Hi guys,
So I have a San Diego Coaster train. F59PHI for the power, couple coaches and then a cab car at the end. I just saw a video of a guy that put in dual Loksound cards in the consist. One in the loco and one in the cab car. For months I have been cussing and frustrated with my Tsunami sound car card. And I'm over it. Multiple emails to Tsunami, I can't get the card to react or do things correctly. Beside that, I'm a fully converted Loksound guy and don't plan on ever looking back. So here's the question. When he turned on the loco headlights the red lights went on the cab car. He could also turn on the ditch lights and blow the horn or bell and it would come from the loco. When he pressed F7, everything switched. Now, the loco had the red lights, and the cab car headlight and ditch lights illuminated and the horn and bell came from the cab car.
I think I have everything figured out. Same CV address for both cards. On the loco the card is wired normally. On the cab car the headlights and things would be reversed since obviously the loco is running in reverse the cab car acts as the lead.What I can't wrap my head around......is that F7 trick. I don't quite understand how he did that?!?! I emailed him and haven't heard back so thought I would post it here. Anyone have any ideas?I just ordered some Loksound Select 5 cards and have a couple different passenger car set ups I would love to do with this. But that F7 is kicking my tail.Thanks for any ideas or help you guys can pass along!
Mike
He probably has all the functions for the cab car set up to use F7 as a condition.
For example, for the horn .... F0 would be the horn sound and F7on would be the condition. Likewise for the engine. F0 would still be the horn, but F7off as the condition. So, whenever F7 is off, F0 would blow the horn on the engine, turn F7 on and only the horn in the cab car will work.
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
And a brilliant idea that is. Forget consisting, functions enabled in a consist, or any of that. Just make them both the same address... and use a conditional in the function settings. Driving from the loco? F7 off. Driving the other way, from the cab car? F7 on.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Yes I agree it's brialliant and I feel sort of dumb for not thinking of it myself. I've got my decoders here and ready to install. Go the lights figured out and I think I can research and figure out that F7 conditional thing.
Will that also tell which loco the horn goes to? I guess I don't understand the condional set up enough yet. I'm assuming that's what tells which to bell or horn or even ditch lights for that fact.....depending if the F7 is on or off.
Once I get off work I'll get on my pc and get my Loksound programmer out and see.
SUre. You can add the conditional to any of the function maps So the one for the kloco would be to play the horn sound slot on F2 with F7 off, and the horn ont he cab car would be play the horn on F2 with F7 also on. Or whatever function you use for the directional condition. I don't model anything modern, so I'm not sure about the bell, but if the cab cars don't have a bell, then you would just disable the bell on the cab car decoder so hitting the bell would always turn on the bell on the loco's decoder, regardless of direction.
Actually, I doubt these trainsets actually back up much, usually run one direction to the end, then switch from the loco to the cab car and go back the other way - so you could possibly just use a directional qualifier for the horns and lights and anythign eklse that needs to switch between the loco and cab car. Backing up for non-operational purposes like restaging for the next op session don't count - does the sound really need to be realistic when performing such a non-realistic function?
I haven't ridden on the modern push pull stuff, I have taken Amtrak with a loco and one end and an old Metroliner car converted to cab car on the other, and I don't remember if the bell on the Metroliner cab car was active or not. But I know one thing, we didn;t operate in reverse anywhere on my trips, we ran loco first out of Penn Station to 30th Street, then they swapped control to the Metroliner cab and we went back the way we came in except headed west for Harrisburg. So where the engineer was, was always the head end of the train. To show how much I follow passenger trains - I didn't even realize the used the Metroliner cars for that until I got off in Lancaster and realized I had been riding in an old Metroliner the whole time. Last time I was on one of those had to be close to 30 years ago when I hopped on in Paoli to go to NYC.
Randy,
So then worth the condition. I'm thinking maybe I wire the decoder in the cab car exactly the same as the loco. Instead of reversing things like I had originally thought. would you agree.
My goal is to get engine sounds out of the loco 100% of the time. The only thing that will change will be headlight, ditch and red end of car lights as well as the horn and bell sounds. All those will swap between the cab and loco.
So thinking about it.....it makes me think I wire them up exactly as two identical locos and do a condition for all functions other than motor sound.
Would you agree?
For the cab car, just turn the prime mover volume down to 0.
