long whistle, stays on

[Yelrow]

hi, just taken delivery of my new A4, sparrowhawk with locksound. It runs totally silently, without turning on sound, a superb addition. With railmaster, you can only at present have 6 sounds, which is a pity, as loco has 11. My problem, is the long whistle,

 

its great, but it goes on and on and on. Does not seem to hsve a time limit. Is their any adjustment in RM, for this, or does anyone know for how long, it should sound. All the other 10, are perfect. My only little nag is the length, or lack of it, of the

 

wire from loco to tender. One could do with an extension.john

[poliss]

Does RM have a latching function?

[Fishmanoz]

Certainly does, the whistle will stay on until you hit the function again and switch it off

 

John, why do you think you only have 6 sounds? Have you clicked on the arrow at the bottom of your loco control to expand your functions up to 24?

[Yelrow]

FIshy, its ok for you long established Dcc guys, but this is what the forum is for, to ask queastions, however stupid, to be helped. As this is the first sound engine i have, or am ever likely to have, given cost, i had no need to expand sound functions,

 

only having trains with lights, having only able to use lights on, lights off. The other functions, eg coal, air brakes, do not stay on, they sound once and stop. So, why does the long whistle not do the same. There is nothing, to say about this. Also, what

 

should happen, when i press shunt. You would have nothing to write about, without my questions. Seriously, as usual, thanks very much. What is a latching function, john

[poliss]

Hornby Customer care wrote this 1028 days ago. :-)

 

"RailMaster controls the Elite, just like you would and would not effect the decoder in anyway. You can adjust the sound function using the Macro function in RailMaster.

 

1. The macros are

 

built in by default for all Hornby sound locos.

 

2. If you do want to alter them the structure is straightforward: F followed by a function number sounds that function, P injects a pause for the function to operate then doing another F will switch the

 

function off again.

 

Some sounds are momentary and some are latching. You do not need a macro at all for the momentary ones. For latching functions, that stay on until you press the button again, it is desirable for RailMaster to handle the turning off

 

again, thus freeing the operator to do other things.

 

For example, a long whistle may be on F2 but is latching, so you press it, wait a while, press it again. You can instead add the macro P2~F2 which sound the whistle for two seconds then turn it off

 

again.

 

Page 21 of the manual explains this in more detail."

[Yelrow]

Poliss, hi thank you for your explanation, when you are 70, and disabled, things that were simple a few years ago, become difficult. its my hands that are the problem, and trying to flick through pges and pages of a manual, becomes a pain. All the other

 

sounds, except shunting that does nothing, work once and stop.The long whistle, goes on , regardless of whether i press it again or not. Think it might be a fault, but will print off you comments and take them upstairs to try. Thats the other problem, my router

 

will not go through very thick walls to my table tennis room, and my provider can offer no solution. That does not matter, except i write from downstairs, then go back up where elink is. Presume your system bears a similar name to make of sound decoder. Am

 

delighted with the loco, also run N gauge, TT, 3 Rail, and a big dc layout. Am just about to start on points, for DCC, once i can understand that. Let us hope that i can work this out, without any more problems, thanks again, john

[96RAF]

poliss said:

Hornby Customer care wrote this 1028 days ago. :-)

"RailMaster controls the Elite, just like you would and would not effect the decoder in anyway. You can adjust the sound function using the Macro function in RailMaster.



1. The macros are built in by default for all Hornby sound locos.

2. If you do want to alter them the structure is straightforward: F followed by a function number sounds that function, P injects a pause for the function to operate then doing

another F will switch the function off again.

Some sounds are momentary and some are latching. You do not need a macro at all for the momentary ones. For latching functions, that stay on until you press the button again, it is desirable for RailMaster

to handle the turning off again, thus freeing the operator to do other things.

For example, a long whistle may be on F2 but is latching, so you press it, wait a while, press it again. You can instead add the macro P2~F2 which sound the whistle for

two seconds then turn it off again.

Page 21 of the manual explains this in more detail."

Within my limited sound equipped loco experience I have found that some sounds are momentary (i.e they play once then stop) and others are persistent

(i.e toggle on and play until toggled off - latching). It appears your long whistle is off this genre.
Momentary sounds however need to be 'cancelled' by reselecting before they can be replayed. i.e wheel slip once selected plays through and stops but before

you can play it again you have to in effect select it off first then on again. So you have to treat it as though latching.
Other decoders may not exhibit this behaviour.

[poliss]

You should be able to download the Railmaster manual for reading on your 'device'.

I think I read somewhere that you can buy a thingy that plugs into your electrical outlets for extending the wireless router thingyness. :-)

My system is well out

 

of date now and nobody will buy me the new one with all the bells and whistles. :-(

I'm strictly N gauge. No room for anything else.

