LuLuJo

A word of caution. I would proceed carefully. I did what you are suggesting with an ipad and two iphones. I sometimes was able to use two devices to control a loco at the same time . Sometimes I would control a the wrong loco( one I was not linked to with that device) It happened at random with a variety of the 20 different locos on the system. None of this should be possible but it went on for months. At first it was interesting and I videoed it for George but later became a complete pain. In order to get out of it I had to practically start again by unlinking everything and moving all the locos onto two devices only an ipad and an iphone. My suggestion is before setting them all up try using 3 devices with a small number of locos on each. Good Luck

I regularly use my elink to run trains with TXS decoders and do not bother loading railmaster and it works perfectly. ideal for a 10 minute running session

I mentioned it because I have not seen that before and don't think it should happen. There were a dozen other locos on that IOS device and others on the other Ios device all powered up and connected. That's why I checked that the loco shown as available was connected to the App and would respond to instructions which it did. I have had lots of issues with controlling TXS locos from 2 IOS devices at the same time. (Described in the Quirks and curiosities thread) So I am am very alive to such possible issues which is why I raised it but don't feel inclined to follow it up as It cost me many hours to resolve the problems before . The loco being offered 42313 was not one of the previous culprits.

First a very big thank you for the above and everyone else for their suggestions. The above process worked at the fifth attempt using computer type 3 the fastest. The previous attempts with 2 and 1 failed and I had almost given up. The elite is now working again with sound and motion on TXS and historic decoders. Railmaster also loaded up first time. I dont understand what happended as no attempt to update the firmware has been made as it was at 1.44 and i had the elite from new. But that's the least of my concerns. The one interesting quirk is that on the managing the dongle screen its showing a locomotive with a TXS decoder as available to assign. The TXs decoder in the loco is already active in the APP and responding to instructions. I am pretty sure this should not be possible and I have resisted temptation so far. Its the only one of 20+ TXS decoders visible Mike

File downloaded and cable to hand. Awaiting further instruction please

I think that the elite is 1.44 and the select is very old and needs updating. Not sure how to bring up the version on it There is no power output I got a very small reading with my meter on the track output. I have a voltmeter permanently set up on the layout and that shows no output. Putting the elink in the system again and the voltage is normal. It seems to me like I have a power issue with the elite. Any idea if that can be repaired?

If I remove the dongle the elite still does not respond. I have an old select and so plugged the dongle into that and it seems to work as it should. It feels as if the dongle is okay . I swapped it from one IOS device to another without any issues. But the elite is not. If you power it up with the dongle missing the green led flashes a couple of times then glows solid green. But no screen display. Connecting to railmaster the device manager says its working properly but its not loading up.

My dongle arrived at the weekend so I dug out my elite on the desktop. Followed the instructions and linked it to the elite. Set up a duchess fitted with a loksound 4 chip. Got the blue connection on the dongle and in the App. So set it up the elite on the layout and was able to run two Txs chipped locos and the Duchess with sound and motion all at the same time. I was very impressed. The day after I switched the system on again and whilst the green light on the elite flashes green then steadies to a glow the screen is dead. The dongle shows both blue and red leds and the app shows a blue connection. However there appears to be no track power output. I have tried switching on and off many times . Switching on holding the loco button but no sign of life on the screen. It appears as if the elite is faulty. Any suggestions please?

I used three iOS devices as controllers at the same time and had a lot of intermittent trouble for months. It was all described in detail in the quirks and oddities thread I reduced the number of devices to two three months ago since when it’s worked perfectly and now has a total of 25 TXS fitted locos spread over the two IOS devices. There are another 100 conventional DCC fitted locos controlled by the slink. My advice would strongly be to only used two IOS app controllers and an DCC controller unless you have a lot of time to waste.