Yes, you can just wire them identically. And like Mark said, just set the prime mover sound level to 0 for the cab car, then you don't have to worry about any conditional on it. The prime mover sound in the loco would not have any directional qualifier, it would always be on regardless of direction.
Ok thank you Mark and Randy. Making progress. Got everything wired today and all is working perfectly. Got the sound on the cab car down to 0 so no sound will come from it.
I get the principal of how this works but so far haven't had any luck with it working with the F7. I get for the cab car, when the train is moving forward, I want F7 off and the only thing on the cab car working will be the red lights. Then when I turn F7 off, roles should reverse and the only thing on the loco that should be on is the same red lights.....and all horn, bell, ditch and headlights will work on the cab car. Just not sure how to successfully do it.Played with it a little tonight but I need to read more obviously as it sort of killed everything on the cab car and I couldn't get any response so I did something wrong.
I finally heard back from the guy on Youtube that did it and he's in the process of making a youtube video for it. I'll keep working on it though until that comes out. :)
Thanks for the help guys and I'll keep you posted!
Is it two sets of LEDs, for the headlight and for the red markers? In the loco, hook the white lights to F0F and the red LEDs to F0R, and just leave the headlight directional. In the cab car, Flip it around. F0F is the red LED int he cab car, F0R is the white. Now when going forward, loco will be white, cab car will show red. Change direction, cab car will show white, loco will show red.
Do you have a LocoProgrammer, or at least JMRI? That will be the easiest way to see where to add the F7 on or F7 off qualifier to a given function.
I have skipped over this thread until this morning because the title to the thread didn't suggest anything that I would be interested in. But, my curiosity got the best of me this morning.
I had no idea what a "cab car" was on the railroad until I read the thread and did a bit more research on Google. Then, I realized that it how Metra operates it commuter fleet here in Chicago.
For those who don't know, a cab car is a non-powered train car that can control operation of a train at the opposite end from the locomotive. Who knew?
Rich
Alton Junction
richhotrainFor those who don't know, a cab car is a non-powered train car that can control operation of a train at the opposite end from the locomotive. Who knew?
Overmod richhotrain For those who don't know, a cab car is a non-powered train car that can control operation of a train at the opposite end from the locomotive. Who knew? Rich, you've led a very sheltered life. We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of my introduction to cab cars, on the push-pull sets on Erie-Lackawanna used with the U34CHs. That is a whole lifetime ago.
richhotrain For those who don't know, a cab car is a non-powered train car that can control operation of a train at the opposite end from the locomotive. Who knew?
Rich, you've led a very sheltered life. We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of my introduction to cab cars, on the push-pull sets on Erie-Lackawanna used with the U34CHs. That is a whole lifetime ago.
Until I got tugged into HO scale back in 2004, I also thought that a steam engine was a steam engine. Mikados? Mountains? Berkshires? Who knew?
Everything that I now know about model railroading, I have learned in the last 17 years.
And I guess haven't taken the train much
Just to confuse you more, I'll mention my train from Milwaukee to Chicago was led by a Cabbage. No, there wasn't a big vegetable on the front of the train (though if you watch Rapido's video on their model of one, there might be). A Cabbage is a repurposed F40PH witht he prime mover removed, and a large rollup door fitted to the sides with the idea of using the space inside the carbody as a baggage car. The cab and controls were retained to operate as the cab car on a push-pull train.
Man this guy is awesome! Shane not only answered my question, but did a YouTube instructional video!
This is so cool because it also deals with a consisting issue I've had with Loksound. Running 5 locomotive together I never could get headlights and horns to the front loco and then dim lights for the rear trailing loco. And then to reverse that loco consist the lights would change only on the first loco. Now this system completely fixed that issue!
And he doesn't wire anything "backwards" which is also nice. Huge thanks to Shane for making the video for me and others interested! https://youtu.be/7jYqG9ByOYQ
Am I correct in saying that this will only work with ESU decoders? I don't believe that other DCC systems respond to "not on".
Mark Vinski
Yes. This is the part that people complain about about ESU decoders "OMG so many CVs" but what they really are is a simple table that gives you options to map any F key to any sound and/or any function wire, along with several conditionals like the loco moving, in which direction, or the state of other function keys.
Think of it like a spreadsheet, each column is the same thing, there's one for which function wire, one for which sound slot, some qualifiers, etc. And then there are just a whole bunch of rows. In a basic setup, many of these are left blank. It's programming without having to write code.