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Roco Z21


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  • RMweb Gold

In the meantime have you tried shutting all the apps fully on the iPad then restarting the Z21 one? I've found it sensitive to this before if a lot are open in the background.

 

Double tap the home button and close apps by swiping up until just the home screen left.

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Thanks for this - I was wondering how to get the connectors as they are stupidly expensive on postage from Germany! I found them on https://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&itemSeq=237119341&uq=636396333182855132

They also deliver internationally.

Found this site

 

http://www.brimal.co.uk/5mm-pitch-2-way-pluggable-rising-clamp-terminal.html

 

Perhaps these are the correct connectors?

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  • RMweb Premium

No I've not updated yet so I'll consider that a warning to wait.

Have you messaged Roco via the Z21 site?

 

Roco sorted the issue last Friday. The new software version is 2.3.17. So there is no system crash any more. But: The menu for selecting a locomotive in the control panel stays as after the last update. Means a quick selection of a loco is no longer possible. Means if you have more locos a split into groups may be the only way to improve it...

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  • RMweb Premium

Attention - there is still a bug in it. So do not update! Now traction settings will crash the app. 

 

And to be clear: this is only on the z21mobile tested with an ipod touch.  I did not test the z21mobile HD and I didn't test the z21 mobile with an android. 

 

 

I will keep you updated. 

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  • RMweb Premium

Sorry, using the latest version of the app on iPhone 6s and iPad3 with no issues at all - other than my spelling when I wrote this post :)

 

No need to be sorry - as I clearly wrote (I hope so)  the issue is with an ipod touch. 

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  • RMweb Premium

I tried an Android (Samsung J5) - this works fine, but uses a slightly different app. Even the app is also called z21 mobile it has a different version number, . 2.6.9., while the ipod is on a version 2.3.17.

The control panel screen is different, there is a quick select on the android which doesn't exist on the ipod.

 

For those who want to understand what is not working on the ipod: Go into settings and then into railed vehicles. Select a loco. Go into traction settings - and the app closes...

 

 

The ipad touch is model MC544BT/A and approximately 5 years old.Operating system is ios 6.1.6 (last available version). I opened another ticket with the softare guys at Roco. 

 

Vecchio

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I know that this isn't what you want to hear but my daughter's iPod is version MD057BT/A 8gb running IOS 6.1.6 and it doesn't crash out as you are suggesting :(

 

TBH, until you mentioned it I had forgotten about it, I used to use it for Touchcab and haven't used it for a while, I might steal it back from her!

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  • RMweb Gold

One I hadn't noticed before is the Demo loco option.

Add it in the settings screen for railed vehicles

post-6968-0-02001300-1508009162_thumb.png

 

When you flip up the loco list in the control panel you can scroll the loco address up and down to suit the visiting loco using the + & - buttons. It gives you F buttons for 23 functions.

post-6968-0-99915200-1508009303_thumb.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Earlier in this thread I asked about updating Zimo files that have a load code using a Z21.

 

I'm pleased to say I have the answer all you do is put said code into CV260-263 and that's it!!!

 

I was able to reflash a Roco Czech 749 with the much improved Artol Sound.

 

Hope that's of use / interest.

 

Neil

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  • 1 month later...

Hi VRR,

 

Hopefully I can help you sort out your problem, and save you a 4 hour round trip!  Also if my hunch is correct then miraculously everything will work when you visit your dealer and then break again when you get back home (if you plug everything back in as shown by your pictures).

 

Sorry if I'm telling you to suck eggs or you have tried what I suggest already, but I know how frustrating computer networks can be and I do internet/web/network stuff for a living!

 

Nightlife and Dutch_Master have provided all the answers and your pictures point to the problem, so hopefully this will help join the dots.

 

If you want the simple solution, just follow the list in order (only completing it will make everything work), the reasons are listed as well if you are intersted but if it's all seems like a foreign language then ignore!

 

The simple route of your problems: your home Belkin router.

