A Question for current ESU users

I have more or less made up my mind to move over to the ESU controller, so have been studying the operating manual. I see that a great deal of attention has been made of controlling turnouts with very detailed screen displays of their status. However, I cannot see any reference to control of signals. I know that the physical control of the signal itself would be set within the accessory decoders - as I already have experience of with my current ZTC system - but what do you see on the ECoS display?

Do you have to pretend that the signal is a turnout and therefore represent the signal with a turnout symbol?

I also read that accessories can only be controlled either by a predetermined pulse or to the time a button is held - not sure what button this is, incidentally - there does not seem to be provision on the controller to toggle an accessory output. Again, I know that I can program the decoder to toggle an output from a pulsed command, but there seems to be a discontinuity here - one that I am not used to with my current controller.

Can anyone clarify this for me please?

Neill or Iansa will be able to answer those questions i think Geoff they are both experianced users of Ecos

cheers Brian

 

It's the same process for installing a signal as a turnout.  You wire it up to the accessory decoder and give it an address.  Then you can allocate it an icon depending on whether it is a signal, turnout or light signal or whatever.  What you see is a picture of signal.  Then you can activate the accessory by using the accessory screens or the icon in the mimic panel once you have set it up.

In terms of the length of pulse you can set this.  I'm not sure what you mean by toggle an accessory output?  The icon picture shows the signal either up or down, when you press it it goes the opposite way from what it is set to.

 

Hope this helps.

cheers

Neil

 

The latest firmware update V3.0.1 allows track schematics to be created on the screen complete with appropriate point/turnout or signal icons etc.
Touch the required icon and the accessory is activated. The chosen point route/signal position is also indicated on the track plan on the screen.

 Ian

Neil and Ian, thanks for your replies and the information. None of that was clear to me in the online manual, but I will go through it again to see if I missed it.

My point (excuse the pun) about toggling the output of the accessory decoder was that with a signal light one needs the output to stay on or stay off. Whereas what I read in the manual, only talked about pulsing a solenoid from the ECos.

No matter how long a pulse time is set, if it does not just "toggle" from one state to the other, then the accessory output would go on and then back off again at the end of the pulse. Okay if pulsing a latching solenoid like on a turnout, but not okay if turning on a green or red lamp.

Still not sure about this, but given that a signal icon can be shown on the touch screen, it must be accommodated somehow. I just wanted to be sure before making the investment.

Thanks again.

Geoff, there have been a lot of developments since the publication of the original manual and there is also the issue that the original manual wasn't very comprehensive in the first place.  Most of it is very easy to figure out though and there is now an english language section to the ESU ECoS forum as well to get additional help.  Back when I got my ECoS there was very little support other than the German language forum.  You still did get help there though.  Many more peole have the ECoS now and so there are more people using it so there is more advice available.

The toggle thing you speak can be done, you will just have to make sure you have the correct type of accessory decoder.  There are a few which are compatile with ECoS which are worth looking at such as the switchpilot series, the Lenz LS150 and LDT's acessory decoders.  You can use others but these are the ones I prefer.  LDT have a whole range of light signal decoders which are suited to different lighting of different rail companies.

 

Just check the accessory decoder manuals to see how you would set this up.

Thanks, Neil. I think that I need to see one in the flesh now, before I commit myself. SWDigital are a retailer for ESU in the UK, so I will have to see if they are going to be at a local show in the near future.

[user=422]Geoff R[/user] wrote:

Thanks, Neil. I think that I need to see one in the flesh now, before I commit myself. SWDigital are a retailer for ESU in the UK, so I will have to see if they are going to be at a local show in the near future.

Always a good idea Geoff although as I bought mine when it first came out direct from Germany, I didn't do this.

It might be worth having a look at the Viessmann Commander and Maerklin CS2 while you're at it.

cheers

Neil

Thanks for the suggestions, Neil. I had seen the Marklin Cemtral Station - it is VERY similar to the ESU, but did not know about the Viessmann, which also looks very good. Trouble is that now I have dived deeply into RR&Co, I am wondering why I would want one of these powerful controllers as well.

It seems to me that there is a great deal of overlap between the functionality of these top end controllers and the software capabilities of RR&Co.

A few days ago I thought I knew what upgrade path to take, but now I have got myself confused. I had a play with my layout yesterday afternoon - after burning myself! - and thoroughly enjoyed running trains with my ZTC. Why is life always full of the need to make decisions?

Thanks again.

Evening all…. 
Funny where a Google search takes you…..Searched high and low to find out how I link an accessory to a turnout in my ECoS controller and up pops a thread from years ago.
It’s not a signal as such, but I want an led to come on and go off depending on which way one or even two turnouts In sequence are set.

I’ve been playing around in route settings for ages, but then thought in its simplest form it’s no different to a signal that goes from red to green as a turnout is changed.

How do you link the two together? The manual is very unclear on how it could be done.

Thanks for any ideas….

Edit: After another go I have found that if I give the leds the same DCC address as a turnout, the led will switch on and off as the turnout is changed. At least that is a step forward. Now the complex bit….

As some of the routes have common turnouts, is it possible to set them up in a sequence, so that the led only comes on if all the turnouts are set correctly?

I have done this in routes with limited success, but with four running lines that can all be active at one go, I found some leds stayed on when the ‘trigger turnout’ wasn’t required to change if selecting a second route. At any one time four routes could be active through the station with no points of conflict.

I use the LDT BR signal decoders with my Ecos they work very well through the Ecos and also through my Itrain software.

You can buy them in kit form or ready made up i always buy the kit form ones they are not difficult to make up if you are an average solderer


Here is a link to the LDT website but you may find a Uk dealer that has them in stock

LDT WebShop | Light signal decoder BR


Brian

Many thanks Brian, much appreciated. The ECoS is great, but the manual is a bit hit and miss and it's sometimes difficult to fully understand how various things function. I have made a note of the LDT product.
I spent a few hours this morning playing around with the various routes and eventually found a way to switch the platform led's on and off. Hopefully I can now get the control panel built and then go full circle back to building pointwork.