Consisting with locos reversed using Massoth navigator.

beavercreek

beavercreek

Travel, Art, Theatre, Music, Photography, Trains
Country flag
I just found, by accident a thread on the Massoth forum from Jan 2010, in which our illustrious 'Muns' had also posted saying that there would be a firmware upgrade to enable the Navigator to be able to 'consist' multiple locos allowing them to be pointing any way like with MTS ( and as used prototypically in US lash-ups).
That was 3 years ago...has there been a firmware upgrade to do this very thing?

This can of course be done with changing CV29 but that is not really convenient and the CV has to be changed back when a loco is taken off the consist.
I probably have missed the firmware upgrade but I am on 1.89b at the moment.........
 
Not yet ... hopefully in the 1.9 version when that is released (hopefully soon).
 
Cheers Mark
I wait with bated breath!
 
don't we all :)
 
This might sound very stupid, but could you achieve the required effect with a DPDT switch on the decoder output to the motors.
Or even on the power supply to the decoder, then the lights should change direction too.
Or am I being too simplistic?
 
A good idea Alec
If a firmware upgrade can do it all without wiring adjustments and making holes in the locos for switches then I'm for that!!
But if there is no firmware update coming in the near future then your solution would be a logical move...
 
Switching the motor feeds over with a DPDT would indeed reverse direction of travel, but switching over the power to the decoder would have no effect as DCC is an alternating supply and it's the commands sent to the decoder which control direction, not polarity of the power.
 
switching over the power to the decoder would have no effect as DCC is an alternating supply and it's the commands sent to the decoder which control direction said:
Stupid boy. Of course its AC. Alec's mind in neutral time!
Click to expand...
 
Has the firmware been released to include 'flexible' consisting yet?
 
beavercreek said:
Has the firmware been released to include 'flexible' consisting yet?
Click to expand...

Not yet Mike
 
Hi all, just wondering if there has been any more movement on Massoth doing another firmware update to allow consisting with 'any which way' orientation of locos.
have they 'swept' this under the carpet or might it be impossible with the firmware?
This will be costing them a fair bit of sales in USA I wouldn't wonder....
 
Nothing as yet Mike, I'm waiting for exactly the same. We don't really use it much on our line thankfully, but it is annoying when we do!

On other DCC systems consisting seems to be far more advanced, but it seems to have been sadly overlooked by the guys at Massoth.

The thing that really bugs me is say you have 2 or 3 units lashed up together, then on the real thing only the the front unit would show a lit headlight (and possibly the last if they were running light), and would sound the horn/bell etc. The Massoth consisting is so crude that you cannot control any of this, and if you sound the bell and horn then you have it sounding in all the units at the same time, but of course they are all fractionally out of sync so the effect is just terrible! I know you can program each unit individually or disable various things but then you must do this for every different consisting situation. It is a very frustrating problem with the Massoth system, which apart from that is one of the best DCC systems for large scale!

If you do hear of anything Mike then please do let me know
 
Gav, totally with you on that.
Massoth must have lost quite a few sales in USA because of the terrible consisting functionality. A lot of G scalers over there will be using lash-ups and as other systems have consisting nailed I expect that they opt to purchase those instead.
It is strange though, as an update was promised way back and that MTS had this before Dimax came into existence......
 
Yes, I would say the majority of diesel operations in US history are not compatible with this system. the US is a BIG market and if you sat some developer down for a few days he would probably have this licked! My experience with releases of software is it is more often there isn't a will than there isn't a way to deliver a bit of functionality.
 
It is a real shame as I am sure you are right about the lack of will! It seems to be just a novelty add on feature which for most of us, myself included, just isn't really used and thus doesn't warrant any real work to make it useable.

To put the firmware in place cannot be hard for such a competent and well thought out system as Dimax. It's just a real shame that they can't sit down and get it right, once and for all, then it is finished and only needs to be updated every once in a while.

Here was a recent example. We have a good friend up here Tim Bowis, a very competent and talented modeller who is also an SP nut! He brought over a large string of new AML hopper cars and asked if he could run a unit train. We hooked up my SP GP9s and the train ran fine, but visually and orally it was so poor due to Massoth's consisting ability. Now for visiting operators we like to standardise all the loco sound and light functions, so every loco will have all the same function numbers. Thus when blow the horn on the consist they are all horribly out of sync, the gyra lights flash on all units, the headlights are on full on all units. It was such a shame as it would really have been nice to set it up properly and get it looking right.

Finger out Massoth!
 
Ignorance showing here..
If you select a loco, and turn its' lights off, then make it part of a consist, do the light settings 'reset' to on?
I know it would be nice to do it all in one, but how wold the system know which was the lead loco (unless you have to add them to the consist in order)?

I must presume in other systems, you add each loco in turn, and can specify whether it is running backwards.. Suppose there could be some clever software to decide that if it is not the lead loco, then us the individual address and commands to turn off the lights?
 
Phil,

It's not ignorance at all and a good suggestion!

Other DCC systems have a feature called Advanced Consisting, and in this you can control all of these things, i.e.: which locos in the consist will respond to what, etc. The locos have a setting for when they are in a particular lash-up, and setting for when they are just running alone. It doesn't really matter to a DCC system which loco is where in the consist, so long as it knows that only one loco is receiving light and sound function commands for example. Even the Revoultion from Aristo has better consisting features and can specify loco direction at least!

It is obviously an issue of demand as these systems are not surprisingly from US manufacturers where these features are a real priority. I only meant that if other systems have these features as standard, then it isn't exactly like Massoth need to re-invent the wheel!
 
So...
A work-around is to turn off the lights and sound 'per loco' before you make the consist up??
A b*ll-ache to set the direction bit, if you want to run one loco in reverse as well!!

Then,
What happens if you then run the consist (under Massoth) and hit the 'horn' button?? Does only the one loco you left the sound 'on' sound, or does it do a 'magical' consist 'sound the horn, which fires the lot??
*Thinking about it* I suppose you want 'engine' noises, but not effects from the others really, so it would be a 'fudge' to say the least..

I do not have enough stock for it to be a problem for me! ;)
Not sure if that is a curse, or a blessing?? But does mean I should be able to find something to spend money on later. - Once I have paid for the car repairs!! ??? ;) :D :D
 
It is annoying to say the least!

The Phoenix sound boards we use have a slave mode in DCC where the bell ad horn sounds can be disabled in a particular unit, so this does go some way to help the problem, but its not perfect and it still doesn't sort out the direction or lighting issues.

Hopefully they will come out with something eventually as it would make a really good system even better :)
 
I know that I have asked them (Massoth) about this before but obviously they think it is a low priority. I would suggest that everyone who wants some form of advanced consisting email them and make their wishes known - hotline@massoth.de
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom