Help needed turning on the lights.

[Nevalti]

This may or may not be a bit basic - but I'm struggling with the basics.

 

For my first DCC loco, I've bought a nice S/H Warship (Not Hornby, the 'B' company) which is fitted with a 'B' company 21pin chip. It shows up as "Electronic Solutions Ulm"

 

in the CV settings. Foolishly I failed to note that the loco had already been set up as ID 823 (the loco number) and I messed around trying to get it to work using Railmaster and eLink. Eventually I managed to set up a new number - 009 and it works

 

extremely well, quiet and smooth right down to 1mph, albeit the RM indicated speed may be meaningless.

 

Now, how on earth do I set up the directional lights? I am assured, and I do believe him, that they were working before I mucked around with settings

 

that I barely understand.

 

I seem to have messed things up. Has anyone got the patience to give me an idiot's guide on how to turn the lights on?

[96RAF]

Nevalti said:

This may or may not be a bit basic - but I'm struggling with the basics.

For my first DCC loco, I've bought a nice S/H Warship (Not Hornby, the 'B' company) which is fitted with a 'B' company 21pin chip. It shows up as

"Electronic Solutions Ulm" in the CV settings. Foolishly I failed to note that the loco had already been set up as ID 823 (the loco number) and I messed around trying to get it to work using Railmaster and eLink. Eventually I managed to set up a new number

- 009 and it works extremely well, quiet and smooth right down to 1mph, albeit the RM indicated speed may be meaningless.

Now, how on earth do I set up the directional lights? I am assured, and I do believe him, that they were working before I mucked

around with settings that I barely understand.

I seem to have messed things up. Has anyone got the patience to give me an idiot's guide on how to turn the lights on?

F0 is the normal lights on function.

[Nevalti]

RAF96 said: F0 is the normal lights on function.

Thank you.

I ticked against F0 hoping that would do the trick and a blue 'Lights on/off' button appeared under the regulator etc. Nothing actually happens when I press it so

perhaps I need to alter something elsewhere. Presumably the CVs need to have the right settings for that button to have the desired effect? I have not knowingly altered any of them except the loco ID.

I said you would need to be patient. This

is all very new to me.

[RDS]

@Nevalti

In order to get your lights working, you need to tell RailMaster what action to take when the button is pressed.

You need to click on the Loco set-up icon and this will take you into the Loco set-up screen.

RailMaster will then find the

 

Loco's.

Having selected your loco you can then click on the relevant button and select your lights from the drop down menu.

They should then work when you select the blue 'button' and it will put a description in the box for you.

[Graskie]

I don't quite understand what you mean by your first sentence. In the set-up screen for that loco the description after Function 0 should say "lights on/off." You need the on/off inclusion or else the lights will barely be noticed rapidly switching on

 

and then immediately off. Does this help?

[Fishmanoz]

Graskie, having set that up, is it then necessary to write that to the CV? Ie. Carry out a write operation.

[Graskie]

No, it shouldn't be. But I am assuming that the lights are controlled by Function 0, as is usual, although there can be exceptions, in which case one would have to experiment with other functions, not forgetting the on/off part of the instruction.

[RDS]

Graskie said:

Function 0 should say "lights on/off." You need the on/off inclusion or else the lights will barely be noticed rapidly switching on and then immediately off.

The 1st Press of F1 puts the lights on and then the

next Press turns them off.
One of my suggestions for our 'Desirable Features' is to be able to specify whether they are on or off. At present, they just toggle to the opposite state.
I hope that makes sense.

[St1ngr4y]

RDS said:

The 1st Press of F1 puts the lights on and then the next Press turns them off.
One of my suggestions for our 'Desirable Features' is to be able to specify whether they are on or off. At present, they just toggle to the opposite

state.
I hope that makes sense.

@RDS
The same applies to all latching functions which use the on/off desgnator, but I have a feeling that this might be a DCC (NREM?) standard rather than something which Railmaster or the Elink Elite or Select

controllers can change. It becomes even more important when you are operating trains via RM programs. At least a human operator can SEE if the lights are on or off, and HEAR whether the sound is on or off, but a program can't tell.
Ray

[Nevalti]

Thank you gentlemen but still no lights I'm afraid.

 

I had already set up F0 as the on/off toggle and indeed it showed up as such in the controller.

 

To double check, I have deleted the loco completely and re-installed it with exactly the same

 

result. It runs perfectly but the lights don't work. I had assumed that that there had to be some matching entry in the CVs such as CV 33 & 34 which are 000, but I guess from your responses that is not the case.

 

Oh, well, I suppose I now need to take

 

it apart and check that the wiring from pins 7 & 8 (21 pin chip) is intact.

 

Thank you all.

[Fishmanoz]

Yes, do check 7 and 8 wiring, also 16 being blue function common.