BagEndJct

Thanks Rob. And I just realised that calculator has a "BackCalc" button to work out what's already been set; most useful. I known mine is not the default so must go and check!

Thank you for all your help! I am now almost there. After much meddling with the CVs and a lot of patience(!) I now have a pretty smooth loco which stops without jerking twice afterwards. It is not quite as smooth a stop as I would like and will try another minor adjustment. But compared to how it was out of the box, it's a different loco. CV54 is now 028 and CV55 as low as 006. The "auto-tune" process helped a lot and I was left with the lurching forward twice after stopping, which is now all but fixed. I do need to work out CV29 to disable analogue operation as, once again, it took off on its own once more. By the way, reading the decoder, it tells me it's a Loksound 4 yet the Bachmann paperwork is adamant that it's a Loksound 5. Any ideas on that, please? It may well be a 4 as CV51 is missing. Thank you again.

Thanks. I'll try later. But this has become rather frustrating. I'd expect a new Bachmann loco to work properly out of the box. I have not received very much support from them and will contact the retailer if I fail to get this right!

I have managed to spend more time on improving the loco but things started getting worse again and I lost my way. I decided to try the "auto" method, recommended above. I was avoiding it as I have a small layout on small board and had visions of the loco shooting off the track. But it didn't and I ended up with fairly good results. However, I am left with one annoying behaviour. It all-but comes to a stop, then has a double lurch forward. Where should I be looking to cure this, please? Thank you!

Thank you Rob. I still have to sort out the start up behaviour. Instead of accelerating smoothly, it does a couple of jerks then takes off probably at the set speed. Before I started altering CVs 54 & 55 it did accelerate OK so it might be something to do with those rather than CV3 ("Acceleration")? John

Haha. Just typed this up, then lost it when I pressed POST! Never mind..... I have had time between jobs getting lunch ready to make some changes - thankfully it's only 29º out there so the kitchen is (relatively) not excessively hot. 41º forecast tomorrow so no cooking planned for then! Anyway, I am trying Rob's suggestions first. I set CV54 at 55 (having misread his post!) and CV55 at the default, 32. And it's certainly smoother. A couple more tweaks and we might be there. But it's a long process having to power down the track, take the loco off the main track to place it on the programming track. Then power up again. Persuade Railmaster to see the eLink. Change the CVs. Then power down..... etc etc. I never place or remove locos from the track with the power on having blown some decoders in the past! However, though smoother, it does not accelerate gradually to set speed but takes off at speed and, about a minute after running it, it sped off at top speed out of control. I had to turn off the power to bring it back to its senses. I think there's a setting somewhere relating to DCC control to avoid these sudden nervous breakdowns. I'll look for it. And I need to look at acceleration settings? Getting there, thanks to the advice here. Thank you!

Thanks so much for the advice. Will try these later, or tomorrow, hopefully, and report back. John

PS Only just read your post, Rob, after posting the above. I'll look at the Loksound 4 manual. And here it is!

I have placed the offending loco on the programming track and am now even more confused. It tells me that it's a Loksound 4 so will have to look up the CVs for that (he pointed me to Loksound 5 instructions). What there is: CV55, the one he told me to change, is labelled "Load Control" and it set at 127. The allowed values are 0-255 and the default shows as 32 But... CV54 also shows as "Load Control" and is set at 007 Then there is CV57 which is "Load Control Range" . Help! PS Sorry for the double spacing on first post. I wasn't able to go back and amend it. Mod note: double spacing has been removed via an edit for you.

I took delivery of a good looking Bachmann GWR Pannier with fitted sound last week. I know this concerns another manufacturer but the problem may be with my RailMaster/eLink setup? So here goes.... The first run was very disappointing. It stutters and, at slow speed, stutters even more and stops. I have run it in as recommended and, although better at speed, at slow speed it's still pretty awful. I contacted their technical help and got the following reply. I'm afraid much of it is Double Dutch to me so I'd be grateful if someone could advise if they are on the right lines and what I should try first? "Stuttering running Please make sure you are using a smooth output controller and not one with feedback, as the back EMF on the chip setting will not like it. It can be resolved for individual layouts. You can try adjusting CV55 to a value between 5 and 30 to suit. The actual optimal value for your loco can be found by adjusting this value up or down." The sound volume was also low and I could hardly hear it above the fan I have in the "Train Shed". But I have upped the relevant CV to its max and that is now acceptable. But not a good start to my long awaited new loco! Thank you in advance, as ever. John

I'm going to take it apart and have a look next week. Thanks for the tips. It's certainly heating up here in Spain at the moment! I could always fit another TTS kit - though the King version does not seem to be available apart from one up for auction on eBay which will probably sell for a premium. I see various other steam TTS kits available elsewhere.

Thanks Rob. I'll see how I get on. Not great at taking locos apart, historically!

This is one of my favourite locos as it has been running so well, though I know that control and sounds are rather limited compared to modern, full priced, DCC decoders. I was having a running session yesterday and was about to put everything to bed when suddenly, King George I stopped. Everything else was working fine and there were no traumas such as derailments, shorts or power surges (which we can get here in Spain). I transferred it to the programming track (Railmaster with eLink), depowering everything as usual when I rail or re-rail anything. Sadly, all the values were returned as 255 with the error message about having difficulty reading the decoder. I cleaned the wheels and the track. Same result. I tried writing value 8 to CV 8, still no joy. Any thoughts on whether I might be able to recover this beloved model, please? Thank you, John

Thank you. I have kept the licence numbers in a safe place. I record such info in a document which I keep backed up!

