Cobalt Digital with Elink and Railmaster

[AyrshireJambo]

I have come to a dead stop with trying to address Cobalt Digital point motors.

 

I managed to address one out of six using the normal method with Railmaster, then decided there must be a Railcom issue that stopped the addressing working. No sign of

 

how to turn off RailCom, so then address the remaining five motors using my old Bachman Dynamis. Points work fine using the Dynamis Controller - swap over to Hornby and they don't work.

 

I am getting very frustrated by this as I am a pretty knowledgeable

 

person on both IT and electrics.

 

Does anyone know the secret of how to get these great new point motors to work with what is a good control setup.

[Flashbang]

I know it may sound silly, but have you returned the Cobalts DIP switch back to its normal position after programming?

 

[Fishmanoz]

This was answered 2 days ago a few threads down by bulleidboy. If you are still having problems after reading his answer and looking at the cobalt specification on the DCC Concepts website, suggest you email RM Support from within the Help window of RM

 

to see if they can assist.

[AyrshireJambo]

I of course have set back to run - basic as you say

 

The instructions from bullied boy do not work as they are the standard instructions from dcc concepts.

 

I would not post if the answer was already out there, but thanks for your comments

 

anyway

 

I was hoping that someone who had actually set up cobalt digital motors with elink might respond

[walkingthedog]

Plenty of time yet, you only posted the question about three and a half hours ago. Give people a chance to get back from work or school.

This forum is usually pretty quiet weekdays before 1800.

[Montywb]

I suspect that your best bet is to email Richard Johnson of DCC Concepts. I did when I was trying to use Cobalts with Railmaster and an Elite with Hornby accessory decoders. He sent me a diagram and details of what is needed to make them work and they

 

do nicely. I can't find the diagram now as it was on another computer which turned it's toes up some time ago. You will find Richard extremely helpful.

 

Maurice

[Fishmanoz]

You'll find Richard's email on his DCC Concepts web site.

[Fishmanoz]

Take a look at idlemarvel's post on the other thread. He seems to have done it successfully using the instruction leaflet, to which he has given the link.

[AndrewP]

Fishmanoz said:

Take a look at idlemarvel's post on the other thread. He seems to have done it successfully using the instruction leaflet, to which he has given the link.

I'm having a similar problem; I've followed the instructions

- the motor is seeing something from the controller; when it's in Set mode, it moves when I try and adjust it. What I'm confused about was what accessory setting I should use - RM offers a fairly small list; I would have expected a "generic" or "control

only" option. I've emailed DCC systems; if they can shed any light, I'll pass it on.

[Fishmanoz]

Andrew,I think it is pretty clear from idlemarvel's post I refer to above that you use the 8247 option then follow the DCC Concepts instructions in his link.

[AyrshireJambo]

Fishmanoz said:

Andrew,I think it is pretty clear from idlemarvel's post I refer to above that you use the 8247 option then follow the DCC Concepts instructions in his link.

[AyrshireJambo]

The advice to contact Richard is good - I already sent him an email last Thursday - hopefully he will get back to me this week.

 

As far as the reply from Idlemarvel is concerned, it is clear he is referring to the non digital Cobalt motors.

 

Please

 

all be clear - this thread refers to Cobalt Digital motors with onboard accessory decoder - not the standard cobalt motors that require a separate decoder.

[Fishmanoz]

So try this - from the drop down list, select the NCE Snap-it decoder,being the only one that is single port. Now put your motor/decoder in learn mode and select your address in RM. Put it back in run and see if it works.

 

I checked the decoder

 

instructions and it doesn't give any for any Hornby system but it is NMRA compliant and all the others are programmed this way, so I suspect it will work. An email to Richard should confirm though.

[AyrshireJambo]

Fishmanoz said:

So try this - from the drop down list, select the NCE Snap-it decoder,being the only one that is single port. Now put your motor/decoder in learn mode and select your address in RM. Put it back in run and see if it works.



I checked the decoder instructions and it doesn't give any for any Hornby system but it is NMRA compliant and all the others are programmed this way, so I suspect it will work. An email to Richard should confirm though.

[AyrshireJambo]

Thanks - I think I have already tried this, but will try again and report back on success or failure.

[AndrewP]

I've found my problem; the wire I'd poked into the Cobalt's was slightly too short; it connected a bit - so switching with an external switch worked, but not enough to work with DCC. I swapped cables and it started working; it still makes an alarming clicking

 

noise at one extreme though.

 

 

[Fishmanoz]

That's great Andrew. Now if you could tell us exactly how you did it so AJ can do it too.

[AyrshireJambo]

Fishmanoz said:

That's great Andrew. Now if you could tell us exactly how you did it so AJ can do it too.

Not great I am afraid. According to the email below from Richard cobalt digital is really not compatible with elink and

railmaster

sorry to have been slow - after a month away on business, all the in-boxes are full and I am only now getting to the "Questions" inbox.

