Railmaster limit on number of locos

[Merlin242]

Can anyone help who has used the Hornby railmaster system with over 64 locos?  It appears that whilst you can add as many locos as you like to the system you can only control the top 64 on the list.

This is a problem I have discovered the hard way because I could not understand the problem I was having with controlling newly added locos. Whilst nobody can run so many at the same time on a large layout you can easily do that in sequence> I like to have locos on the layout and not to keep lifting them on and off. 

If anyone who has had this issue and ideally overcome it can let me know what they did I would be very grateful. Telling me I should have chosen a different system is not necessary as I am only too aware of the time I have wasted

Mike

[smokebox]

I believe you need to split the locos into "Groups", as described in the Railmaster manual, though I don't think the manual states any maximum for the number of locos in a group.

[Merlin242]

I believe that's to suggested work around. But in reality that does not help because you can only have one group open at one time. To move to another group means stopping all locos , programmes and shutting down any sounds. Only then can you access different locos in theory. In practice I could only get the ones in the top 64 to work 

[WIMorrison]

The number of 64 sounds spookily like a limitation imposed by the system architecture.

 

if this is the case then nothing you can do will change that.

Edited February 20, 2019 by WIMorrison

[Merlin242]

I have finally found burried in another forum an acceptable solution to this bug in the Railmaster software.

 

The key is not  about setting up loco groups as such but to ensure that when the software is loaded a small loco group under 64 locos is loaded and not one over 64 locos. If you  load up on starting  with a small group loaded initially you can switch to the all loco group and all the locos will work. There are currently 76 in this group on my Windermere and Hincaster Junction system and all functioned as they should

 

If you forget and shut down Railmaster with the all or other large group loaded  then starting next time you have to load the software, switch to a small group then disconnect the elink. Reconnect it and wait for it to intialise. Then switch to the all group and all the locos should work.

I daren't think how much time this has wasted for me. As an aside a DJM J94 which I was convinced was faulty is now working well for the first time

[BrittanyJohn]

I don't know if anybody is still having issues with this problem but the last 4 weeks have been hell since I did not know what was going on. Having sussed out I had a problem over 66 locos (in my case) I then searched the web to find this post. I then tried the solution and bingo it worked. I had some other issues with Reverse direction I had never seen before and I now use CV29 instead. To change Groups I have found a fast way of editing Railmast.dat and saves time on loading Railmaster. So been in touch with Railmaster and they seem to claim they have not heard of the problem before and are now looking into it. Another issue with large number of locos in a group and the use of Group "ALL" also gives issues that I have reported and the only way of getting around that problem is to edit the Railmast.dat file.

[RAF96]

On 16/04/2021 at 15:41, BrittanyJohn said:

...So been in touch with Railmaster and they seem to claim they have not heard of the problem before and are now looking into it....

 

I wish I had a £ for every time I have heard that excuse trotted out - ranging from cars to gas boilers to toasters, etc.

My usual reply is - Well if you look on your own support areas and forums you will find it is a widely discussed and common problem. I even had one car make where an urgent Tech Bulletin appeared within a week of me pointing out a problem, which to my mind meant it was one of these hidden faults, i.e. if no one moans, then don’t volunteer info.

 

In this case the Grouping limit was widely discussed on the Hornby RM forum before someone sussed the 64 bit.