Question re: Consisting and Speed Matching

[Greg Elmassian]

I use advanced consisting. I do wish consists could have 4 digit addresses, but it's not a huge deal.

What is great is that I can take locos in and out of consists, and the lighting and sounds behave as they should, I don't have 4 locos all with bells ringing, the headlights work, etc.

Once I have those CV's set, I never have to change them, so I don't get the problem with setting CV's.

I drive the locos up to each other and make up the consist, and drive the consist off. 

Also, no limitation on the number of locos in the consist. This will make a difference in club layouts for the DCC command traffic, and even on smaller layouts, like my little one where I do have some trains with 5 locos, it can affect the responsiveness.

Anyway, it just seemed to me that the OP's problem was easily and best solved with advanced consisting.

Greg

[jdcolombo]

I use advanced consisting. I do wish consists could have 4 digit addresses, but it's not a huge deal.

What is great is that I can take locos in and out of consists, and the lighting and sounds behave as they should, I don't have 4 locos all with bells ringing, the headlights work, etc.

Once I have those CV's set, I never have to change them, so I don't get the problem with setting CV's.

I drive the locos up to each other and make up the consist, and drive the consist off. 

Also, no limitation on the number of locos in the consist. This will make a difference in club layouts for the DCC command traffic, and even on smaller layouts, like my little one where I do have some trains with 5 locos, it can affect the responsiveness.

Anyway, it just seemed to me that the OP's problem was easily and best solved with advanced consisting.

Greg

Do you have an NCE system or Digitrax (or something else?).  Honestly, using Advanced Consisting with a Digitrax system is anything but simple.  If you have an NCE, yeah, that's the way to go.  In fact, I think that's how NCE implements consisting by default.

John C.

[Greg Elmassian]

I have an NCE system and a Zimo system (the MX10).

So when you set up a consist on the NCE, it asks you if you want basic or advanced... and walks you through it.

The settings for how to act in a consist are a one time thing, you leave them set the first time you program a decoder and never touch them again unless you want to change.

The great thing is how you have these settings that only come into effect when in a consist, so it a set and forget type thing.

Greg

[peteski]

BTW, Jagged Ben might be correct in that you could also do what I think should be done with "smart" throttles.  Suppose, for example, you had a THROTTLE (rather than a command station), that knew there were three engines in a consist, that 498 was the lead engine, and 426 was the rear.  It would be trivial for an appropriate throttle app (correctly programmed) to then send F1/F2 commands to the lead engine only, but F0 and F9 commands to all engines in the consist.   You'd have to have some way to input the information on how you want engines in a consist to respond to F commands, but you'd have to do that with my command-station idea, too.  A smart app on a wi-fi throttle that has 16gb of internal memory (e.g., a very cheap smart phone) could do this, I think.  Again, just programming and memory.

John C.

I suppose that a handheld throttle (including WiFi throttles) could be created to emulate multiple throttles sending throttle bus packets or packets over the JMRI interface to the command station. All the consisting of that "multi-throttle" would be retained inside it. But is that really making the consisting that much easier?  The only advantage I see is with a WiFi throttle: the consist would be portable by bringing that throttle along with the models  to another DCC layout which is compatible with WiFi "multi-throttles".

Portability is important to me because I run my models on several layouts (both private and NTRAK).  Like Greg mentioned, the fact that the decoder retains 2 sets of function configurations (one for standalone operations and another when CV19 enables advanced consist) is also a very handy feature of the advanced consist.

[jdcolombo]

So at the end of the day, I think that whether you find advanced or command-station-assisted consisting to be the "better" option depends on your DCC system and how you use engines.  I don't value portability much, because I only run my engines on my home layout or our club layout.  At this point, our club's Digitrax Chief command station also has all my consist information, so portability really isn't an issue for me.  Conversely, I do highly value not having to remember a 2-digit address for my consists, since I have 20 of them on my layout, and couldn't possibly do that.  I want to be able to select the lead engine, and have the consist respond to the lead engine number.  I think you can do that with NCE, but not with any other command station.  I don't use NCE, so I'm out of luck on that.

In fact, until ESU came out with its Full Throttle feature, I didn't need to have multiple engines respond to the same function command.  All I needed was for the lead unit to have its headlight on, and respond to F1 (bell) and F2 (horn).  If I reversed the consist so that the rear engine was now the lead engine, it's a simple matter to break the consist and re-consist it on the Digitrax throttle.  Or maybe I don't even do that - I simply select the rear engine on the LH throttle knob, turn on the headlight, and operate the consist from the rear unit.  Maybe it's a bit wonky to have the bell and horn coming from the rear of the consist, but that's really not noticeable from 3' away. It's only now that I'd like to play around with ESU's FT features that I find annoying limitations on command-station-assisted consisting.  But given my equipment, advanced consisting is equally, if not more, annoying so I'll stick with Digitrax's Universal (command-station-assisted) consisting.

On the other hand Peteski really values portability, which makes advanced consisting better for him.  And since Greg uses NCE, it all appears better to him, because NCE has adopted an interface that does advanced consisting seamlessly to the end user (I guess they do this by using programming on the main to change the CV19 value when you make or break a consist) and allows you to alias the consist to the lead engine number. 

Which brings me back to my point - it IS possible to "have it all," I think, with updated command station interfaces and "smarter" throttles.  Until then, to each his own . 

