RailComPlus

[Martijn Meerts]

Lenz put up a new (German) homepage today, along with a slew of new announcements (including "silberlinge" in 0-scale, which will be interesting for me ;)) for 2011. One of the announcements is "RailComPlus" which is an extension to the current RailCom. RailComPlus will add the ability for trains to announce themselves to the command station when put on the track. Nothing new as such, several other systems can do this, but what I think is interesting with RailComPlus is that if a loco is placed on the track with an address that's already in use by another loco, RailComPlus allows the address to be changed dynamically, setting it to an address that's available in the command station. The whole thing was designed by Lenz and ESU, so I guess my ECoS will be getting a new software version soon ;)

Also, all existing 7.x version decoders (I'm guessing that means gold+ and silver+ at least) will get a free, downloadable firmware update. Will be interesting to see how it all works.

[CaptOblivious]

That's…interesting, especially seeing as the NMRA is/will be/is thinking about adopting RailCom as a standard…

[stevenh]

I really do like this idea... It'd be nice to be able to assign a loco a name as well. Otherwise your loco 3801 (based on it's road number) will be renamed without you asking and then you'll get to go searching for it in your command station... but you weren't watching the command station and now have no idea what number it got changed to :)

[KenS]

That's…interesting, especially seeing as the NMRA is/will be/is thinking about adopting RailCom as a standard…

I believe the current draft of the NMRA's Recommended Practice RP-9.3.1 & 9.3.2 is essentially Lenz's RailCom, however 9.3.2 has been in "draft" status since the current version was issued in 2005. They don't seem to be in a hurry to adopt it, and once adopted it will be an RP, not a standard.  As an RP it doesn't preclude use of other methods (like Digitrax's proprietary Transponding) as long as they don't interfere with aspects of DCC that are standardized, but it also doesn't require a manufacturer to support it.

All of which means it can still change, and there's no guarantee of interoperability in the future even if it doesn't.  Which really sucks.

That's no reason not to use RailCom (or any other 9.3.1/9.3.2 compliant decoder), but it is something to be aware of.

[Martijn Meerts]

I really do like this idea... It'd be nice to be able to assign a loco a name as well. Otherwise your loco 3801 (based on it's road number) will be renamed without you asking and then you'll get to go searching for it in your command station... but you weren't watching the command station and now have no idea what number it got changed to :)

If I understood it correctly, the idea is that if there's an address conflict, you do get asked if you want to change it manually, or have it changed for you. Not sure how that'd work on throttles with small or even no screens though.

From what I've read, is that RailComPlus is already added to Lenz decoders ordered from upcoming batches, and that it doesn't require new decoders. They also talk about downloadable firmware for existing 7.x decoders, but there's nothing about updates for the command station, and new word on the ESU forums about support in the ECoS yet either..

[Martijn Meerts]

For whoever's interested, the ECoS has a new beta firmware available, which adds RailComPlus functionality to it amongst other things. I'm not sure my latest batch of Lenz Silver+ Mini's already have RailComPlus as well though, but if they do, it means the end of figuring out which address each loco has ;)

Definitely need to check out my decoders, the booklet didn't mention any RailComPlus, or the function only mode which it's supposed to have.