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JMRI Drivers for Hornby Elite wanted


Simon G
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My Model Club has a Hornby Elite controller, which we have used along with Railmaster up to now.  We would also like to try using JMRI to control it, but can’t find the necessary Windows drivers.  I put a query to Hornby who reply was that they don’t have the drivers on their website, contrary to what was said on the JMRI website.

 

Has anyone tried this combination, and if so, where did you find the drivers?

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Hornby

Configure: Hornby Elite via built in USB Port

Configure: Hornby Elite or Hornby Select via Lenz LI100, LI101F, LIUSB or GenLi XPressNet interfaces, ZTC Controls ZTC640 interface, or an XPA and Hayes compatible modem.

Please check the notes above for system specific restrictions on what JMRI can do.

 

 

from the MRI website

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Its years since I did a JMRI install with an Elite for someone however.....

 

The Hornby files for update, or to use RailMaster should contain a two stage process.   The first puts a driver onto the PC, this is what you need for other software, including JMRI.   

 

Reading through the manual for the Windows 7 update and Railmaster use, and follow the steps to put the device driver onto the PC.   Once done, open the "Device Manager" in Windows (click the start icon in bottom left of screen, then type "Device Manager" to find it), and watch the "Ports (COM & LPT)" section whilst plugging in the Elite via USB.   The Com port for the Elite should appear.    That's the port setting you need for other software such as JMRI.

 

Producing device drivers is down to the hardware vendor - Hornby in this case.   JMRI just uses the COM ports within the operating system.

 

- Nigel

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The Elite used to use custom drivers but Win10 uses its own MS drivers for Elite.

As far as I can remember up to that point Elite used the old Vista drivers. The only difference was the installation screen notifications.

 

I think the clue is when you connect the Elite - Win 7 sets it up as an RS232 emulation, then you load the drivers and it changes the Dev Mgr screen to say Hornby Elite. Win 10 doesn’t identify it like this, merely as another in ise USB port.

 

Have a look at this Railmaster guide substituting eLink for Elite as they both use the same drivers. The page tells the differences when installing to Win 7 or other levels.

https://octaviancs.com/railmaster/installation1.php?id=installation

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  • 2 years later...

Well a little while later, I have looked into this again, and this time with success.  Windows XP and 7 both failed to recognise the Elite without the necessary drivers, so I downloaded Railmaster and used the drivers with that.  As RAF96 said, both XP and & see the Elite as an RS-232 emulation device, but using the drivers in Railmaster, it then sees the Elite as a "USB Serial Port".  This then allows JMRI to communicate with the Elite.  I have used both the XP and 7 laptops to set up and run a train on my test track.

 

The MRC Windows 10 laptop was easier, as it already seemed to have the necessary drivers, and also managed to access the Elite and run the test train.  The next task is to see if the MRC eLink will also run, as it is supposedly a cut down Elite.  

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