[Doug]

A couple of the posts above say for turnouts you need one address per turnout.

You actually need one address per turnout decoder. Most decoders handle 4 turnouts, some handle 6. If you can put enough amps through the decoder, you can power two turnouts per outlet as long as the points are paired as in the case of a mainline crossover.

 

[Doug]

Yep, you musn't mix up functions with addresses.

Don't also get fixated over addresses. It's not that complicated. You're not going to run out... If you do, you have too many locos and should be able to afford a better system.

 

[Doug]

I've just been doing some experimenting to confirm what is being said and to perhaps clear up some confusion.

Remember Short addressing uses CV1 as the loco address. This is basic addressing and should really be dependant on the decoder. Lenz Gold can have a range of 1 to 127.

Long addressing uses CV17 and CV18 to determine the high and low bits of the long address. The range of CV17 is 192 to 231 and the range of CV18 is 0 to 255. CV29 has to have a value of 32 added to it to turn on long addressing. This is all done and calculated automatically when using a system capable of handling long addressing such as the Lenz system 100 with the LH100 hand controller/programmer.

When using the Hornby Brit, I've programmed the long address to '7003'. The CV1 remains at the factory default of '3'.

Above, the loco can be controlled by the Lenz LH100, but not from the Arnold 86210 controller.

Here, I've set the CV1 of the loco to a value, then specifically back to '3'. Setting the CV1 seems to turn off long addressing with the Lenz system. Now the loco is controlled at address '3' by both the Lenz LH100 and the Arnold 86210 controller.

So it seems that in this case, you can't keep the long addressing on a layout that uses short addressing too. I thought that perhaps the short address controller could use the CV1 setting and the long address controller could use the long address of CV17 and CV18, but alas, that is not the case.

I wonder how the Hornby Select and Elite are going to function together. If they both use a shared database for long alpha-numeric names then that's great, but that won't be compatible with other Xpressnet controllers.

 

[Doug]

QUOTE (dwb @ 20 Oct 2006, 19:55) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>...One question: Did CV17 / CV18 retain the 7003 address?...

Yes, CV17 & CV18 did retain the 7003 address, but CV29 was reset when CV1 was set. The CV29 reset is documented in the Lenz decoder manual. CV29 contains a bit which acts as a switch for long addressing.

 

[Doug]

I don't care much for customer service of any kind. Call me cynical, but most times I call any customer service I end up worse off that before I started.

I've used Hornby customer service twice and probably won't be calling them again - Just my point of view...

Bachmann customer service accused me of not reading instructions when I reported a broken part to them. I did get a replacement - even though it wasn't the right replacement...

Back to DCC - I had an issue with my Lenz system recently. Lenz guys couldn't help by email, but they did communicate well. I eventually tracked down the problem myself and they were interested in the findings. Something for a future FAQ perhaps.