parkicat

Hi all I would like to try a Hornby TTS sound decoder, does anyone know whether it has or can have stay alive functionality? cheers Cathy

Hi Iain Yes it does help. It shows us that we need to make ourselves more familiar with these products before we can ask meaningful questions, I’m still struggling with how it all hangs together. We would very much like to see something like this in action, perhaps at a modellers fair. Does anyone know of any setups like this near us in Flintshire? Many thanks, good luck with the hidden track set up.

Thanks Iain for your reply and the clip. Your screen and setup looks very exciting, mine is far simpler and without the fancy controls. Is it written by yourself or is the screen layout part of the Railcom package and icons? We have 22 locos so one of the problems I have, is finding space on the screen for a schematic of the layout and the loco controls that's readable. Many thanks

Thank you Nigel. Our layout is a home produced one, as is the majority of the software that runs it. It sounds like RailCom require its own controller software, which I was hoping to avoid, as I have spent many happy months producing our own. For me it's all about the fun of achieving the result myself through my own blue language and eureka moments!. However, some of your suggestions for methods of identification are very interesting, will definitely be looking at those. Another thing I've not heard of, as I'm relatively new to the train modellers fraternity is 'The McKinley'. Will be looking into that too!

Thank you Ron for your reply. This is the first time I've heard of RailCom, but looks like I will be hearing a lot more!!

Hi all I think this maybe a step too far, but I may as well ask. Is it possible on a DCC layout, to identify where on the track a specific loco is, not just that an unidentified loco has passed a sensor? and if possible feed that information back in someway to the controller? . Our current set up uses a Raspberry Pi and Gertbot together with software to act as the controller of the engines, points, signals and sound( work in progress!). It displays a schematic of the track with points being manipulated through buttons on the screen, the schematic displays those point changes as they occur. As we have at least 4 tracks going around in a loop around the attic, it is sometimes difficult to understand which loco is on which track, or indeed where it is? It would be good to register the movement of locos in some way. Is it possible? Many thanks

Thank you for your comments Charlie. We have now received our sound decoder, and have installed it successfully. We played a bit with the sound functions using the Powercab on a programming track and having finally understood how the sounds are generated, thanks to everyone's assistance, btw, I was able to emulate it in software so that a button on the screen switches the sound on. Obviously a button on the screen for every function of every engine is not a working solution, so I'm now thinking of sound on at startup of engine and perhaps other sounds to be based on speed, still not sure how to implement, but I shall have fun trying. Thanks again all.

Thank you Alan for your suggestions. I have spoken with Digitrains and in fact that was where we ordered our sound decoder from. However, I probably didn't ask him the right question at the time. I thought I'd try this forum first. Regards Cath

Hi Dave. Thank you for your detailed response. Very useful hints. I will take a look at those links as soon as our sound decoder arrives.

Hi all As you can probably tell from this title and description, I am new to posting on this forum, well actually new to posting on any forum!. So I'm not sure how to start. If I perhaps explain what my current set up is and what I want to do and then hopefully somebody will be able to point me in the right direction. The current set up is moderately large OO gauge layout comprising of about 25ft of track, some DCC Concepts Digital IP point motors, and about 20 'steam' locos. We have a programming track and use a NCE powercab to program various addresses and CVs. The main track, points,signals and engines are controlled through a Raspberry Pi and Gertbot board, using the open source software available with the Gertbots, which I have modified to accommodate the various engines, signals and points, each is assigned an address, two for signals and points. I want to now move on to sound. As I understand it the original motion decoders need to be replaced by one capable of sound as well as motion. For motion I address the short address given by the powercab to each engine. This is my question:- Can individual sounds e.g. shunting, whistle etc be addressed independently, or are they built in to the speed at which the engine operates? I'm sorry if this is basic stuff but I just cant get my head around it at the moment and could do with some guidance.