RMweb Premium 7013 Posted May 17, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted May 17, 2011 Dont really want to stray off subject but as someone who has owned and used both the Elite and Lenz systems I feel it pertinent to mention a few things in the light of the last few posts. Firstly the Elite is not a bad system, it requires a lot of pushes of buttons etc but it does the job of controlling a loco well. Second, the addition of Railmaster will elevate the Elite into a very competetive unit, especially for those who like the no fuss approach that it will give. Having used Lenz for a while in my opinion it is not that much more intuitive than Elite but it is very much more expensive. DCC is a very personal thing and everyone will have their favourites, many moons ago I predicted that Hornby would develop their system and become a major player, I think that is happening, Hopefully (and there is no reason to believe they will not) a smaller hand set will become available soon. I changed to Lenz because I liked the portability but I would have no hesitation in going back to Hornby if the system gets a decent portable control unit. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold beejack Posted June 11, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 11, 2011 For anyone who wishes to check out the manual it can be found here: www.Hornby.com/downloads/Hornby-railmaster-instruction-manuals/ It quotes: "Currently, only the Hornby Elite is officially supported, although choosing this controller may allow other manufacturers’ hardware to function. Any NMRA compliant controller with a USB port should work with RailMaster although no specific claims are made in this respect." So maybe it's worth trying with other controllers with USB interfaces! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
locoworks Posted June 11, 2011 Share Posted June 11, 2011 For anyone who wishes to check out the manual it can be found here: www.Hornby.com/downloads/Hornby-railmaster-instruction-manuals/ It quotes: "Currently, only the Hornby Elite is officially supported, although choosing this controller may allow other manufacturers’ hardware to function. Any NMRA compliant controller with a USB port should work with RailMaster although no specific claims are made in this respect." So maybe it's worth trying with other controllers with USB interfaces! would be nice if it works with digitrax, but i am sceptical of that happening. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Enterprisingwestern Posted June 12, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted June 12, 2011 would be nice if it works with digitrax, but i am sceptical of that happening. I thought the whole point of NMRA compatibility was that everything worked with everything, or am I missing something? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigelcliffe Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 For anyone who wishes to check out the manual it can be found here: www.Hornby.com/downloads/Hornby-railmaster-instruction-manuals/ It quotes: "Currently, only the Hornby Elite is officially supported, although choosing this controller may allow other manufacturers’ hardware to function. Any NMRA compliant controller with a USB port should work with RailMaster although no specific claims are made in this respect." So maybe it's worth trying with other controllers with USB interfaces! Every maker's USB interface works differently. So, unless the makers of the Hornby software have coded up the interface for each maker's USB adaptor, the software cannot work with other maker's devices. If you want to see the way different interfaces work in code, then look at the source code for either JMRI or RocRail. Both projects are in the public domain so you can see the code and how they work. Both have specific interface code to talk to dozens of different hardware interface units, the majority are USB. There is an outside chance that Hornby's software might talk to a Lenz system as both use Xpressnet. But, even then I suspect one will be buggy as there are undocumented differences between the two which trip up the developers of public domain code. This is usually in the form of "Hornby Elite not quite doing the same as Lenz' documentation, so need a special fix for the Elite in this circumstance". I thought the whole point of NMRA compatibility was that everything worked with everything, or am I missing something? Yes, you've missed something. DCC specifies the behaviour at the TRACK, the signals onto the track, the response of chips. At the track level, you can mix and match; loco decoders and accessory decoders from any makers. Behind the track sits the Command Station, and a manufacturer can do anything they like with the Command Station. The result is that in general you cannot mix Throttles between Command Station makers, only some systems support computer control interfaces, and of those some makers refuse to let any third party software interwork with their systems, etc.. - Nigel Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigelcliffe Posted June 12, 2011 Share Posted June 12, 2011 would be nice if it works with digitrax, but i am sceptical of that happening. Why ? There are dozens of packages out there which work brilliantly with LocoNet/Digitrax hardware. Several are free and incredibly capable (JMRI, RocRail) and a load options which are more paid-for. TrainController from Friewald will run stuff properly and automatically (rather than Hornby's approach to automation which is "run the trains into the buffers to be sure they've reached the end of the line"!!). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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