Lighting and function programming

[Teedoubleudee]

I'm not sure if this is an issue with railmaster or my decoder or my understanding of how it all should work. I have found a work around which does what I want but thought I would post here to further my (and possibly other readr's) education on the matter so here goes.

I have an autocoach to which I have installed interior lighting and a red/white dual LED for directional lights. I am using a Hattons 4 function decoder.

So I connected the direction lights to the yellow and white decoder outputs with common to the blue lead. With this combination and without changeing anything in Railmaster, I can switch the direction lights on/off with the first (F0) button on RM and the lights change from red to white depending on direction of travel selected. Excellent.

Next I connected the 3rd (green) dcc wire to the cab lights (with return via blue wire). I tell RM I want the second button to switch on the interior lights.

Now what happens is I can still have the direction lights working UNTIL I switch on the coach lights. The lights come on but the red/white go off. In other words I can have either the direction lights on OR the coach lights on but not both. I spent ages last night changing various settings on RM and the decoder CVs, all to no avail.

As I said at the top of this post I have found a work around by putting the coach lights in series with the common wire to the direction lights. Now I have all lights working and switchable with the F0 button - the green decoder wire is disconnected. It actually makes sense that they would all be on at the same time - ie when it's dark!

According to what I have read so far, whilst the yellow and white outputs switch over within the decoder according to direction of travel selected, the green (and also there is another purple function wire on this decoder) is either ON all the time or OFF, depending on what you select on the controller.

So 3 reasons why it doesn't work:

1. The Hatton's decoder can't have whie/yellow live at the same time as green - I'm pretty certain this is not the case.

2. RM can't switch 2 different functions on independently - doubtful.

3. Or most likely I am not programming RM correctly.

I'm fairly satisfied that the CVs are correctly set, else why would it work at all?

 

So has anybody out there come across this or similar problem?

[Fishmanoz]

That's weird TWD, you seem to have done the correct thing.  By rights,city a 4-function decoder, F0 is the directional lights and F1 the green wire, F2 the purple.  With some decoders though, F1 can be directional lights.

 

Irrespective, they should be independent, so what you are getting shouldn't happen.  Sounds like a decoder fault to me.

 

But I suggest you try something else - connect your cab lights to purple instead of green and see if you can get them to work independently with F0 still directional and F2 for the cab.

[mcrook62]

Hi

Your hattons decoder is it hattons own brand and is it the 8pin one

the reason i am asking is a friend of mine converts any of my loco's to having lights at the moment he's doing the bachmann tamper he has put in dirctional lighting and on top of the cab roofs at each end white head lights

He has been useing the above decoders first 1 was faulty on the green and puple so order another and that too is faulty on the same wires he as informed Hattons of the problems so I am waiting to see what sort of answer he gets back.

Regards

mcrook62

[Teedoubleudee]

That's weird TWD, you seem to have done the correct thing.  By rights,city a 4-function decoder, F0 is the directional lights and F1 the green wire, F2 the purple.  With some decoders though, F1 can be directional lights.

 

Irrespective, they should be independent, so what you are getting shouldn't happen.  Sounds like a decoder fault to me.

 

But I suggest you try something else - connect your cab lights to purple instead of green and see if you can get them to work independently with F0 still directional and F2 for the cab.

 

Thanks for suggestion Fishy. Problem is/are I cut back the purple wire though I could get to it if I really had to, which brings me to second problem which is I had the devil's own job of getting everything back into the body - the Bachmann 45xx is desperately short of room for such internal modifications and I don't fancy taking it all apart again for fear of breaking something.

 

[Teedoubleudee]

Hi

Your hattons decoder is it hattons own brand and is it the 8pin one

the reason i am asking is a friend of mine converts any of my loco's to having lights at the moment he's doing the bachmann tamper he has put in dirctional lighting and on top of the cab roofs at each end white head lights

He has been useing the above decoders first 1 was faulty on the green and puple so order another and that too is faulty on the same wires he as informed Hattons of the problems so I am waiting to see what sort of answer he gets back.

Regards

mcrook62

 

Hi mcrook62, yes it is the Hattons 8 pin decoder which I have used in all my conversions without a problem so far. This is the first time I have tried to use anything other than motor control though so I would be very interested in what reply your friend gets back from them - perhaps there is a bad batch of them. As I said to Fishy above though, I don't relish the thought of taking it apart again especially as I have found a work around.

 

[96RAF]

Check that the resistors are not in the blue wire side as if you use a common resistor for more than one led the one with the highest forward current will take the lion's share and prevent the others working - e.g. in a red/green bi-clour led connecting both cathodes will see the red overpower the green instead of showing yelllow as you would expect.

You should always have a separate resistor for each led cathode.

[Teedoubleudee]

Check that the resistors are not in the blue wire side as if you use a common resistor for more than one led the one with the highest forward current will take the lion's share and prevent the others working - e.g. in a red/green bi-clour led connecting both cathodes will see the red overpower the green instead of showing yelllow as you would expect.

You should always have a separate resistor for each led cathode.

 

 

Hi Fishy, I've done a quick drawing and included it as a picture below (so will need to wait for admin check).

I understand your logic, but trying to understand why it sould be a problem with 3 separate -ve leads from decoder which surely would go through some kind of switch and therefor not at the same electrical point?

I would need to try it out using a different loco/decoder as I don't want to disturb my working solution.

Picture:

/media/tinymce_upload/Function_wiring.jpg

[Teedoubleudee]

Check that the resistors are not in the blue wire side as if you use a common resistor for more than one led the one with the highest forward current will take the lion's share and prevent the others working - e.g. in a red/green bi-clour led connecting both cathodes will see the red overpower the green instead of showing yelllow as you would expect.

