Answers to JMRI and NCE questions

Once again this week saw me mucking around with JMRI's Panel Pro's integration with the NCE SB3a system via the NCE USB interface. I had posted a question on the NCE-DCC Yahoo Forum and that guru of DCC, Mark Gurries, answered no less! He was convincing with his explanation as to why JMRI probably wouldn't accept NCE commands across the Cab Bus via the USB card. However to prove it to myself I set up an 'Internal Sensor' within Panel Pro and linked it to a hardware address. The test being to send a ACCY command to this address and see what happens. I associated this sensor on the Panel diagram of the layout as a sensor to indicate OFF/ON. Saturday arvo after Club I went to the shed with the laptop ready to test. Then Murphy got in the way and the laptop was getting connection problems with the USB. I had earlier set the USB jumpers to 9600 baud and the Panel Pro to 9600 as per all doco indicating this is what it is supposed to be. No idea. No joy investigating further as I had to head inside.

Sunday morning I went out again and reset the jumper to 19200 and the Panel Pro setting to 19200. Connected perfectly. WTF! Anyway now that I had it connected up I did my test and nothing happened. Oh Well, Mark G was right then. That answers that! So no more time wasting on this subject.

While I had the laptop out in the shed I thought "let's have a look at Decoder Pro". After a number of error messages I realised it was because it was connected to the SB3a. So after a small rearrangement of the connections to the piece of track that I use for 'programming' (either under programming or ops line depending on the setup requeried), I reconnected via the PowerCab setup. Still connection problems. So....I reset the jumper to 9600 and the preferences to the same, and bingo, it connected.

I have no idea why Decoder Pro connects at the documented 9600 and why Panel Pro prefers 19200. White Man's Magic! Once DecoderPro could 'see' a loco decoder I was able to upload the settings from a number of loco decoders into the program for later viewing and Roster setup.

On the subject of the Club Meeting on Saturday, we had an earlier gathering of the HO Clan to discuss a number of points holding up the construction. This was a productive meeting with all the main sticking points decided upon so the builders can continue through the week. I also picked up the first prize in the raffle - a 59 piece hobby knife set (Aldi) - when Lachlan picked out my ticket number out of the bucket. IT WASN'T RIGGED!!!

My experiment of the grass tufts from last week worked out pretty well straight from the oven tray. I just have to carefully slice them off the oven tray (might use one of the above hobby knives!) but definately better than off the Alfoil. Once off, I will glue these around the pond on Lachlan's layout to break up the edge.

Not sure what this week will bring but hopefully modelling rather than faffing around with the computer!