I am thinking of taking the plunge and getting the needed hardware for DecoderPro. I downloaded the software and it looks pretty interesting. However I would like some input from those that use it. Worth the $100.00 or so in hardware? The idea of graphically matching speed tables sounds cool but I have found that no two engines of the same make and year run the same, so having the same speed table would not really work or am I missing something. Comments appreciated. Thanks,
Chad: I've also found that no two loco's of the same make and run have the same speed table. There is always some slight variation and I still prefer to laod speed tables by hand after using Decoder Pro. It doesn't take me that long to adjust speed tables for loco's consisted together. BTW, this is just one man's opinion FWIW. Stay cool and run steam.....
I am interested in this also... I was reading the specs and don't have a serial port on my new PC, although I have everything else I would like a testimonial from a USB to serial user before I shell out for that. Harold
sitchad: One of the members at my club uses this quite, and it is an excellent piece of software. Certainly makes setting CVs and whatnot a heck of a lot easier, not to mention saving all of the settings out on the drive in case you need to revert back to "original" settings after monkeying around and breaking things. chessie: JMRI - Locobuffer w/ USB RR-CirKits You might want to check that out, You can get a locobuffer II with a usb/serial adapter. Hope this helps! I'm waiting on my tax returns to pick up the locobuffer [ March 16, 2005, 08:11 PM: Message edited by: Todd ]
Todd, Thanks for the link.... I'll have to weigh the price vs. convenience (or at least take another look around the house to see if I have anything left with a serial port ). I actually may have an old Celeron Win 98 machine in the basement that I could use. Wouldn't it be much cheaper to add a serial port card to my PC? Harold
Yeah you can probably pick up a serial card dirt cheap. PCI Serial Card I can't live without at least one serial port (was a major factor when choosing the laptop i bought) because of some of the work I do.. I understand, but at the same time don't understand, why they're slowing being phased out. Sort of an annoyance. But if you have an old celeron laying around... it probably has a serial port on it..and decoderpro doesn't require much horsepower to run.
decoderpro is the best thing going since sliced bread .. it does it all .. program locos, control the layout, and many other things... It works with most major brands of dcc .. unlike some other software, its free, and updated frequently ..
I run DecoderPro on a 300mhz laptop with 192mb Ram, a Serial Port and Win98 (not Win98SE). I use the old version of Java on that machine and everything works fine. I also have a newer laptop that doesn't have a serial port, and I got a USB to Serial adapter that works great and was pretty cheap. this would be my preference rather than adding a serial port to a machine that doesn't have one. At the club we have a 450mhz desktop machine that does have a serial port and that works great - still Win98SE. the interface we use is SPROG. Michael
they work well together, I use one on my laptop - IIRC Windows XP recongnise the USB to serial connector and setup the required interface, Decoder Pro didn't seem to care onw way or the other. Decoder Pro is an excellent tool, and I highly recommend it. The only problem I've ever had with it was on a PC that also had Oracle installed - if you don't know what that is, you don't have it If you do, then just edit your PATH - remove the Oracle Java directories - Oracle doesn't need them, and DP doesn't like them (again, if you don't know what I'm talking about, then don't worry about it at all!)
Thanks everyone for the information. I have an extra laptop, PIII 700 with 256MB. I reformatted the drive, installed XP and Java so it's a clean drive. Should run fine. Guess I'll give it a try. Be nice if I could adjust a speed curve on the main while I match engines. We'll see. Thanks again,
Back from the BOTTOM LIST.... Guys, I was looking for some infos about DecoderPro and PanelPro and found this "old" topic... So you might be able to answer me... Can Panel Pro works with XpressNet(Lenz) and LocoNet(digitrax) at the same time, using items of both brands to control siganls or switches ? How easy is it to create a control panel for a medium size layout? including switches, block detection, signaling, etc... thanks a lot guys
Seb: Contact Paul Bender about Panel Pro and Decoder Pro. He's a member of the Trainboard. He designed the Lenz part of Decoder Pro. Have fun... Stay cool and run steam.....
Yes, you can use both interfaces at once. You can actually use any of the interfaces we support at the same time. You may want to look at our panel pro website (http://www.panelpro.info) for more information on using panel pro. Also, as was suggested already, Join the users list on yahoogroups. Most of the developers frequent that list, though we try to treat it as a user helping user support forum, so we try to only step in when questions don't get a satisfactory answer. Paul
Paul, As i didn't found the answer anywhere, i'll ask you My BIG question on this topic : Imagine we have a station with 6 tracks on a double track main line... there are signals protecting the station on each track of the mainlines... If nothing is activated by the dispatcher, all trains will have to stop (red) at the "entry" signals of the station Can I programm PanelPro to activated a certain "Train way" ( turn all the switches that are on the way to a correct position) from one of my "entry" signal to for ex. the track 2, only by clicking on the signal (beginning) to the track 2 (end of "way") ??? Did you understand my question? I hope you'll be able to answer me... Thanks a lot. Seb.
Yes, but, you'll need to write a script to do this. The scripting language we support is a variant of Python. There are some example scripts that are included with the software. If you join the JMRIUsers group on Yahoo groups, someone should be able to help get you started. Paul
