Decoder in Y1 and progress with JMRI PanelPro

So what has been happening in the couple of weeks since the last update? 

I have installed the NCE decoder in to the Sentinel Y1 steam shunter, finally!

I have been meaning to install the Digitrax decoder into the Class 08 shunter during the week, and actually came close this afternoon to achieving it, but the youngest asked to go for a bike ride to the bike track down in the park. So being the good Dad (at least for today!) I walked down to the park while he rode his bike.

The other activity I have been concentrating on while I am waiting for the hobby room to be finished getting painted has been learning about JMRI's PanelPro Layout Editor. I had drawn up Illavearf and set up the Turnout (Points) table via the NCE Simulator option in the absence of noting being connected to the layout at the time. So this afternoon I was happy enough with my effort to connect up to the layout via the NCE USB module. Nothing worked from the Layout drawing (mimic panel) but did directly via JMRI turnout control. Blast! Was it the SB3a. Swapped the Powercab in and tried running from the mimic panel, and still nothing. So not the command stations. Hmmmm. Then I had a light bulb moment. Open a new panel, setup a new turnout table and setup a DCC addressed turnout. Assign to the new turnout on the drawing. Test operation. It worked! I could be wrong, but my take is that the turnouts setup via NCE simulator are just that, a simulation. To operate on a layout, each turnout has to be 'seen' by JMRI when setup in the table. Once I had setup all the points again whilst connected to the layout, I was then able to restart JMRI, open the Illavearf mimic panel, and operate the points. Only problem is that at start up of JMRI at the moment, it doesn't know where the points are positioned as there is no sensor feedback at the moment. Possible fix could be to use a 'Start of Day' function and set the layout turnouts to where I want them to be. Have to investigate this further. Other things I was successful in was to setup a couple of 'Lights' controls, one being linked to an 'Internal Sensor' assigned to a button icon. Clicking on the icon made the Signal Box light go on and off. Wow progress. The it was onto the Signal heads. It took me awhile to work out the type of 'decoder type' JMRI was describing in the drop down box, but once done, it was easy. Now I just have to sort out the logic around the interoperability of the signals with the points. I was very happy with today's outcomes.

The other JMRI thing I did was set it up to save the User Files to a Dropbox directory. This allows syncing of device located files to a 'cloud' based location when the PC/laptop is connected to the Internet. Just a piece of mind. It will also allow the future ability of different devices to access the same set of files. Something to think about with the Pi in the future.

The Club's Buy and Sell was on today, but I didn't get to it as I didn't need to buy or sell anything at the moment.