller:

Elite feedback=1

Alternative comms=1

Check controller=0

Alternative comms2=0 (but personally I would delete this entry if present and if not using controller B in RM).

Check controller2=0 (but personally I would delete this entry if present and if not using controller B in RM).

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eLink controller:

Elite feedback=0

Alternative comms=1

Check controller=1 (this is the setting when eLink is selected as controller A in System Settings that triggers the soft reset button within the 'stop' button).

Alternative comms2=0 (but personally I would delete this entry if present and if not using controller B in RM).

Check controller2=0 (but personally I would delete this entry if present and if not using controller B in RM).

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I would also ensure that these entries are the last entries listed at the END of the .INI file. The position of these entries in the .INI file shouldn't, but do seem to have an impact on the way RM / controller communication works.

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Had you considered just taking the Elite to the show to use with RM and just keep the eLink as emergency back-up.

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EDIT: added the Elite feedback lines to my original reply.

[Traincliff]

Hi again. I can now report back having done some further investigation. Firstly I set up the INI.settings as suggested. Then I connected up the e-link to my layout and everything seemed fine as I ran a loco or 2 for about 20 minutes when everything stopped even though the green light on the e-link stayed on. I was then able to reset using the small red button that was now on my screen in the large red button. Everything then ran for just a short time before "tripping" again. After each red button reset the same happened for shorter and shorter times. 

I then swapped the 1Amp power pack for the 4Amp Elite power pack. Initially the e-link tripped after a short period but after leaving for a while I came back and repeated the exercise. This time the e-link stayed on and operated normally.

I have given it some further thought and wonder if the e-link was being overloaded with the 1 Amp power pack. The locos I was running were Triang with x04 motors with stay alive capacitors. I ran one Triang loco when I was exhibiting.

The solution then appears to be to use a higher power power pack. 

That is as far as have got just now and it does not look as though the e-link is faulty after all. I think I will use the Elite next time I exhibit St.Michaels.

Thank you all for all your help especially with the .INI recommendations which are now printed off and will be filed with my Railmaster Manual.

Thanks again.

Cliff.

t 

[Chrissaf]

The Triang X04 motors could very well be the issue. They in particular, because of their age, can lose magnetism. When the motor magnets weaken, the current they draw goes up dramatically. The magnets can be re-magnetised to drop the current drawn back down again. This YouTube video demonstrates this issue admirably. If I recall correctly, the motor in the video draws about 600mA, which then drops down to 300mA after being re-magnetised.

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You can send the motors off to be re-magnetised here:

http://www.scalespeed.co.uk/

[Traincliff]

On the first day of the exhibition I had 2 locos go faulty on me. I have just finished sorting them out. The first was a Triang 2-6-2T which apparently had a seized connecting rod so would have overloaded and the other was a China built Spamcan and that too has had to have a new motor so may have drawn more current than it should. Most of my X04s have neodymium magnets so in good running condition should draw less current. 

Lesson well learned though and that is to test run all locos fully before I go to an exhibition. Just because they ran OK last time does not mean they will this time. 

Thanks again for all your help fellas.

Cliff

[96RAF]

Thanks for the feedback Cliff. Its good to find a definite fault likely responsible for a layout running failure.

Lets hope it all goes smoothly for you from here on in.

Rob