Railcom is certainly an issue - implementation of its timing is woefully inconsistent between the

brands. I predict it will go the way of beta video before long as it is a total disaster - its chosen frequency also makes some point motors "sing" quite noisily. Even brands that offer it, such as ESU, actually recommend turning it off to program accessory

decoders.

Re Railcom: Railcom actually shorts the data on the bus regularly to create a "window" for it to transmit 8 to 13 bytes of data - if timings for railcom are even slightly off, it causes data loss in all other DCC devices).

However

I also bought the E-link / railmaster and found it intermittent with accessory decoders of all brands. In fact I bought 2 as I do with all sampling and both were less than perfect out of the box. It really is not very good soft or hardware wise.

-------------------

The

problem is that we know for certain that the cobalt digital meets NMRA spec... but do not know what railmaster/e-link is doing in the accessory area - we suspect that there is a data timing issue but its not for us to climb inside hornbys software unfortunately.



There is a slight difference but identical software between ADS and cobalt decoder - but both meet NMRA spec properly... So... the issue is unfortunately not our decoders - while I am sure they will deny it, the simple fact is that it is hornby's poor

implementation, which is for the 3rd time, not totally compliant with specs unfortunately. Cobalt Digitals program and work perfectly with all other brands... we know that for a fact as we test with 6 core NMRA compliant brands when we design (All of them

commonly sold in the UK market.)

------------------

To be honest, if you are concerned with a good result long term, and want the same sort of interface but better software compatibility / generally good running and related results - buy the

Roco Z21 - it is light years ahead software structure and hardware-wise.... but again, do turn off railcom...

I know that the above isn't helpful as it might be but you can also try the following.

(1) try swapping the two bus wires over at

the cobalt. Its not necessarily logical but.... This will help if they have a waveform issue perhaps (it certainly helped with programming using the earlier totally awful MRC prodigy units for example).
(2) You could perhaps try a 1/2 watt or larger 120

ohm resistor and 0.1microfarad cap across the power bus....
(3) last possibility, a similar filter across cobalt. ** Start with trying just 200 ohms in series with one lead. ** if that will not help, remove the 200r and add the same sort of RC filter as

per #2, with perhaps 150~200 ohms plus the 0.0 ceramic across the inputs of Cobalt

Apart from that, I really do have no other insights.

Richard

[Kiwi_Dee]

Hi all, I'm having the same problem trying to program cobalt digital with an elite. If any one has any more thoughts that would be fantastic.

[idlemarvel]

AyrshireJambo said:

while I am sure they will deny it, the simple fact is that it is hornby's poor implementation, which is for the 3rd time, not totally compliant with specs unfortunately.

I would like someone from

Hornby to comment on these remarks. I feel they should comply with the NRMA specs whenever possible unless there is a good reason not to, which should be explained. I don't have a particular problem with Hornby DCC kit (eLink, Elite, R8247) but the point of

standards is that different suppliers equipment can interoperate, especially helpful when we currently have unavailability of Hornby accessory decoders.

[AyrshireJambo]

idlemarvel said:

I would like someone from Hornby to comment on these remarks. I feel they should comply with the NRMA specs whenever possible unless there is a good reason not to, which should be explained. I don't have a particular problem

with Hornby DCC kit (eLink, Elite, R8247) but the point of standards is that different suppliers equipment can interoperate, especially helpful when we currently have unavailability of Hornby accessory decoders.

[AyrshireJambo]

I agree it would be good to get a response from Hornby.

 

Does anyone know how to get Hornby to respond?

[Fishmanoz]

Copy and paste the content from Richard into an email to RM Support from within the Help window of RM.

 

By the way, I am going to email Richard myself, being a customer of his, and ask about operating with Elite, with or without RM.

[Bulleidboy]

I have been watching this with interest, as I hope to fit Cobalt Digital's to my new layout. One thing that AyrshireJambo mentioned, but does not appear to have developed further, is that on the DCC Website/instructions for the Cobalt, it says that with

 

the Hornby Elite Railcom should be turned-off before programming the Cobalt. Has this been done by those trying to programme the motor? I do have one Cob/Dig., and will set up a test rig before the final installation.

[Kiwi_Dee]

bulleidboy said:

I have been watching this with interest, as I hope to fit Cobalt Digital's to my new layout. One thing that AyrshireJambo mentioned, but does not appear to have developed further, is that on the DCC Website/instructions for

the Cobalt, it says that with the Hornby Elite Railcom should be turned-off before programming the Cobalt. Has this been done by those trying to programme the motor? I do have one Cob/Dig., and will set up a test rig before the final installation.

there

doesn't appear to be an option to disable railcom with the current version of Elite firmware. Looks to me as though this has been removed in a previous firmware version. I have tried with elite in both standard and classic modes without success. I am also

running railmaster and have tried via this also. I'm more than happy to try any other methods if anyone has any suggestions.