[Yelrow]

RAF 96, Hi, tried turning it off, it did not, took it off track and replaced, and it still carried on. Her indoors, not impressed, john

[96RAF]

Additional to my previous message can HRMS please confirm that RM automatically handles the momentary switching off so that the next momentary selection will action at the programmed time or is it necessary to input a line item to 'deselect' a momentary

 

action before asking for it again.

An example would be 2 short whistles (Fx - Fx).

What program sequence is needed to be written to achieve this.

My guess would be:

Fx Short Whistle (on) - plays for a couple of seconds

Fx Short Whistle (off)

 

- resets decoder action

Fx Short Whistle (on) - second toot

Fx Short Whistle (off) - resets decoder for next short whistle event.

 

Or does RM sort it out like this:

Fx Short Whistle - first toot

RM deselects Fx automatically

Fx Short Whistle

 

- second toot

 

 

[96RAF]

John

It appears your latching function is stuck on. Selecting it again should turn it off.

May be a dodgy/confused decoder, so try a decoder reset CV8 to value 8.

Else download the manual for your decoder and see what it has to add to the party.

Rob

[Yelrow]

Polliss, hi, you are right about using power sockets to extend, but not in rural france. You would not belive the wiring system here, 3 phase, 2 phase, single phase, all from noah. I was playing with demo railmaster downstairs, but when my trial finished,

 

so did that. Only have upstairs on laptop, and elink connection is so temperamental, that i do not want to disturb. Hence my question on other thread about elite. john

[96RAF]

I know what you mean John

In Cyprus we have 3-Phase electricity to the house - very handy if you want to run certain types of workshop machinery - but as each phase does different stuff within the distribution box, often Power-line type network adapters

 

don't work as they are not on the same circuit or even the same phase - hence the need for a Wi-Fi type Power-line adapter to jump the fence as it were.

 

[Yelrow]

Pollis, RAF 96, Where is PJ, when you need him, he has same set up. There is no P that i can find on RM, with elink, perhaps this is only with elite, which i am still without, but getting nearer. Also, Fishy said scroll down for other functions, thats

 

fine, but you can still only use 6 with RM, unless you guys know different, john

[Graskie]

John, I've covered this several times before. Search for latching functions in the forum. If you click on the RM right column for a specific loco, you should then see an expanded box to the left which allows you to view and operate loads of functions by

 

scrolling. Just hit the downward arrow at the bottom of the box. Did you set the loco up properly in the first place? You can stop any function latching by typing in "on/off" after that function description, e.g. "Sound on/off", "long whistle on/off", although

 

I don't seem to need to do that with my long whistles on my Elite/RM combination. Shunting is the same. If you put in "shunt on/off" you'll notice the difference. Hope this helps but please ask further questions because I know just how frustrating it can be.

[Fishmanoz]

Hi John, I can understand why you may be confused having just read through this thread. For a start, I wasn't being tetchy with you in my reply, just that only when I started replying did I realise what your problem might be.

 

If I can start by

 

saying there is a solution to your network problem without wifi, but it would mean running an Ethernet network cable from the router to the layout, and I appreciate that may not be feasible. Also with the manual, RM automatically downloads a copy of the latest

 

manual to your desktop when it updates, so you can read it on screen anytime.

 

I think you've probably got the idea on latching functions now? They are the ones that don't turn off by themselves, you have to hit the function button again to do it.

 

Next,

 

a couple of people have been talking about more advanced features of RM whereby you can set up functions to work in particular ways, as in adding on/off to the setup of a latching function so that it turns off again. And you can also have macros, or short

 

programs, that operate when you select a function, again done in your loco setup. The P you can't find is the Pause programming command to go in such a macro. Does that make it any clearer? If it at least gives a clue, then it may give some context to reading

 

the manual to find out more.

 

If you can set these things up for your sound loco, it will make it much easier to run with the amount of mouse work reduced. And you can't do the sophistication of function control with Elite if you decide to go that way.

 

RM is much better at such things.

 

PJ has been missing for a week now. One of the last things he said as he was enjoying his new PC with touch screen was he had to go to hospital for tests. I remember particularly as I had just given him a brilliant

 

idea on how to fix one of his sound locos and he's yet to get beck to say if it worked or I am talking through my corkless hat again. I hope he and his wife are ok.

[Graskie]

You shouldn't need macros when the "on/off" option is available. At one time you had to set one on RM for a long whistle but now you, or at least I, don't need to. I know it's set out in the manual, Fishy, but I've found that the macro command for long

 

whistle is certainly no longer required. I think Hornby changed it, but,funnily enough, not for other latching sounds. I believe they changed that one because of complaints some time ago now.