John C. 

PS - I still want Alexa.  "Alexa, make a consist of engine 498 as the lead engine, engine 522 as the middle engine, and engine 426 as the rear engine.  Apply my usual template for how consisted engines should respond to function commands."  Wait 5 seconds.  "Consist created, John."  "Thank you, Alexa" (I don't know why I always feel the need to tell Alexa "thank you.").

[peteski]

PS - I still want Alexa.  "Alexa, make a consist of engine 498 as the lead engine, engine 522 as the middle engine, and engine 426 as the rear engine.  Apply my usual template for how consisted engines should respond to function commands."  Wait 5 seconds.  "Consist created, John."  "Thank you, Alexa" (I don't know why I always feel the need to tell Alexa "thank you.").

You won't find Alexa (or any of those listening smart phones, smart TVs, or similar computer gadgets) anywhere in my home.   But I know that sooner or later I'll have no choice and be assimilated. 

Have you ever actually tried to say "Alexa, thank you"?   

[jdcolombo]

Have you ever actually tried to say "Alexa, thank you"?   

Yep.  Do it all the time.  Mostly, I use Alexa for shopping lists.  It's really easy to say "Alexa, add eggs to the shopping list" while you're there at the refrigerator and realize there's only three eggs left in the carton.  And then she says "I have added eggs to your shopping list."  At which point I almost invariably say "Thank you."  She never says "You're welcome," back though.  Sigh . . .

John C.

[peteski]

No, you need to "wake" it up again by saying Alexa, then say thank you. 

[Greg Elmassian]

If I need to reverse the direction of an advanced consist, I hit the direction button, done! 

No new programming, no selecting a different loco, no toggling headlights on and off... it just works. Also automatically the new lead loco now is the only loco with a bell and horn...

Much easier and straightforward. My layout is such that I always am running consists, in fact distributed power is common.

I can use either mode just as easily with the NCE, but the advanced consisting works better.

Greg

[robert3985]

You won't find Alexa (or any of those listening smart phones, smart TVs, or similar computer gadgets) anywhere in my home.   But I know that sooner or later I'll have no choice and be assimilated. 

Resistance is futile....

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[robert3985]

John, Thanks a million for your clear explanation as to why advanced consisting may do things that universal consisting won't.  Having never used a "full throttle" ESU decoder, the idea of notching up all of the prime movers sound on grades never occurred to me.  I will admit from your explanation that it sounds like sometime that would be very desirable on layouts that have grades, which mine does....my whole layout is a grade, the Wasatch/Echo Grade from Ogden to Wahsatch...60 something miles of it.

Something to think about....

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[jdcolombo]

John, Thanks a million for your clear explanation as to why advanced consisting may do things that universal consisting won't.  Having never used a "full throttle" ESU decoder, the idea of notching up all of the prime movers sound on grades never occurred to me.  I will admit from your explanation that it sounds like sometime that would be very desirable on layouts that have grades, which mine does....my whole layout is a grade, the Wasatch/Echo Grade from Ogden to Wahsatch...60 something miles of it.

Something to think about....

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

Bob, your layout is exactly the situation Full Throttle was designed for (well, that, and moving a heavy train out of a yard).  Here's how you'd use FT to move a heavy train out of the yard.  First, you'd program in a LOT of momentum - I mean something like "it takes a full minute for the train to reach throttle speed" momentum.  OK, now you have three units hooked to a really heavy train - all loads; or maybe it's a 150-unit coal train.   With the engines at stop, you set Drive Hold, which holds the engines at zero throttle, and use the throttle knob to throttle up the engines, maybe all the way up to notch 5 or 6.  Now you release Drive Hold, and the engines VERY SLOWLY (because of all the momentum) move out of the yard until they reach the Run 5 (or 6) throttle speed or whatever speed you think is appropriate.  When they have reached the run speed you want, engage Drive Hold again and use the throttle knob to get to Run 8.  Drive Hold holds the train speed constant while you notch up to Run8.  The engines are screaming in Run8, but it's a REALLY heavy train, so they are only going 40mph, even on a flat rr like mine.  As the train gets away from the yard, you disengage Drive Hold, and now you are in control of the train speed and associated speed-related notching in the normal way.

It's really a pretty ingenious system, once you get used to using Drive Hold to regulate train speed while playing with the notching using the throttle knob.  But there are two practical problems:  First, to do this, ALL of your engines in the consist have to have a LokSound in them and all of them must have FT-enabled sound files (fortunately, almost all of ESU's sound files have been converted to FT).  No other decoder recognizes the Drive Hold command (although ESU is working on new software for the LokPilot v4 that will allow it to recognize Drive Hold as well).  Second, all the engines in the consist must respond to F9 together - otherwise, you've got one engine running at a different speed than the others.  The only way to make this happen with current technology is to use Advanced Consisting, and set CV's 20-21 so that all the engines respond to F9 together.  But of course to use Advanced Consisting on a Digitrax system, you have to manually set CV19 with a consist address, and then remember that address and select it on the throttle to run your consist.  You can set CV19 using ops mode programming (on the main), so it isn't THAT hard to do even with Digitrax, but it's not nearly as end-user-friendly as NCE makes it.  Greg likes advanced consisting; I'd like it, too, if I had an NCE system, but I don't, and using it on a Digitrax system is a moderate PITA.

John C.