F28 AFC and F9 looped sounds behaviour

[Britannia Builder]

I use F28, Automatic Function Control, to get sound effects when stationary and when running, and in general it works very well. However, I can't get F9 (Safety Valve on a steam loco) to sound from within AFC. Other sounds such as F7 Coal Shovel and F8 Injector work fine within AFC, and F9 works fine as a stand-alone function. I've tried it in two of my steam locos, in both cases as a stationary sound - I haven't tried it as a running sound.

If it's a bug, it's a rather strange one - perhaps someone else could try it out?

As another observation on AFC, the manual advises against using looped sounds (by which I assume that it means toggled functions), but when I do use Coal Shovel or Injector in AFC they sound for about 8-10 seconds and then stop, which seems fine. Within the app, such functions can be redefined as timed with a selectable time duration, which is a nice feature with no equivalent in Railmaster. Doing this has no effect on the duration when the function is used within AFC, since the time duration is presumably held in the app rather than in the decoder.

Regards, John

[Fishmanoz]

Interesting observations BB.

Mods, could you please add to the title to become “F28 AFC F9 and Looped Sounds problems”.

I always think it better to not keep thread contents secret in titles, just makes them harder to find later.

[Britannia Builder]

Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that there is a problem with looped sounds under AFC - they seem to work rather well.

Regards, John

[96RAF]

For looped sounds I guess F28 allocates a time slot and some looped sounds may exceed this, hence could hog a channel that should be used by the next sound.

Have you got these sounds set as random or in sequence.

[Britannia Builder]

I tried both random and sequential when trying to get F9 to sound, but it made no difference.

I guess most looped sounds are quite short before they repeat. They seem to run for about 10 seconds under AFC, so plenty of gap before the next sound which is typically at an interval of 20-30 seconds.

If AFC looped sounds work as they appear to, it might be worth updating the decoder manual to say how they work rather than advising against using them.

Regards, John

[Fishmanoz]

Mods, in changing the title, you left out F9.

BB, maybe Behaviour instead of Problems in the title?

[96RAF]

What value have you set in CV65.

[Britannia Builder]

2 for F9, or 3 for F9+F8. The app CV editor shows the individual F numbers so there's no need for binary arithmetic.

[96RAF]

Is the app actually reading those numbers into the decoder. Can you read them back using a DCC controller.

[Britannia Builder]

Yes, I've just refreshed the CVs in the app from the CVs in the decoder for both locos, and CV65 is set to 2 and 3 respectively, so F9 is on in both cases.

[Britannia Builder]

I've also now tried setting F9 as a running mode F28 sound, and this also fails to sound.

Regards, John