Quirks and oddities

[96RAF]

But that does not answer the question is fewer meshes with more devices better than more meshes with fewer devices?

 

 

Each app device creates its own mesh. These individual meshes do not communicate with or fortify each other. The robustness of each mesh is reliant upon its own membership (nodes).

Priority in hosting is taken by any static decoders, such as HM6K modules, HM7040 dongle and any future HM7K trackside static devices, followed by the mobile decoders. Placement of nodes as these mesh members are called can increase the control range.

[LuLuJo]

So an individual mesh with 6 mobile decoders is likely to be a bit stronger than one with 4?

I have had 3 meshes running for some time with 3 or 4 decoders and had no issues with ability to connect to them all ( in fact rather too much connectively until recently) .

My intention is to rationalise the 3 meshes down to 2 as its practically more manageable as I only have two hands and with my experience so far can probably readily cope with 10 to a dozen locomotives on each IOS device . I will probably ultimately have around 20TXS decoders in addition to the 100 or so conventional ones.

I have bought a legacy dongle on pre order but cannot currently see that the app will be much practical use for controlling the legacy decoders and using my existing system works well together with the TXS decoders and the App

[96RAF]

Your legacy locos will appear in the app Control Strip just like a TXS loco and be controllable via the dongle exactly the same apart from no access to the Advanced CV Editor.

[SteveM6]

Your legacy locos will appear in the app Control Strip just like a TXS loco and be controllable via the dongle exactly the same apart from no access to the Advanced CV Editor.

 

 

As designed, the entirety of an operator’s collection will be accessible from a single tablet or phone.

With this in mind, I cannot see why a number of posters have commented on multiple devices controlling locos - simply no need.

[LuLuJo]

Yes I realise that but with over a 100 locos on the roster finding the right one is going to be much easier said than done on a phone screen.

Presumably they will all have to be set up as well on each device as I assume that the roster in railmaster are details that are not accessible or importable.

I was interested in your comments on the static mesh nodes as I am about to venture outside and up Grayrigg bank and it occurs that having a fixed node or two in an appropriate place might be quite useful.

[96RAF]

TXS decoders are assigned to a loco, one per loco. A TXS loco will show the MAC address of the decoder installed. Each MAC address is unique.

Legacy loco decoders are assigned to dongle, there is no limit to the number assigned.

A legacy loco will show the MAC address of the assigned dongle.

Again each dongle MAC address is unique. Several dongles can be daisy chained to a suitable DCC controller in a similar fashion to the way Select controllers can be daisy chained as Walkabouts.

The idea behind this being that a club or large layout could have several members/operators each with their own legacy locos running via their dongle from their app device (phone/tablet).

HM6000/6010 modules can be used as static nodes, the latter could be remotely located to operate far points or other trackside accessories. The former may be being used as a track power supply subject to tweaking per the compatibility chart and decoder manual advice.

HM7040 dongles can be used as static nodes but are going to be local to their associated DCC controller, so not much use as range extenders.

At present there is no facility to import anything from RM. It could be lodged as a suggested improvement in the sticky post.

[LuLuJo]

Just a bit of an update.

I am still getting for time to time the supposedly impossible position that I an access decoders from an Ipad or Iphone which is not linked to them or even set up but inactive on that particular app. It happens less frequently than it did before the IOS system update probably about one in 4 operating sessions. I plan to start a log as its my perception that the more frequently I use the system the more often the issue occurs.

I have 14 decoders and 3 IOS devices( Ipad and 2 iphones) set up.

Today switched on the power to the system and then my Ipad . My Ipad has 5 decoders linked to it and active. Of the 5 decoders 3 showed blue as connected and 2 showed red. The system at to top of the page showed in blue 6 decoders linked to the system. the 3 locos with blue showing were controlling 3 other decoders set up on other IOS devices and not the correct locomotives. So none of the locos linked to my Ipad were controllable. I switched on an iphone and again none of the set up locomotives in the App on that phone were controllable.

Sometimes I can control a decoder from 2 Apps at the same time but not always.

I feed this back to George from time to time but understand he has other priorities.

I wonder if I am unique with this issue and certainly expect that I am in the minority in using multiple control devices.

[Brew Man]

Have you tried unlinking and deleting all associated decoders from two of your devices, then linking them all to your remaining device and see if they are all operational from just one device?

[96RAF]

I think it stems from the first device to power up grabs anything it sees, whether you have linked to it or not. The reason being you might want to link to it so it stands ready. This may/may not prevent a subsequently powered device from taking command of a legal decoder on its books. Just my musings as I have been locked out of controlling a decoder by having several devices powered up together, but have never been able to play with a decoder that was not owned by the device in hand.

[LuLuJo]

I am still getting the issue that I sometimes can control a locomotive from two IOS devices at the same time. I have rationalised my devices from 3 down to 2 (an ipad and iphone 11) to try to improve matters without any clear improvement

I today ran a WD and using each device in turn alternately blew the whistles switched sound on and off and started and stopped the train.

