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DonSn35Quixote

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  1. I finally got a meaningful reply from NCE Support. "The cab send nothing after the ENTER. The digits for selecting the loco address are sent one at a time as the user presses them after the Select Loco button, Enter ends the digit sequence." Makes sense. This suggests the Cab06 replies to a ping from CMD with Select (49H) the a series of digits from button presses with the sequence ended with Enter (40H). That is not a two byte response, and is not mentioned in any documentation I have uncovered. Hopefully this will be helpful to anyone working on a project involving the NCE Cab Bus. I intent to take the Irish approach (To be sure, to be sure to be sure) and confirm this advice by testing. Another response from NCE support was not quite so helpful. In response to a question of how to calculate the CheckSum, this: "The first 4 bytes are Xor'd together and will result in the 5th byte." Documentation says add the first 4 bytes and Xor them. But Xor require two bytes. I get the sum byte, but Xor'd with what other number? I suspect FF, but not sure. Ralf's Train Pages gives examples, but I cannot get his checksum values from his data no matter how I do the Xor. Fortunately this looks to be moot as the above transaction does not involve a checksum, and the rest of the 2 byte transactions i intend using do not use a checksum. Non the less I am uncertain I have the full story. So I intend a few hours sending and receiving on the Cab Bus and recording the data. As Ralf did for a ProCab, but with a Cab06. I will publish the results when my poor old addled brain completes the task.
  2. Thanks AArdvark. I had read Ralf's Train pages. Helped a lot but not completely. (Cant see how he gets his Xor checksums though) It is exactly the "Sniffing" of the Cab Bus that Ralf talks about that I am trying to do. When (say) F5 is pressed, record the number of the loco associated with that Cab, and go from there to set up the storage entry/exit and drive the loco in/out, control the lift an so on. Not that hard when one charts it out, but I am snagged on how to recognise the "Control this loco" command(s) from Cab to CMD. I have ground my way to the understanding that the Cabs really are dumb and that all data is stored in the Command Controller - a PowerPro in my case - as you say. But the issue I have is that the NCE doc's specify all dumb terminals respond to a Ping with two byte response - Key Press and Speed, and cannot change their response type. Though that does not quite correspond with Ralf - he has fice and two byt resonses in his discussion. No mention of what the Cab06 sends in response to a Ping after Enter is pressed. But that response must be at least three bytes - Enter (0x60? and two address bytes. I got an answer from NCE on this today and it was about the five byte response the CMD box sends to Cabs: "Q How does the PowerPro learn what loco number the Cab 06 is controlling? A The cab receives an 0xdb multibyte from the command station after entering a loco or when just ENTER is pressed during normal operations." I have rephrased the question, and will let you know what answer I get. Their reply does not explain how the data gets to the CMD station in the first place. I suspect the response is 0x60 followed by three, or maybe the standard five bytes, CMD being alerted to a non-two byte response by the 0x60. I guess I am just going to have to put my logic analyser to work and do a few tests to find out. I will let you know how it goes. A relatively simple thing I would have thought made difficult by confusing and incomplete documentation from NCE. But in true Quixote fashion I am determined to smash this windmill. Quixote. PS on your traverser, Suggestion. Use decent size steppers to make a bird of the job, and drive them with Gecko drivers. Your controller than needs to supply a direction signal and the pulses. The Gecko's microstep, turning (say) a standard 200 steps/rev motor into a 1000 step per rev one. Good resolution is need as the top of the rails are only 1mm wide, giving not much margin for misalignment and derailments. As to the Grand Plan, there are five of us working two afternoons and one evening for the last five years. Two ex Army WOI's, One truckie, and Mr Weller (Used to run the soldering equipment part of Weller Australia - he gets all the difficult soldering jobs. Me? Army, Concrete Industry, Appliances and Automotive in various positions. Our in joke over out coffee sessions is the trains will never run (They have) and the opening ribbon will be cut at my wake.
  3. I am working on an automated floor level six track storage system with two entry/exit points to a 2 metre lift to floor level and return. I want to connect to the Cab Bus (RS485) to copy instructions from Cab06 throttles to operate the storage system. For example when a Cab F8 is pressed my Pic "Pseudo Cab" would copy the Loco Number to use it to drive the Loco into an empty storage track. Read as much as I may, there is one simple thing that eludes me. The protocol says that a dumb cab, such as the Cab06, responds to a ping to its Cab Address always with two bytes - Byte 1 is a key press, byte 2 loco speed. So, how does my PowerPro controller know what Loco Number a polled Cab 06 is controlling? (asked NCE but the silence has been deafening) If the response was a five byte address as described for smart cabs, this would be (relatively) easy. Or is a Cab06 deemed a Smart Cab" Can anyone help please? Anybody have any ideas?
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