 

1) unplug the grey network cable connected to the TP Link router WAN port (I'm guessing you've plugged the other end of the grey network cable to your Belkin home router)

 

Reason: By plugging in your own home Belkin router to the WAN port of the TP Link router you are in a whole world of hurt. The TP Link knows that the network it sees on the  WAN port needs to be isolated from the network that it will be providing, it does this by using a different subnet. A subnet is a different range of IP addresses (also called network addresses), defined by a mask (called the subnet mask) which is usually 255.255.255.0 for small home networks and routers, so it means that IP addresses that have the same first three sets of numbers are in the same subnet. Because you have plugged your home Belkin router into the WAN port of the TP Link and because the 192.168.0.x subnet is the most commonly used subnet for home networks it sees that the Belkin (plugged into the WAN port) is using the 192.168.0.x subnet already. So to play nicely the TP Link automatically uses the next available subnet of 192.168.1.x. Now because of this, only addresses in the subnet 192.168.1.x are able to be used by the TP Link and because the z21 has a fixed IP address of 192.168.0.111 it is not able to be seen by any network because it's IP address does not match the subnet mask. So I repeat, unplug the grey cable from the TP Link, in so doing disconnecting it from the Belkin router.

 

2) (optional) reset the TP Link router.

 

Reason:You may want to skip this step because it is possibly not needed (and could wipe the settings programmed by Roco), but: if the TP Link has stored the fact that is has previously used the 192.168.1.x subnet it may continue to do so, this would prevent it 'seeing' the z21, even through you have disconnected the TP Link from the Belkin router.

 

3) cycle the power to both the z21 and TP Link.

 

Reason: Just to make sure, switch it off and on again ;-) Hopefully when everything comes back on the TP Link should be using the 192.168.0.x subnet by default and be able to 'see' the z21.

 

4) connect your Samsung tablet to the wireless network provided by the TP Link router - NOT your normal home wireless network.

 

I think the name of the TP Link wireless network suffix and the password are listed on the bottom of the TP Link router (not sure - don't have one!). I think the network name should start with (Z21_ or z21_) and be followed by 4 digits (the last 4 digits of the serial number of the TP Link Router. Or alternatively you could just look for the wireless network that appears when you turn on the TP Link router - this may be needed if resetting the router also reset the TP Link's wireless network name. The password for the wireless network is listed as the PIN on the bottom of the router.

 

Reason: The z21 is only connected to the network provided by the TP Link router - your tablet needs to join the same network as the z21.

 

-----

 

OK hopefully things should now work.

 

If it still doesn't work:

 

Find out the following things as they will help troubleshooting:

 

a) what is the IP address of your tablet when you connect to the TP Link wireless network?

b ) can you check the IP address of the TP Link router - what is it?

 

You can always plug a laptop into the other network LAN ports on the TP Link router if you want to use software to find out the above, but you should be able to see the addresses on the wireless setting page on the Samsung tablet.

 

Let me have the answers - and we'll fix things together from there.

 

If it does work but you have questions:

 

​a) how do I connect to the internet and the z21?

 

Simple answer - you don't. You connect to your home wireless network for the internet or the TP Link network for the z21. To make things simple that is why Roco gave you a separate router. The TP Link is totally unnecessary if you know what you are doing with your own router, but if not then the simple solution is to use a completely different one.

 

b ) no, but what if I really want to connect to the z21 and my home network - how do I do that?

 

The Roco manual is a little too simplistic in some areas and doesn't make sense in others - so I can understand the confusion. They even say you can plug into the WAN port OK, but then their router configuration manual (in German) says not to use the WAN port at all!!

 

First - throw the TP Link router in the bin - you don't need it. 

 

Next a quick bit on IP Addresses: there are a limited number of IP address in the world, and indeed in the world of your home network of only one subnet you only have 255 addresses available. You router uses one of these so you only have 254 left. Because you will want an easy life, and because it's never good to run out of IP addresses, routers come configured to dynamically allocate IP addresses to devices by default. This means the router acts as a DHCP server. So every time a device connects to the home network it gets given a dynamically assigned IP address. But here is the problem: every time you reconnect you may get a different address - even if you use the same device. For 99.9999% of the time this is not a problem as everything will still work, even if your IP address continually changes.

 

However - Roco decided it would be too hard to have the IP address of the z21 changing all the time - how would their tablet software know how to talk to the z21? So they took the easy option and gave the z21 a fixed IP address. This is 192.168.0.111 by default (it would seem). A fixed IP address may cause havoc with a router using DHCP that has more devices connected (like your home router) so hence why they took the simple route and gave you the TP Link router.

 

If you want to use your z21 on your home network you need to check several things - then (according to the theory) everything should work just fine.

 

a) plug your z21 into a spare LAN port on your router.

b ) make sure your home network router uses the 192.168.0.x subnet as default.

c) find out the MAC address of the z21 - you'll need some network sniffing software for this - or it could be written on the bottom of the z21 (I don't have one to check).

