jpendle

So as I have no clue. What's the reasoning behind switching the lights over? Regards, John P

Hi, On you journey from Preston to Carlisle in 66730 why did the bright headlight (sorry, I don't know the correct terminology) switch from right to left? Regards, John P

If you look online. The lift was the first bit that was constructed in the 1920's, involving a walk from the railway station up what is now the funicular to get to it. In the early part of this century the system was updated with the funicular bit being added as it was felt that passengers would rather avoid the long walk. Regards, John P

Regional Railways ceased to be 25 years ago so not really modern image. That's longer than it took BR to get rid of steam (19 years, 48 to 67). Anyone modelling the past 10 years needs lots of Units an almost no LHCS! Regards, John P

Hi, It would be helpful to know what make and model they are. Regards, John P

Our Audi Q5 had the emissions reprogramming done a few years ago. The AdBlue consumption increased, but not by much. The only reason we noticed is that before the fix we got the AdBlue done at 12000 mile service intervals, after the fix, I've had to add it myself at around 10k miles. In the US the Audi fix included free Ad Blue top ups, but at our last service they charged us for it and I forgot to challenge them on it. Regards, John P

How are you feeding power to the track? You mention track feeders. I think that there is an issue with some Hornby track Power Clips that makes them unsuitable for DCC. Although why that would only affect one loco is beyond me. Regards, John P

Unfortunately CV7 is not the decoder model on Zimo or ESU decoders. It's the Software/Firmware version number. Regards, John P

ISO 11898-1 and ISO 11898-2 are the base standards for CAN and although there has been some divergence over the years, CAN devices in the auto industry are interoperable. I would have thought that things like the Roco Z21 CAN implemetation uses of the shelf components and thus uses these standards, after all, why re-invent the wheel?\ Regards, John P

Agreed, and yet if we want to split hairs, the wafer fabs making the integrated circuits will be in Europe or North America or Taiwan or Korea, NOT China. The assembly of those IC's into the plastic packages that we are familiar with as a "chip" will be done in the Far East. My point was that Zimo's PCBA manufacturing is done in house, the PCBA's that are in the locos made by Hornby et al will be outsourced and made in China. Regards, John P

Zimo's decoders, which are Printed Circuit Board Assemblies, are made in Vienna. I took your DCC chip statement as referring to decoders rather than the microcontroller chips that are used in their manufacture. Most people on this, and other forums, commonly refer to DCC decoders as DCC chips. Regards, John P

Actually no. Roco mainly use Zimo decoders and these are made in Vienna by Zimo. Regards, John P

I've got mine in a mixed rake with some Dapol MJA's. I just need to make some loads that look as good as the ones that came with the JNA's. Regards, John P

Wow, missing a diamond crossing seems like a big hole! There isn't one in the old app either, but there it doesn't matter as much as you can take a picture of your layout and superimpose the control elements on top. I've never noticed this as my current layout, based on modern UK practice at Wigan, doesn't have a single diamond crossing! Regards, John P

????? How many Wifi units are there and what are they? I was assuming that you just had the TP Link supplied with the Z21. Regards, John P

With apologies to Mike for hijacking the thread. Hi Iain, I've removed the PSX and still have the issue. I'll work it out eventually and I'll let you know what I find. Regards, John P

Hi Iain, I've now been able to use Railcom with 8 locos on a test track with no issues. BUT there's something on my layout that is stopping Railcom from working properly, I just haven't worked out what it is yet! About 2/3rds of my storage yard is wired to the Z21 through a PSX circuit breaker, if I try to read any loco in that section, I get "no loco found at that address". I bypassed the PSX and it didn't fix it. The rest of my layout has Roco 10808 detectors wired up and Railcom works fine with those. My hypothesis is that one of the TCS or Digitrax decoders that I am using for lighting in my multiple units is interfering with the Railcom signal. Regards, John P

Hi, I don't have a Raspberry Pi but a quick search online says that by default the Raspberry Pi OS uses DHCP for it's network configuration. That means that after connecting it to the TP Link router and rebooting the Pi, it should automatically get assigned an IP address in the correct range by the TP link router. If that's not working then you'll probably need to edit it's "/etc/dhcpcd.conf " file. But perhaps you should put a copy of that file on here so it can be reviewed. Regards, John P

How many locos are on your layout? On my N Gauge layout I found that if I had more than 4 loco's on the layout at the same time then Railcom wouldn't work. At that time my entire layout was one single section, playing around with a single length of track and a single loco Rail/POM worked perfectly, I then added more locos until I ran into issues with 4 on the track. POM should still work no matter the number of loco's it just the Railcom responses that will be affected. FWIW, my layout is now divided into separate isolated sections with Roco 10808 loco detectors and I can use POM with Railcom anywhere on the layout as there are never more than 2 locos in a section at any given time. And as Iain says, unless you are using Zimo decoders then you must use CV Programming/MANUAL/ POM as opposed to CV Programming/Loco(POM). Regards, John P

Sell the DCS210 and buy a Z21. You can still use any other Digitrax/Loconet gear that you have with the Z21. Regards, John P

Better than Zimo? What do you have in mind? John P

Quite right! I'm frequently guilty of not reading posts thoroughly enough. 🤔 I use a PSX to prevent track shorts interfering with point operation, which might also be an option for the OP. I needed the booster as I'd max'ed out my Z21, I chose the 10805 so that I could turn off Railcom for my accessory decoders and still use it with loco detection on the track bus. Regards, John P

Hi, Yes you can do what you say. I use the 10805 on my layout to keep the accessories separate from the track bus. The 10805 generates a Railcom cutout but doesn't forward messages to the z21 itself, but as you intend using it just for accessories this shouldn't be a problem. On my layout I use NCE Switch 8 point decoders, these don't like Railcom so on my booster I have Railcom turned off. Regards, John P

I can't work out if you are making a joke here. 🤔 These were done in OO first and then shrunk to N. Regards, John P

Hi, According to the Farish ad in October's RM the TfW CL769's don't have pantographs. Is that correct? I'm struggling to work out how they can be Bi_mode without them. Regards, John P