Has anybody here gotten Geoff Bunza's 17 Function Decoder to work?

Because I can't. I got the most recent circuit boards printed up and installed all the components for the "Alternate external power connection". I then soldered down the Pro Mini making sure the VCC, D2, and GND pins were connected to the board (even though he doesn't have the D2 pin connected in his picture of that configuration despite it being the data pin from the optoisolator). I then uploaded the AccDec_LED_1Ftn sketch. I hooked up the decoder directly to the DCC outputs on my Digitrax Zephyr, plugged it in to a 5V power supply and hooked up a LED to pin 3 (and GND). The LED lit up when I turned the decoder on, so I know the sketch works. But, when I fired up JMRI and created a light at hardware address 40, I couldn't get the light to turn on. I turned on the LocoNet monitor to try to debug it and got this message repeated a bunch of times when I try to turn a LED on.

Requesting Switch at L2T40 to Thrown (Output On).
LONG_ACK: Switch request Failed!

I tried the same thing with the Dec_LED1Ftn sketch using Address 24 (what it says in the sketch) with still no luck and the same message only with the address L2T24 printed on it.

Is there something I'm missing? How do I use this Decoder with JMRI and LocoNet?

 

Have you tried sending a message to Geoff?
He's very helpful and will respond as soon as he can. He travels and occasionally is out of touch.

I'll be interested in the outcome, I have the parts for a few of these, but haven't started to assemble them.

 

Do you have a way to get in touch with him? The blog where he posted the most current plans hasn't had a comment in a couple of years, so I figured that really wasn't an option.

 

Geoff posts regularly on MRH and can be contacted via his profile on that site.

 

I went to his blog at MRH and I can't find any contact information there, or his profile. How do I find it?

 

try this: http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/user/18869

 

Thanks, they want me to subscribe first. I guess I'll have to do that.

 

It is free and the content on the site and PDF magazine is well worth it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Done and done. I'll let everybody know how this turns out.

 

I had the same problem with dcc++ base station. The solution was in the addresses. In turnout table i added a turnout with address 40 and in "configure dcc++" a turnout 40 with address 10 and subaddress 3. may be this helps http://jmri.org/help/en/html/hardware/loconet/Addressing.shtml

The decoder can be also controlled as a mobile decoder (address 24) with a throttle, but i don't know how. Any help is welcome