John, got back from vacation and finally had a chance to look over the PDF. This is a fantastic bit of work. The "programmer" in me wanted to see the tables immediately in front of me (with CV bit maps), but I understand the need to just reference the ESU manuals, and not try to recreate the world.
Should a section be added to encourage folks to at least use the LokProgrammer software, even if they don't have the hardware? Since the SW is free, this gives anyone the opportunity to map out the specific conditions desired and see the values of the appropriate CVs, even if they cannot be loaded to or read from a decoder.
Default project maps -- I would be willing to help collate a collection of the "as posted" function maps from the ESU site. Really shouldn't take too much time to create, and could be a very useful resource for a lot of folks. The hardest part would be deciding what type of format would be most useful to folks.
Hi Rick.
Thanks for taking a look. I thought about trying to paste in the tables from the ESU manual, but I didn't want to be guilty of a copyright violation, and like you said, there was also a "no need to recreate the wheel" piece, as well. (Pasting in the tables probably would be "fair use" under the copyright laws anyway, but I was a practicing lawyer in a previous life, and so I tend to be overly cautious about these things).
As for the LokProgrammer Software - again, I thought about this, but there is an excellent manual on using the LokProgrammer Software available on the Yahoo Loksound Group in the Files area. This manual (also written by an "outsider" - a member of the Yahoo group - rather than ESU) explains all the software functions superbly, although maybe a bit more explanation of the "Show Changed CV's" tool might be helpful. If I get the time, I'll try to write up a (much shorter) explanation of how to use the "show changed CV's" tool in the software to get a "programming map" for raw CV programming.
My next project is going to be a tutorial on how to use JMRI's Decoder Pro to program a LokSound Select. Unfortunately, this isn't as easy as it could be, although that is mostly a limitation of JMRI's architecture and the complexity of the LokSound programming. The upside of the LokSound is that they are nearly infinitely flexible; the downside is that . . . they are nearly infinitely flexible, meaning it would take literally thousands of lines of code in JMRI to try to provide correct default settings for each LokSound file. I think it would take an organization the size of Microsoft to do something like this, so I don't at all blame the JMRI folks. It's just not possible with a volunteer project, and might not be possible at all.
Collating the default function key assignments for each sound file would be really helpful - although what would be even more helpful is for ESU to post the full 40-row function programming table for every sound file. I applaud Intermountain for doing this for the SD40-2; I don't think Atlas did this for the S-2 - at least, I can't find such a thing anywhere on their web site. And I don't know of any way to print this out from either the LokProgrammer or JMRI. Sigh . . .
But help compiling the default function key assignments would be a big step forward . . .
John
