/
Comp_Consist.shtml
137 lines (116 loc) · 5.95 KB
/
Comp_Consist.shtml
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta name="generator" content=
"HTML Tidy for Mac OS X (vers 31 October 2006 - Apple Inc. build 15.17), see www.w3.org">
<title>Comprehensive Programmer - Consisting Functions
Pane</title><!-- Style -->
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
"text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/default.css"
media="screen">
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/print.css"
media="print">
<link rel="icon" href="/images/jmri.ico" type="image/png">
<link rel="home" title="Home" href="/"><!-- /Style -->
</head>
<body>
<!--#include virtual="/Header" -->
<div id="mBody">
<!--#include virtual="Sidebar" -->
<div id="mainContent">
<a name="Top" id="Top"></a>
<h1>DecoderPro® Comprehensive Programmer</h1>
<h2>Consisting Functions Pane</h2>
<div align="right">
<p><a href="Comp_Analog.shtml">Previous |</a> <a href=
"Comp_Advanced.shtml">Next</a></p>
<p><a href="index.shtml#Advanced%20Programmer">Back to
Index</a></p>
</div>
<hr>
<p>Consisting is a means to have two or more locomotives
respond to orders from the command station, and do it
together in unison. There are a number of terms used to
describe consisting, and the manufacturers don't agree what
those terms should be. The NMRA has adopted terminology, so
that is what will be used in this discussion.</p>
<p>Address Consisting. You merely set the address of every
locomotive to be the same, and we can use the Basic
Programmer pane to do this. Then a DCC instruction sent to a
locomotive with address XX will cause all the locomotives
with address XX to respond. It works well for locomotives
that are always run together, and is portable from one layout
to the other. The disadvantage is that it's a pain to keep
re-addressing your locomotives if you don't always run them
together.</p>
<p>So, the NMRA came up with two additional means of
consisting. One is set up in, and remembered by the command
station, and the other is set in the decoders.</p>
<p>The NMRA calls the command station based system Basic
Consisting. The command station keeps a list of all the locos
in the consist. When an action is needed the command station
sends an individual packet to every locomotive in the
consist, which causes them to then act together. Since this
method is command station based the consist is not portable
to another system. Also, since it does not need to be
programmed into the decoders, DecoderPro doesn't need to deal
with it.</p>
<p>The NMRA calls the decoder based system Advanced
Consisting. To implement this system the decoder has to have
a special memory space (CV19) which is used to store a
consist address. This type of consisting is portable between
layouts, since the information that the loco is part of a
consist, and the address information for that consist is
carried in the decoder. The disadvantage is that once the
locomotive is assigned to a consist it will only respond to
the consist address. If you forget to "break" the consist at
the end of an operation, you will be puzzled as to why your
locomotive won't respond to requests for motion, even though
it will respond to some of the lighting functions.</p>
<p>DecoderPro utilizes the Consisting Pane to set up NMRA
Advanced Consists and the response of the locomotive to
function requests sent to the consist address.</p>
<h1><img style="width: 920px; height: 799px;" src=
"images/Comp_07_Consisting.png" alt="Consist panel"></h1>
<p>The Advanced Consist Address is for <strong>EPF</strong>
(<strong>Extended Packet Format</strong>, as defined by the
NMRA Recommended Practices for DCC). If the consist address
is <strong>any value other than zero</strong>, the locomotive
is considered to be in a consist and will only respond to
instructions sent to the consist address. Thus we set a short
address here to create a multiple engine group that will all
respond to the same address. Think of it as an MU specific
locomotive address. Since the address is in the same range as
non-consisted locomotives with short addresses, we need to be
sure the address is unique on the layout. A way of doing this
is to use higher end of the short address range starting from
127 and going down. Most folks working with single
locomotives with short addresses tend to be using the
manufacturer's default of 3, or other low values, typically
for their logging locomotives.</p>
<p>This Pane also allows one to instruct the decoder what
effects are to be active when the locomotive is in a consist,
assuming the decoder is capable of responding appropriately.
As an example, this allows you to specify if the headlights
and other lighting functions are to be always off if the
locomotive is in the middle, or tail end. This can be handy
if only the "B" unit has sound. You can set it's lights to be
off in a consist, but it can sound it's horn even though it's
in the consist.</p>
<p>If you've had your locomotives on another layout and ran
them together, but can't get them to run separately on your
home system, check this to see if it's consist address has
been set.</p>
<hr>
<div align="right">
<p><a href="Comp_Analog.shtml">Previous |</a> <a href=
"Comp_Advanced.shtml">Next</a></p>
<p><a href="index.shtml#Advanced%20Programmer">Back to
Index</a></p>
</div><!--#include virtual="/Footer" -->
</div><!-- closes #mainContent-->
</div><!-- closes #mBody-->
</body>
</html>