Serge NOEL
110 lines
5.5 KiB
Plaintext
110 lines
5.5 KiB
Plaintext
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<title>Comprehensive Programmer - Consisting Functions Pane</title>
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<h1 id="Top">DecoderPro® Comprehensive Programmer</h1>
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<h2>Consisting Functions Pane</h2>
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<p><a href="Comp_Analog.shtml">Previous |</a> <a href="Comp_Advanced.shtml">Next</a></p>
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<p>Consisting is a means to have two or more locomotives respond to orders from the command
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station, and do it together in unison. There are a number of terms used to describe
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consisting, and the manufacturers don't agree what those terms should be. The NMRA has
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adopted terminology, so that is what will be used in this discussion.</p>
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<p>Address Consisting. You merely set the address of every locomotive to be the same, and we
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can use the Basic Programmer pane to do this. Then a DCC instruction sent to a locomotive
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with address XX will cause all the locomotives with address XX to respond. It works well for
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locomotives that are always run together, and is portable from one layout to the other. The
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disadvantage is that it's a pain to keep re-addressing your locomotives if you don't always
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run them together.</p>
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<p>So, the NMRA came up with two additional means of consisting. One is set up in, and
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remembered by the command station, and the other is set in the decoders.</p>
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<p>The NMRA calls the command station based system Basic Consisting. The command station
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keeps a list of all the locos in the consist. When an action is needed the command station
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sends an individual packet to every locomotive in the consist, which causes them to then act
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together. Since this method is command station based the consist is not portable to another
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system. Also, since it does not need to be programmed into the decoders, DecoderPro doesn't
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need to deal with it.</p>
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<p>The NMRA calls the decoder based system Advanced Consisting. To implement this system the
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decoder has to have a special memory space (CV19) which is used to store a consist address.
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This type of consisting is portable between layouts, since the information that the loco is
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part of a consist, and the address information for that consist is carried in the decoder.
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The disadvantage is that once the locomotive is assigned to a consist it will only respond to
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the consist address. If you forget to 'break' the consist at the end of an operation, you
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will be puzzled as to why your locomotive won't respond to requests for motion, even though
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it will respond to some of the lighting functions.</p>
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<p>DecoderPro utilizes the Consisting Pane to set up NMRA Advanced Consists and the response
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of the locomotive to function requests sent to the consist address.</p>
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<h1><img src="images/Comp_07_Consisting.png" width="920" height="799" alt="Consist panel">
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</h1>
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<p>The Advanced Consist Address is for <strong>EPF</strong> (<strong>Extended Packet
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Format</strong>, as defined by the NMRA Recommended Practices for DCC). If the consist
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address is <strong>any value other than zero</strong>, the locomotive is considered to be in
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a consist and will only respond to instructions sent to the consist address. Thus we set a
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short address here to create a multiple engine group that will all respond to the same
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address. Think of it as an MU specific locomotive address. Since the address is in the same
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range as non-consisted locomotives with short addresses, we need to be sure the address is
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unique on the layout. A way of doing this is to use higher end of the short address range
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starting from 127 and going down. Most folks working with single locomotives with short
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addresses tend to be using the manufacturer's default of 3, or other low values, typically
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for their logging locomotives.</p>
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<p>This Pane also allows one to instruct the decoder what effects are to be active when the
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locomotive is in a consist, assuming the decoder is capable of responding appropriately. As
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an example, this allows you to specify if the headlights and other lighting functions are to
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be always off if the locomotive is in the middle, or tail end. This can be handy if only the
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"B" unit has sound. You can set it's lights to be off in a consist, but it can sound it's
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horn even though it's in the consist.</p>
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<p>If you've had your locomotives on another layout and ran them together, but can't get them
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to run separately on your home system, check this to see if it's consist address has been
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set.</p>
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<hr>
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<div class="dp-right">
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<p><a href="Comp_Analog.shtml">Previous |</a> <a href="Comp_Advanced.shtml">Next</a></p>
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<p><a href="index.shtml#Advanced%20Programmer">Back to Index</a>
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