WIMorrison

You can get a full trial licence for iTrain by asking for one from iTrain@berros.eu.

You will be granted 60 days for the Professional version. After that period the licence used to revert to limited ‘free’ licence however I think that has been discontinued.

The different licence versions are shown here;

https://www.berros.eu/en/itrain/pricing.php

12 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

Agreed, out of idle curiosity just looked at the IP address assignment on my home router and they're all over the shop within the 192.168.1.x subnet.

That means you have a lot of devices 'visiting' and consuming IP addresses, probably for short periods, with the result the 'residual' devices are being forced to use addresses higher up the 'stack'. I would check the DHCP Lease period and also flush the pool to get rid of dead addresses.

The signal won’t degrade but you will almost certainly suffer a significant voltage drop across the connection and if all the locomotives are at the far end of the layout from the controller they might not work due to voltage drop, or damage the connectors which are not designed to carry tyat much current.

A router doesn’t randomly assign addresses from the pool.

When a totally new device requests an address a specified sequence of events happen which results in the next free address starting from the beginning of the address range is issued out. This is also issued with a lease period which is commonly 24hrs or 30 days in home routers. The next new device is offered the next address, etc.

At 50% of the lease period an attempt is made to renew the lease using the same IP Address for the same MAC. If it is free then the lease is renewed for another lease period.

The router keeps a list of the MAC and IP addresses that have been used, but are now free, for a period and then eventually releases them. This retention of addresses and issuing of new addresses can quickly consume the available DHCP range, especially with the number of devices in households that use IP these days. Between phones, computers, televisions, and all the other white goods you can quickly allocate 50 to 100 addresses due to the retention period.

The effects of IP conflict can range from service denial to the two devices with the shared addresses to network collapse when devices use the so called ‘Smart IP’ because all the devices try to avoid each other and find there isn’t enough address space to stop the conflicts happening.

This is why all routers that have DHCP allow static addresses to be issued to network devices - they don’t implement the functionality because they are nice people, they implement it because it is vital to ensuring a network operates correctly.

46 minutes ago, DaveArkley said:

You can set up a reservation in your home router's DHCP rules, you'd need to find the mac address of your Z21 and add using that. If that isn't crystal clear then I suggest you don't do it, too easy to get wrong if you aren't familiar.

Even easier is make sure that the DHCP pool starts above 192.168.x.128 which is the case for many home routers. Another common pool starts at 192.168.x.64  which will require alteration. When railway IP range is 192.168.0.x-254 and the home is on 192.168.1.0-254 then you could make the subnet mask 255.255.254.0 for everything and just have one large network  - but I wouldn't advise that 😉

3 hours ago, TomCrewe said:

I hope your points are dcc ready? or you may have to take them all up again to mod them!

There is no such thing as DCC ready, or even DCC turnouts. You can wire turnouts for better reliability and performance that will improve their use on DC as well as DCC - indeed many people were wiring turnouts in the manner now called 'DCC Ready' 60 years ago (and probably more, I can only vouch for 60 years) and long before anyone had thought of DCC.

IRRC ideally you need a 4p4c connector at each end with pins 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4 but you may be able to use a 6p4c connector using the centre 4 connections.

You need to use an external Wi-Fi router to enable this. You can make the SSID and password the same as the main house router. You don't use it as a router - just as a Wi-Fi enabled switch, and ideally give the LAN an address on your house network.

The functionality was removed on the YF9401 upgrade because it was a significant security risk in the DR5000 that could not be mitigated and it was therefore removed to allow the wi-fi provide safe communications within the household.

@Ron Ron Ron Unfortunately a z21 doesn't have a CDE connection which is why I didn't mention it , and I don't know if NCE does. 

B-Bus is not a standardised connection and different manufacturers implement it differently. There are converters available from Roco to allow connection from B-Bus to other systems such as Massoth and older LDT boosters. I also know that the Roco B-Bus works with other European boosters, such as Digikeijs DR5033 or the YaMoRC YD7403.

Your other option may be to write to Roco and NCE to find out what the pinouts are for their B-Bus implementations and then create a specific cable.

2 hours ago, Vecchio said:

Start with a reset. CV8=8. the loco will be on address 3 after that, but all the sound part stays. 

Normally sound on is F1, on some zimo decoders sound on is on F8. 

 

good luck. 

It is f14 on my Zimo decoders that are factory fitted by Roco 😉

silly question - but have you checked the output from the power supply using a multimeter to check if it is the correct voltage, rather than just reading the label and assuming the voltage?

18 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

When you break down the comparative costing of Hornby’s TXS sound decoders, the sound element is only adding approx. £25  compared to a non-sound decoder (Bluetooth capability also adds another (approx.) £15 to the cost).

 But with the TXS ‘solution’ only fitting a minority of the models on sale, plus a limited range of sounds, they are not a solution that will match the needs of the majority of modellers.

The level of control offered by these decoders is also poor when compared to ESU or Zimo.

We need to see the rest of the layout to understand what polarities on on the track for each turnout.

it could be that you are causing the short because the rails are at opposite polarities and you are bridging them with the loco.

The auxiliary switches are completely isolated from everything and you will not ‘see’ any voltage on them. Like any other switch you need to connect them to something for them to switch whatever it is on or off.

To switch or change a frog take the left rail to one side of the switch and the right to the other and use the common output to the frog. This will then change the frog with the movement of the blades. If you get a short then you change the left and right outputs over.

I am wondering if your CAN cable is damaged - can’t really think of anything else 😒

The other people I know with one found it to be like mine - plug, switch on then run the trains. I have spoken to one and he is as lost as I am with the fault.

do you mean like this?

I get that stop sign when the blue bar (bottom right) is flashing, just click the flashing blue bar to make it go online and the stop disappears.

Download the latest version of tehZ21 Maint Tool (1.18.1) then click Setup in the CAN Screen

and finally FW Update in the Booster screen

You do have the CAN cable corrected to the correct port - and fully pushed home?

Also, have you updated the firmware?

This normally happens to me on my booster when the Z21 has not been made active i.e. the blue light on the Z21 is flashing. press the Z21 to make it active and then the booster can be made active. 

BTW, I don't use the same voltage on the Z21 and the booster. Z21=13v and Booster = 17v

I would place the operating button in the DCC input not in the DC output as this will ensure that the rectifier only operates and draws power when you want to use the uncoupler - but still place a diode (or similar) over the electromagnet as suggested by Nigel.

Get a cheap rectifier use that to convert the DCC to DC. 
 

here is one example

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175868414047?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=c6sd9irfrca&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=pqlt7rqcTlO&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

It is either or, not both - you will screw up your track if you put DC on it with DCC, plus it won't be good for either your DC supply or your DCC command station.

Similar happened to me once and I followed the procedures here to get it back and working.

Z21 WLANMAUS firmware restoration (EN)