decoder tutorials

[granddad gnome]

Morning Guys and Gals. I had a great day out yesterday at a pals open day, meet a few old friends i haven't meet for ages, it was great. Talking with one mate brought back to mind my inadequacy at understanding CV'c when programming decoders. Our conversation also cover other items of interest which we had in common and followed on this Forum. This prompted me to ask the question. Is there an Idiots guild to programming available to down load to help understand how to calculate CV's etc. Thought I was intelligent, but this gets me all stressed out, its seems like rocket science to me yet others just talk about it as if it like buttering bread.

 

[ge_rik]

Likewise! I can usually pick up techie stuff quite quickly but do find the plethora of CV settings a bit daunting. I'm sure once I've got the groundwork sort out the rest will follow, but I think it's the fear of making a hash of it (or words to that effect) which puts me off. The Ladybird Book of CV progamming is what I need.

Is it worth buying a sprog? (..... and I don't mean doing a Madonna !)

Rik

 

[steve parberry]

Re:decoder tutorials

The trouble is now that manufactures can offer endless options to allow ultimate end user flexiability we the the consumer have to to do the last bit (no pun intended) ourselfs..... it is really a case of now setting the correct value to the relavent CV to enable your chip to perform as you wish.....

Most cases it just a value to be set but made up from a sum of data...

I do all my programmimg with the LGB pc programmer but have to set all CV's one by one, as it struggles to read data on massoth chips as they are stored at different CV's than the earlier chips..

A CV, is like a sub address on the the chip to comand a function.
Bits are chunks of data sent to that address. So all you need to do is add up the bits and allocate them to the correct CV...

Again, more specific questions are much easier to answer. If you know what you want to ask

And dont forget to search from the begining of the relavent forum sections, as the search engine only looks in the last 30 days as a default.

 

[muns]

Re:decoder tutorials

I do all my programmimg with the LGB pc programmer but have to set all CV's one by one, as it struggles to read data on massoth chips as they are stored at different CV's than the earlier chips..

Steve,

Go to the Massoth Website and download the "Massoth Programming Software" - it will work with the LGB 55045 programmer.

 

[steve parberry]

Re:decoder tutorials

I do all my programmimg with the LGB pc programmer but have to set all CV's one by one, as it struggles to read data on massoth chips as they are stored at different CV's than the earlier chips..

Steve,

Go to the Massoth Website and download the "Massoth Programming Software" - it will work with the LGB 55045 programmer.

Cheers mark, but i have done so already but the PC in the garage is an old machine and runs window me so is not compatable with the massoth software....

 

[Zerogee]

Re:decoder tutorials

.....
Is it worth buying a sprog? (..... and I don't mean doing a Madonna !)

Rik

YES! It is a great investment, and much cheaper than most of the alternatives. It does almost everything in plain language, not techie-speak, you just put the values you want into the relevant boxes on the screen, you don't even have to worry about which CV is actually doing the job - for example, to adjust the lighting voltage you just go to the lights and functions screen and put in the numbers you want.

Jon.

 

[granddad gnome]

Re:decoder tutorials

What is a Sprog

 

[steve parberry]

Re:decoder tutorials

What is a Sprog

Its a peice of hardware and software to progame decoders much like the lgb 55045

i have no experiance of it though

 

[ge_rik]

Re:decoder tutorials

What is a Sprog

It's a decoder programmer for about £50. It's been recommended to me by others and seems to make the process of programming CV values a lot easier. I'm considering getting one as when I had a chance to play with one it did seem to be fairly easy to use.

http://www.sprog-dcc.co.uk/ Rik

 

[jimmielx]

Re:decoder tutorials

I'd really recommend the Sprog.
The Sprog is a piece of hardware which connects to a PC or Mac via USB and you simply connect it to a programming track. it actually acts as a low powered command station albeit with control from the computer rather than a hand held throttle. The software used to program DCC locos is JMRI DecoderPro which is open source and entirely free to download. Decoder Pro is compatible with many Command Stations and can be connected to them usually with the manufacturers USB interface, so you are certainly not limited to just using the Sprog to program chips with Decoder Pro. However what makes the Sprog particularly fantastic is that at £50 including power supply it is about half the price of most USB interfaces alone, so unless you have another reason to want to connect your command station to the computer the Sprog is probably the cheapest way of using Decoder Pro to program your locos. Its also probably the simplest to set up and once set up makes decoder programming worlds easier, really you won't have so worry too much about CVs and bits, just adjust the characteristics you'd like to change with tick boxes and number boxes where values are required. The Sprog can read as well as write CVs and DecoderPro saves all your CV settings on the computer too, so next time you come to want to make an adjustment you can see the current settings on screen. Should something bad happen to a decoder the settings are backed up on the computer too! Being Open Source, DecoderPro is also regularly updated with new decoder types as they become available.
As you can tell, Sprog / Decoder Pro, highly recommended!

Cheers

 

[ntpntpntp]

Re:decoder tutorials

If you get a SPROG you'll find there are several of us on this forum who use one regularly and can help out with questions. I've been using an older one for a few years now.

As has been stated, in combination with JMRI software the SPROG's a great tool for programming the main features of NMRA DCC compliant decoders of many different brands. It won't always be able to help with the more advanced stuff to do with certain sound decoders - such as actually loading new sounds - but that's because decoder manufacturers tend to use their own proprietary methods of doing this.

So... recommended by me too!