Hopefully this is my final contribution on this issue. I had some time to waste so I did try adding a third IOS device again with a new decoder, to see what happened. I used another iphone 11 in place of the iphone 6S. This meant I had an ipad and two iphone 6S's all using the same version of the software and with 19 decoders linked to the 3 IOS devices. The first time of switching on everything worked ok. Then disaster! One of the iphones with lots of locos linked would not connect or disconnect from the host and I got the endless circle of death as it tried to connect. All the locos on the device were inaccessible. Switching everything on and off made no difference. In the end I had to unlink and forcibly reset and delete all the decoders on the affected Iphone 11. This meant I lost all the specific sound CV's I had set up. I then had to link them all again and reset everything. So I wasted a great deal of time and far more than I wanted to. I now have just two IOS devices ( ipad & iphone11) again which have loaded up successfully 10 times. Hopefully this will continue. So my very clear advice is: DO NOT TRY TO USE MORE THAN 2 IOS DEVICES

I have made some progress with my issues of IOS devices controlling multiple locos and locomotives being controlled at the same time by two IOS devices. My iphone 6 needed a new battery as the old one was quickly dying. So before dismantling it to change the battery I removed all the 6 allocated locos and added 5 to my Ipad and 1 to my iphone 11. I succesfully cahnged the battery The system then worked reliably with 11 locos on the ipad and 6 on the iphone. I loaded it up at least half a dozen times over the course of about 4 days. I note that sometimes the number of devices shown as linked in blue at the top of the screen was less than the number allocated to the device but they all worked as they should. I then decided to see if I could identify the problem by adding a new TXS decoder to a Bachmann compound but set up and linked to the iphone 6. This duly broke the system. The compound on the iphone 6 loaded up correctly every time but 2 locos on the ipad and 2 on the iphone 11 were no longer recognised. The iphone 6 also showed 2 devices linked in blue at the top of the screen. Multiple attempts to restart the system produced the same result. It was always the same 4 locomotives ( 2 on each IOS device) affected none of which had any previous issues. So I removed the compound from the iphone 6 and added it to the ipad. I had to remove the 4 affected devices and relink them. The system now works reliably again with 12 locos on the ipad and 6 in the iphone 11. The number of devices shown as linked in blue correctly matches the numbers allocated to phone and ipad. I can happily live with having my locos spread over two devices. It would of course be interesting to know if its having 3 IOS devices which is the issue or the iphone 6 which is the problem. I have some more new decoders to fit so when I have some time to waste I may try putting the app on a different iphone 11 or ipad and adding the next decoder to that and see what happens.

Thanks for the update and suggestion. With 16 locos to do that will take a while. I have just moved 6 from the second iphone to the ipad. A couple of other observation are: I have been able to control some locomotives from 2 devices which have never been linked to more than one device. That sometimes I can control locos from the correct device even though the address is shown as red not blue, Also Sometimes the IOS device will show it linked to more decoders (6) than the total numbers (5) which are set up on the device. Then finding the extra one is a problem. its my normal practise to sound all the whistles in turn as it quickly shows if these is a control issue

I want to use two devices to control the trains as 1. A large number of decoders all linked to one device becomes much less manageable and 2. Using only one device one for certain tasks such as banking trains does not work. However it does appear that the HM7000 system is only reliable when a single IOS control device is used.

I am still getting the issue that I sometimes can control a locomotive from two IOS devices at the same time. I have rationalised my devices from 3 down to 2 (an ipad and iphone 11) to try to improve matters without any clear improvement I today ran a WD and using each device in turn alternately blew the whistles switched sound on and off and started and stopped the train. I also get the position where A device seizes control of the wrong loco and the proper assigned device wont link to it. I have tried making sure as far as I can that the IOS devices are not synced together. It happens about one in four times when the layout is operated and is a complete pain as it far too easy to update the wrong decoder when making any changes. Updating all the sound profiles was a complete nightmare. Locating and removing all 16 locos every time you make a change is not practical.

Bure Valley Models have a good deal on TXS Decoders today. 8 pin £49 21 pin £52.50. I have ordered some but till plenty showing in stock