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ECoS and programming 2 chipped units


The Black Hat
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Hello all, 

 

I am back here asking for help with my ECoS unit which seems to be brilliant and complicated but just not helping to do whats wanted. I have got a Realtrack 156 for programming but ECoS is only recognising one chip. Even when putting each car on the track and programming I have managed to change the address but then when coupling the unit back together I have problems with Rail Coms auto detecting chips and thus only controlling one. When checking I ECoS is now using different means to try and detect the unit such as motorola and when trying to save the unit it is not letting me programme two addresses as the same (as it recognises that there was another decoder given that number) so undoes the programming I did before. 

 

Even when deleting the previous entry it is still not allowing one address to be saved that then controls both coaches of the unit. I have a Bachmann 158 to do but think this will also be problematic. 

 

Any advice would be great.   

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What is stopping you giving two decoders the same address is RailCom PLUS.

 

There are two very simple solutions, one of which is, in my view, preferable to the other:

 

1. Turn off RailCom PLUS in both the decoders ito which you want to give the same address. You do that using CV28 in ESU V4 and V5 decoders. Note I do mean CV28 NOT CV29 as it is ONLY PLUS that you want to turn off. This will let you keep the autoregistration for new PLUS enabled decoders, but stop the ECoS giving the PLUS capable decoders unique addresses. Once the PLUS enabled decoder(s) has/have autoregistered, turn of PLUS in the decoder(s) and use Edit Loco to give the decoder(s) your chosen address. Because you have disabled PLUS in the decoder, the ECoS will treat them as non-PLUS decoders and leave the addresses at whatever values you program them to be.

 

2. Configure your ECoS to have RailCom PLUS turned off. This is a sledgehammer to crack nut approach as it stops the ECoS autoregistering any new PLUS enabled decoders.

 

I use method 1 for all my V4 and V5 decoders. As far as I'm concerned once the new decoder has autoregistered, PLUS has done its job, and can be turned off in the decoder.

Edited by GoingUnderground
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Well things went from bad to worse now. Thanks for the advice. Muggins here noticed that ECoS actually can disable rail com directly rather than use CVs, but after doing this... no control. I then turned CV 29 off... now the unit barely responds. Sometimes it will try to start up, then shut down immediately afterwards. Even though I can try to read the CV when putting it into ECoS theres no control. I am wondering if they are set up for Railcoms and when you switch to DCC 124 control they don't respond.

Thankfully the Bachmann 158 appears to be done and ok. Just got these two 156s to sort, but seems like I have messed this up.... 

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I did say to turn off Railcom PLUS in the decoder, and I meant RailCom PLUS, not RailCom. That's why I emphasised the word PLUS.

 

Plus is an extension to the normal RailCom functionality as described here.  http://www.esu.eu/en/support/white-papers/railcomplusr/ 

 

Plus uses Railcom but it can be turned on and off independently of RailCom itself in both the ECoS and in Plus equipped decoders.

 

In ESU decoders:

Plus is turned on and off by Bit 7 in CV28 (Twenty-eight). 

RailCom is turned on and off by Bit 3 in CV29 (Twenty-nine). 

 

This is covered in the listing of CVs towards the back of the V4 and V5 Loksound and LokPilot manuals. Changing CV29 is not a good idea if you don't know what you're doing as it controls several other aspects of how a decoder behaves. If you changed CV29 to Zero, then that was a bad mistake as in addition to turning off RailCom in the decoder you've set the decoder to use 14 Speed steps, turned off Long addressing, disabled running on analogue (DC), and told it to use the speed curve set by CVs 2, 5 & 6. 

 

In ECoS:

There are two separate tick boxes, one for RailCom, the other for RailCom Plus, in the configuration menu. The Plus box is below the one for RailCom in the ECoS configuration menu.

 

If you turn off RailCom then that will disable Plus because the Plus functionality uses RailCom to let the decoder communicate with the command station. That's why you got a result.

 

I suggest that you re-enable RailCom in the ECoS, and do what I suggested before, and that is turn off RailCom PLUS, repeat RailCom PLUS, not RailCom itself, in the decoder using CV28 repeat Twenty-eight by changing the value from 131 to 3, as you'd know if you looked at the LS or LP manuals.

 

You will need to reprogram CV29 as well if you changed that to Zero. What value to reprogram it to is more problematical as you probably don't know what value it had before you changed it. If it were me, I'd set it to 46 (for 28 or 128 speed steps (2)  + analogue running (4) + RailCom on (8) + Long addressing (32) always assuming that you were usign a long address, or 14 ( 2 + 4 + 8) if  it was a short address.

Edited by GoingUnderground
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Thank for your help. Its all got sorted tonight. The advice and descriptions on RailComs was very helpful and gave me a much better understanding. I read up again on it all having tried last night before looking at it today, but in the end ECoS made things a lot more simple and gave me options for programming. Even when some use the select decoder the options were not too dissimilar. Going over what you have suggested tonight is the steps that I took this evening and in the end its all worked out fine. 

 

Still, a massive thank you for taking the time to help! 

 

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  • 6 months later...
On 29/10/2020 at 18:38, GoingUnderground said:

I did say to turn off Railcom PLUS in the decoder, and I meant RailCom PLUS, not RailCom. That's why I emphasised the word PLUS.

 

Plus is an extension to the normal RailCom functionality as described here.  http://www.esu.eu/en/support/white-papers/railcomplusr/ 

 

Plus uses Railcom but it can be turned on and off independently of RailCom itself in both the ECoS and in Plus equipped decoders.

 

In ESU decoders:

Plus is turned on and off by Bit 7 in CV28 (Twenty-eight). 

RailCom is turned on and off by Bit 3 in CV29 (Twenty-nine). 

 

This is covered in the listing of CVs towards the back of the V4 and V5 Loksound and LokPilot manuals. Changing CV29 is not a good idea if you don't know what you're doing as it controls several other aspects of how a decoder behaves. If you changed CV29 to Zero, then that was a bad mistake as in addition to turning off RailCom in the decoder you've set the decoder to use 14 Speed steps, turned off Long addressing, disabled running on analogue (DC), and told it to use the speed curve set by CVs 2, 5 & 6. 

 

In ECoS:

There are two separate tick boxes, one for RailCom, the other for RailCom Plus, in the configuration menu. The Plus box is below the one for RailCom in the ECoS configuration menu.

 

If you turn off RailCom then that will disable Plus because the Plus functionality uses RailCom to let the decoder communicate with the command station. That's why you got a result.

 

I suggest that you re-enable RailCom in the ECoS, and do what I suggested before, and that is turn off RailCom PLUS, repeat RailCom PLUS, not RailCom itself, in the decoder using CV28 repeat Twenty-eight by changing the value from 131 to 3, as you'd know if you looked at the LS or LP manuals.

 

You will need to reprogram CV29 as well if you changed that to Zero. What value to reprogram it to is more problematical as you probably don't know what value it had before you changed it. If it were me, I'd set it to 46 (for 28 or 128 speed steps (2)  + analogue running (4) + RailCom on (8) + Long addressing (32) always assuming that you were usign a long address, or 14 ( 2 + 4 + 8) if  it was a short address.

 

I will also try this tonight, having issues like this with my 156 and dual v5 chips.

 

Jam

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