Thank you Chris. As ever, I learned a lot from your reply. I will carefully copy the necessary files I dread having to reactivate RM as nothing I try these days makes a connection with their servers. (I'm in Spain and have tried all the methods and taken all the measures recommended). Though I have no cause to do so at the moment, I occasionally try and connect by sending a service message from within the application but it always fails. I used to manage it via the mobile network on my phone but, more recently, that has failed too. Thanks again. John

I have 2 copies of RM authorised on my 2 laptops. The old laptop I use day to day for running my layout. A nasty recent accident, when the old laptop fell on a very hard floor, but survived, made me realise that my "backup" installation on my new laptop was way out of date (RM updates, announcements, programs, icons, layout, locos etc). I have now made a copy of the complete RM folders to keep as backup and also update the other installation. My question is, where is the program authorisation/activation data held? I obviously don't want to overwrite the activation data on the 2nd laptop when I update the folder? Thank you.

Thank you Chris for your thorough reply. It's been a while since I've visited the forum so I have been unaware of all of these traumas. I managed to solve the issue I posted about myself, so this time, I can manage without the help I have come accustomed receiving on this once excellent facility. Just hoping it will return to full health and vigour in the not too distant future.

So I posted in the "Train-Tech signals and set up in RailMaster" thread in the Hornby RailMaster & TrackMaster forum yesterday, but where has it gone? It did appear briefly in the Forums list as latest post but the link didn't take you to it. And now it has disappeared, though, if I somehow get to the thread, it is there at the end. If it ain't broke, don't fix it! My post appears at the bottom of this page (I think!). https://uk.hornby.com/community/forum/train-tech-signals-and-set-up-in-railmaster-?ccm_paging_p=26&ccm_order_by=&ccm_order_by_direction=

Yes, the headaches caused by trying to set up these signals in RM continue! I recently had two more to install. A DS1 and a DS2. I have a number of these already so know how I'm supposed to set them up. To start with, both performed opposite to the symbol on my layout plan. By leaving the DS1 at green (or was it red?) and then setting it up again, several times, I managed to get the signal and the layout symbol to match. But can I get the DS2 to. No! I know I can tick "reverse polarity" but that seems to be ignored by "other signals" settings and programs. So if I want the DS1 to operate the DS2 correctly, I can do so by telling it to switch to clear rather than danger when itself is set to danger, but then the symbol on the layout doesn't match. I've tried everything I can think of to get this working correctly but without success. So much time wasted on something that should have been fixed ages ago. UPDATE: (Not that this post has appeared in the "Latest Posts" lists.) I managed to fix this by changing the order of colours in the "Seq:Port:Setting" part of the signal set-up window. I'm sure I tried this before and it hadn't worked. Part of the "joy" of Railmaster, I suppose. You are never QUITE sure what it's going to do!

Glad the problem is solved but, for future reference, provided you have the PRO version of Railmaster, there is another and simple way to do this.From page 36 of the User Guide:-"If you have the optional Pro Pack installed you can set the loco to run in reverse just by pressing the direction indicator to the left of the loco DCC ID field. The arrow will change from right (forward) to left (reverse)." See the blue arrow to the left of "0015" below. Click on it and the green tick (or similar) and your problem will be solved. /media/tinymce_upload/12bff500ddf568bdbb1e85ffb4f5f867.JPG

@RDS I use a small (but good quality) Bluetooth speaker underneath the board to play sounds and announcements. It works really well. I have a neighbour who has a really good "announcer's voice" and she has happily recorded clips for me, so we have both male (me) and female (Maggie) announcements counfusing the passengers!

Interesting stuff RDS. I also use program icons on my main station platform lines. Each program sets all signals and points for services leaving that platform. I have further program icons down the side of my track plan, each of which plays one of many announcements that I have recorded/created. (The announcements are made up of snippets I have recorded, eg "The train standing at" + "Platform X" + "is for .........". I use my video editing software (Vegas Pro) to combine these snippets into the required announcements then apply a suitable echo to the whole media track - making them almost inaudible, of course!! I find my announcements add a lot of pleasure to the operation of my layout).

I use programme icons on my layout extensively. Each siding, for example, has an icon at the end to set a route in or out of it. I have created my icons using 'Da Button Factory' - https://www.clickminded.com/button-generator/ It takes a bit of getting used to but I have produced a nice series of icons which mean something (to me!). Icons should be created at 50x50 pixels and saved as .GIF files, then placed in the main Railmaster directory with a name starting with "Button_......"

Rob I always suffered with this problem and, even though I have the latest version, it has not completely gone away (though it does happen far less frequently now). I have to right click on the mouse to release the window then drag it back to where it should be! As for selecting which loco the large throttle window should be controlling, rather than using the "Quick Loco Select" feature, I click in the 'Loco DCC ID:' window then type in the number of the loco I wish to control (I have a bookmark-shaped list next to my laptop). I find this quick and convenient. NOTE: It's necessary to type the leading zeros. But, oh how I wish I could rearrange the order of function keys in the large window so that the ones I use most are at the top. There doesn't seem to be any logic or consistency to the order (though I realise that the ones I've selected to appear in the small throttle windows do seem to appear at the top - I think!).

Just as an aside, I very occasionally lose control of signals and points. Closing and re-opening the program always solves this. My .ini file is correctly set up, last time I looked. I put it down to "one of those things".