I also get the position where A device seizes control of the wrong loco and the proper assigned device wont link to it.

I have tried making sure as far as I can that the IOS devices are not synced together.

It happens about one in four times when the layout is operated and is a complete pain as it far too easy to update the wrong decoder when making any changes. Updating all the sound profiles was a complete nightmare. Locating and removing all 16 locos every time you make a change is not practical.

[SteveM6]

Have you thought of deleting the app from one of the devices so it can’t ‘grab’ it?

[LuLuJo]

I want to use two devices to control the trains as 1. A large number of decoders all linked to one device becomes much less manageable and 2. Using only one device one for certain tasks such as banking trains does not work.

However it does appear that the HM7000 system is only reliable when a single IOS control device is used.

[96RAF]

It should work fine as the 2 meshes should not talk to each other.

[96RAF]

Having spoken with Hornby they are still investigating and will be in direct touch with you, but believe it may be possible to control the same loco from 2 handhelds if one is set for mesh connection and the other standard BLE.

Their interim advice is to purge everything from each app by correctly delinking and deleting them, then rescan and relink from only one device. It should not then be possible to grab that decoder from the second device.

[LuLuJo]

Thanks for the update and suggestion. With 16 locos to do that will take a while. I have just moved 6 from the second iphone to the ipad.

A couple of other observation are:

I have been able to control some locomotives from 2 devices which have never been linked to more than one device. That sometimes I can control locos from the correct device even though the address is shown as red not blue, Also Sometimes the IOS device will show it linked to more decoders (6) than the total numbers (5) which are set up on the device. Then finding the extra one is a problem. its my normal practise to sound all the whistles in turn as it quickly shows if these is a control issue

[96RAF]

It is up to the designers to put constrains on who can do what but then people would start complaining about the constraints and make the App extremely complex.

 

 

The initial setup was tight in order to restrict the mesh for security purposes, such that a casual by-passer with malicious intent at a show could not grab a loco and create mayhem on a display layout.

Whether that security has now been eased to allow more reliable meshing I do not know.

There are future plans for easier handover and multi-user control across devices so we wait and see.

[96RAF]

The login is only used for access to the Hornby servers to access the sound profiles, to lodge your reset codes and establish ownership of decoders. As far as I know the mesh is local and not in any way connected to the Hornby servers.

[LuLuJo]

I have made some progress with my issues of IOS devices controlling multiple locos and locomotives being controlled at the same time by two IOS devices.

My iphone 6 needed a new battery as the old one was quickly dying. So before dismantling it to change the battery I removed all the 6 allocated locos and added 5 to my Ipad and 1 to my iphone 11. I succesfully cahnged the battery

The system then worked reliably with 11 locos on the ipad and 6 on the iphone. I loaded it up at least half a dozen times over the course of about 4 days. I note that sometimes the number of devices shown as linked in blue at the top of the screen was less than the number allocated to the device but they all worked as they should.

I then decided to see if I could identify the problem by adding a new TXS decoder to a Bachmann compound but set up and linked to the iphone 6. This duly broke the system. The compound on the iphone 6 loaded up correctly every time but 2 locos on the ipad and 2 on the iphone 11 were no longer recognised. The iphone 6 also showed 2 devices linked in blue at the top of the screen. Multiple attempts to restart the system produced the same result. It was always the same 4 locomotives ( 2 on each IOS device) affected none of which had any previous issues. So I removed the compound from the iphone 6 and added it to the ipad. I had to remove the 4 affected devices and relink them. The system now works reliably again with 12 locos on the ipad and 6 in the iphone 11. The number of devices shown as linked in blue correctly matches the numbers allocated to phone and ipad.

I can happily live with having my locos spread over two devices.

It would of course be interesting to know if its having 3 IOS devices which is the issue or the iphone 6 which is the problem. I have some more new decoders to fit so when I have some time to waste I may try putting the app on a different iphone 11 or ipad and adding the next decoder to that and see what happens.

[LuLuJo]

Hopefully this is my final contribution on this issue.

I had some time to waste so I did try adding a third IOS device again with a new decoder, to see what happened. I used another iphone 11 in place of the iphone 6S. This meant I had an ipad and two iphone 6S's all using the same version of the software and with 19 decoders linked to the 3 IOS devices.

The first time of switching on everything worked ok. Then disaster! One of the iphones with lots of locos linked would not connect or disconnect from the host and I got the endless circle of death as it tried to connect. All the locos on the device were inaccessible. Switching everything on and off made no difference. In the end I had to unlink and forcibly reset and delete all the decoders on the affected Iphone 11. This meant I lost all the specific sound CV's I had set up. I then had to link them all again and reset everything. So I wasted a great deal of time and far more than I wanted to.

I now have just two IOS devices ( ipad & iphone11) again which have loaded up successfully 10 times. Hopefully this will continue.

So my very clear advice is: DO NOT TRY TO USE MORE THAN 2 IOS DEVICES