The MAC address is in the form of 6 hex octets (some thing like 6f:a4:76:0c:e4:bd) it is a unique physical address for the network port on the z21, because there are so may combinations of MAC addresses I really mean unique. Every device/port in the universe has a different MAC address - no single one is shared. So your z21 will have a different MAC address than someone else.

d) You need to reserve the IP address 192.168.0.111 in the DHCP server settings of your router - you need the MAC address for this. You are basically saying 'reserve the IP address of 192.168.0.111 for the device that has the MAC address of {your z21 MAC address here...}'. Every router is different - but I hope you get the idea.

e) Now your z21 should live happily amongst all your other network devices, and when you connect to your home wifi network your tablets should be able to see the z21. Don't worry about any network overloading or conflicts or that you are going to slow down your home network - that'll never happen.

 

And here endeth the lesson ;-)

 

Hope that is useful to people and more importantly it sorts out VRR's problem and that the enjoyment can begin.

 

Cheers,

Matt

 

Potentially useful, but my BT Homehub 6 does not allow static IPs.

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It is easy to connect your Z21 to your home network but roco have decided that this will invalidate any support. I have mine connected without any issue whatsoever - this is especially useful when you want to upgrade the firmware which you cannot do with an iPad connected to the Z21.

 

You can also use static addresses quite happily with the BT HH6 - especially if you keep the address below x.x.x.64 as they don’t start the DHCP pool until that address. You can also tell the DHCP manager to always issue the same address to a device, effectively giving it a static address.

Edited by WIMorrison
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  • RMweb Gold

this is especially useful when you want to upgrade the firmware which you cannot do with an iPad connected to the Z21.

.

Interesting the update app is available on android as I use them as tablet controls and to update. It doesn't show for iPhone so I thought it would for iPad. Seems a combination of Apple and android gives the most flexibility.
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  • 1 month later...

I don't know whether it was the result of a recent app. update, (I am on version 2.3.17), but I am having trouble Exporting and Importing "Layouts" between iPhones when using the WLAN method.

 

When I reach the WLAN screen on the Exporting device, the name of the Importing device is out of view. If I swipe the screen down the name appears but does not stay down for me to select it. As soon as I let go, after swiping down, it pops back up again out of sight. I am therefor resorting to emailing the file to myself which is a bit long-winded.

 

Is any else experiencing this and found a way to fix it?

 

A second question for the experts, if I may: can one iPhone be working from Layout A and another be working from Layout B? The Z21 would only be connected to one layout of course, but I am thinking of having one set of locos (sound fitted) on iPhone A and another set (silent) on iPhone B, for administrative convenience. If the answer is yes, as I am hoping, is there any way to copy a loco from Layout B to Layout A, or do all the details have to be re-entered?

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  • RMweb Gold

Sorry not updated to the new one after Vecchio had an issue so was waiting for the next one.

 

I don't see why it wouldn't work with two different lists as effectively it's the address that matters not that it's in a different list. I haven't tried it though.

The only way to copy locos across devices is the export you've already done, you could export the file then modify it for the second layout but there's no way I know of to copy an individual loco and paste into another layouts list.

Edited by PaulRhB
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  • RMweb Gold

With the cobalt ip there is a weakness with shorts. Program it to a random address then back to the one you want. Reprogramming the correct address without a different one first doesn't work.

Edited by PaulRhB
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  • 4 weeks later...

Having successfully managed to use the Z21 to update a brand new Zimo decoder i’ve tried again this evening using a 22 pin decoder rather than a 8 pin and i’m getting the following error, anyone had the same problems?

 

Thanks

 

Neil

post-27790-0-87313900-1516660887_thumb.jpeg

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  • 5 months later...

Last night I tried something that I thought should work and it has - no switches required at all with Z21 to create programming track.

 

What you need to do is have a siding that is electrically completely isolated from the main track and you feed this section from the Programming Track output. You can drive a loco into and from this section using the main throttle and when you programme the main track is disconnected and this new section is the only part of the layout which is powered and that is through the PT output.

 

Perfect!

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  • RMweb Gold

Last night I tried something that I thought should work and it has - no switches required at all with Z21 to create programming track.

 

What you need to do is have a siding that is electrically completely isolated from the main track and you feed this section from the Programming Track output. You can drive a loco into and from this section using the main throttle and when you programme the main track is disconnected and this new section is the only part of the layout which is powered and that is through the PT output.

 

Perfect!

I guess thats the advantage of the Z21 versus the z21. With the z21, you dont have the programming track as a seperate output, so you need a switch to isolate the section from the rest of the layout. 

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