[Yelrow]

Fishy, thanks, but what about my 11 sound functions, RM, says i can only have 6. Is this right. moving on, Graskie, i found all the functions, only shunt does nothing. If i have that i can only have 5 more, WHY. I know i can connect with an ethernet, but

 

she who must be obeyed, not happy with a 50 foot cable going up walls and through ceilings. I have learnt other new words, like bus, we now have latch, or even latching, is this the same as attach, and macros, its a whole new world RAF 96, how many locos do

 

you run at once, with your system, will i be nuch worse off this way. Still cant find P, perhaps there is a new word for this, john

[St1ngr4y]

yelrow said:

Fishy, thanks, but what about my 11 sound functions, RM, says i can only have 6. Is this right

Hi John,
When you configure a loco, you can define all of the functions supported on the loco's decoder. However,

in the main RM display, where your list of locos is displayed each having its own small panel with forward/reverse buttons, tortoise, hare and hand buttons, each small panel is only large enough for 6 function buttons. These 6 are the ones you choose when

you define your loco, probably the ones you are likely to use most often. However, if you click on this small panel for a loco (in an area which isn't one of these buttons), a new, larger window opens up for that loco, and on here (at first) you will see 8

function buttons displayed. At the very bottom edge you will see a red arrow pointing downwards. Click on this and you will see the window expand to display 16 function buttons.
I hope this helps.
Ray

[Yelrow]

STng4Y, hi ,ray, many thanks, that was a great help, RM, kept saying you are only allowed 6 sounds, john

[Graskie]

Yelrow, you're only allowed to tick up to 6 functions, mainly sound, but things such as shunting mode as well when you set a sound loco up on RM. However, you need to type in the rest of the functions a loco is capable of, unless you choose a specific

 

loco from Hornby's list, using the magnifying glass, which will automatically set its functions for you. You can then, in fact, test all your sounds on the setup screen, not just the ticked ones. Once satisfied with what you have done, you should then click

 

on the green tick at the bottom to fix that loco in RM memory.

 

You should then have one or two columns of locos to the right of your screen (you can select the number of columns, 1 or 2). With those boxes you can only choose the 6 functions which you

 

previously ticked as the main ones you want, but if you then follow Ray's instructions above, you can open up a larger selected loco box which you can expand to far more functions. When setting the functions you can either set the function number or function

 

description, the latter option being preferable for obvious reasons.

 

Hope you're beginning to get somewhere. Sorry if my advice is perhaps not as exact as it could be, but please ask further questions. Once you've got it all going, I'm sure you'll be

 

delighted.

[Fishmanoz]

Well put Graskie, I think you should be able to get a job rewriting the manual with this detail. I think that should put the confusion on the 6 well and truly to bed.

[Graskie]

Thanks, Fishy. I used to assist in writing office instructions and manuals at work in the latter part of my career at what is now the largest Building Society in the UK. I know how easy it is to fail noticing and updating certain instructions. There are

 

other areas in Hornby's manuals that no longer seem to apply, such as the long whistle macro which no longer needs to be followed.

[HornbyRailMasterSupport]

There seems to have been some confusion over how latching sounds are and can be dealt with by RailMaster.

 

There are two ways of operating latching functions (that is those functions which stay on until the function button is pressed again).

 

1)

 

You can either have no RailMaster macro assigned and press the function button. The sound will continue to sound until the button is pressed again. Most "Long Whistle" sounds in Hornby locos are latching, so that they stay on until the function button is pressed

 

again. Note, this is not always the case with other manufacturers' locos. Most DCC controllers will work in this fashion using their function buttons as they do not have the computing power to do otherwise.

 

2) The power of RailMaster allows you to sound

 

a latching function and have the software automatically stop it for you afer a number of seconds. This is particularly useful as you then do not have to concentrate on the function and can operate other parts of your layout. In effect, RailMaster presses the

 

function button again for you automatically. This is where the macro function comes in, as per the RailMaster PDF guide. It is important that any latching function, especially when using macros, has the phrase "on/off" as part of it's description e.g. "Whistle

 

on/off".

 

To se the Hornby Long Whistle to sound for two seconds and then go off you need to do the following:-

 

1. Ensure the button description says "Whistle on/off".

2. Add the macro P2~F2 ( this assumes that the function button is number

 

F2)

The P2 above pauses for two seconds, so if you prefer 3 seconds, just set P3

 

Thus when you press the F2 button for Long Whistle, it will sound for two seconds and go off automatically.

 

The instructions given in the RailMaster PDF guide

 

are relevant to all of the above.

 

We hope this clarifies things.

 

[Graskie]

Thanks very much for that, HRMS. I said I did not use macros any more since using the "on/off" addition to a function's description where required. I must check, but I don't think you necessarily need to have a macro nor the said function addition for

 

a long whistle on your or even other makes of loco either. For some reason that function doesn't seem to need any change from the default for it to work properly, which, I admit, does seem a bit strange as an exception. However, you do seem to have to push

 

the relevant button twice on the Elite if operating the long whistle directly from that without using RM.