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Decoderpro, Pr3, Mac air plug n play?

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  • Member since
    April 2001
  • From: US
  • 416 posts
Decoderpro, Pr3, Mac air plug n play?
Posted by blabride on Thursday, March 31, 2016 7:01 PM

I have been finally looking into decoder pro for speed matching as well as the other things it does well. I have a Macbook air running OSX 10.9 5 that I could use but it is also use by other members of my family. How plug and play is the Digitrax Pr3 with the Mac. It seems easy to hook up and get the PR3 to talk to decoder pro but is it something one would want to unplug and plug often? It seems a lot of folks are using this set up out there but I am not sure if it is set up at a permanent station.

Any advice?

Thanks

Steve B

  • Member since
    December 2001
  • 1,932 posts
Posted by Stevert on Friday, April 1, 2016 7:07 AM

Steve, I am not a Mac user, but I do use JMRI with a PR3 and have never had a bit of trouble with either of them.

Having said that, I'm pretty sure that if you remember to always plug the PR3 into the same USB port on your Mac, you should be okay.

However, I'd strongly recommend that you post your questions on the JMRI Yahoo group.  Many of the developers use Macs, and hang out on that list, so I'm sure you can get authoritative answers there:

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/jmriusers/info

  • Member since
    May 2012
  • 602 posts
Posted by NP01 on Tuesday, April 5, 2016 10:50 PM

I use a MacBook Air and it works without trouble. Keep the instructions handy- it's a little more complicated than pointing to a virtual serial port in Windows.

my MacBook is always plugged into the railroad, but if plugged/unplugged caused an issue its a matter of looking up the correct port number if you have the instructions handy. 

So far, all functions ok compared to Win7 except one: withrottle seems to often not auto pair and needs port number put in explicitly. 

NP. 

JXC
  • Member since
    January 2016
  • From: Vancouver, BC
  • 35 posts
Posted by JXC on Wednesday, April 6, 2016 2:09 AM

I use JMRI on a MacBook Air with a LocoBuffer USB to Digitrax Loconet interface. I have no issues when connecting and disconnecting the computer from the DCC. The DCC is run both with and without JMRI and the computer is used for many other purposes and for traveling. I use JMRI either to allow WiThrottle control from a smartphone or to program a decoder.

I do find it is best to connect the computer to the DCC system before starting JMRI as otherwise JMRI does not always reliably find the DCC system. Similarly, the smartphone app has better luck finding JMRI if JMRI is started before the app.

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