You should always have a separate resistor for each led cathode.

 

Hi RAF, I have just posted a reply with a picture so will appear in it's own good time.

I'm afraid I gave credit to Fishmanoz for your post so please accept my apologies to both of you!

[96RAF]

The Does Not Work one does not work as when either the front or back light is switched the cab lights are sharing the resistor but on parallel circuit so the easiest route takes the biscuit. Independantly they will work but not together.

The Does Work one works as the cab lights are in series with whichever front or back light is on so each will draw as much current as required.

To get them all to work each circuit with the other you need a resistor in each sub circuit - i.e. not sharing one resistor with parallel circuite.

[Teedoubleudee]

As in diagram 3?

OK will give it a try and report back.

[96RAF]

As in diagram 3?

OK will give it a try and report back.

Yes - correct as I see it.

You may be able to leave the blue series resistor in situ, adding the others as you go, but it may affect the end brightness of the dependant circuits.

Try it on a breadboard if you can before taking the loco to bits again as it seems a nasty job.

[Teedoubleudee]

As in diagram 3?

OK will give it a try and report back.

Yes - correct as I see it.

You may be able to leave the blue series resistor in situ, adding the others as you go, but it may affect the end brightness of the dependant circuits.

Try it on a breadboard if you can before taking the loco to bits again as it seems a nasty job.

Hi RAF,

 

All working perfectly now so many thanks. I did try it on the breadboard and increased the coach lights resistor to 3k as it was too bright anyway. Didn't need to take the loco apart (phew!) as I had left the green wire in the coach but disconnected.

 

I have set the first button F1 to "Coach Lights". It seems there is no defined button for direction lighting as any of the other buttons switch them on and off - weird! Also I noticed that when I enlarge the loco to a popup window none of the F1 buttons do anything - is there a separate setting for those?

 

Thanks again for you help.

[Fishmanoz]

Still weird TWD!  Unless you do some function remapping, and I assume you haven't, then the functions that operate directional lighting on white and yellow, and the green and purple outputs, should be defined in the instructions for the decoder.  More commonly F0 should be directional and F1 green.  No other function button should affect anything, apart from F2 for purple.

[Teedoubleudee]

Thanks for your reply Fishy. I can confirm that I haven't done any re-mapping (that I'm aware of).

 

So, am I right in thinking the left most button is F0, then F1, F2 etc? If so, why is it when you bring the 'big' loco window open that they number from F1 to F8 ie no F1?

 

To confirm what I put in my last post, in the list of loco function buttons list I have selected 'coach lights' from the drop down list box, and ticked the box next to it (Note this the SECOND function in the list marked F1). All other functions left as 'not used'.

 

Now when I save it, I have the first (left most) button labelled 'Coach Lights' and when I click on it, it does indeed switch the coach lights on and off. This suggests to me that this button is F1, not F0? The remaining buttons ALL control the direction lighting ie I can switch them ON with any button and OFF with the same or any other button (except the left most one of course).

 

In the expanded loco window none of the buttons do anything. Should F1 now read as 'Coach Lights' in this window too?

 

Lots of questions I'm afraid, but this is my first foray into the world of using decoder functions and I may well want to do more in the future.

 

A thought has just occured to me. In case I have somehow remapped all the buttons, perhaps if I deleted the loco entirely from RM and added it anew, it might sort it out. What do you think?

[96RAF]

I have reported to RM that when you have an expanded loco throttle open you can very easily get the buttons out of synch from throttle to throttle and even with the loco. They are looking into it.

Also in the expanded throttle often a function is missing, particularly TTS where you can have F0 + F1-F25 working.

Glad to see you have got the lights wired OK now. TWD

[Chrissaf]

I have reported to RM that when you have an expanded loco throttle open you can very easily get the buttons out of synch from throttle to throttle and even with the loco.

 

RAF, I reported same some time ago.......never did get a reply from HRMS.

[Teedoubleudee]

Well I fiffed and faffed about for a while and now the buttons seem to work as they should though the other buttons still switch the direction lights on/off (?)

The expanded window also shows both buttons and mirror images the normal window except the remaining buttons have no effect on lights.

I do think RM confuses the issue somewhat by listing the available options from F0 upwards but the screen buttons from F1 upwards. Makes no sense to me - perhaps HRMS might want to comment here.

[Fishmanoz]

Perhaps an email to them from within the Help window of RM might be a good idea?

 

And don't worry about having accidentally remapped your functions.  If you check out that section of the manual you'll see it is most unlikely.

[Fishmanoz]

I have reported to RM that when you have an expanded loco throttle open you can very easily get the buttons out of synch from throttle to throttle and even with the loco.

 

RAF, I reported same some time ago.......never did get a reply from HRMS.

 

Chris, no reply from HRMS, really?  That would be most unusual.  Did you get the initial auto reply showing it got through?

[Chrissaf]

Yes, absolutely.....it was some time ago and I can't remember exactly when.

 

It's not a PC firewall config issue because a previous time I used the within RM support service they came back within hours with a fix after reporting a RM problem, and that was out of hours on a Sunday. I was most impressed that time.

 

Plus, I recently (about 5 - 6 weeks ago) reported an issue relating to reading CVs on Loksound V4 decoders two separate times on two different days about a week apart (the same issue), got an auto reply each time and zilch nothing else, not even a 'we can't help you' or 'looking into it' message. The two support requests just went into a 'black hole' never to emerge again. Finally resolved the problem myself with a 'workaround' solution.

 

So my experience has been somewhat patchy.