Do I need Railcom detectors everywhere?

[apemberton]

i am beginning to enjoy Rocrail, everyday there is something new in Rocrail on my layout that I try out and it works!

I have been installing a couple of Railcom/Loconet detectors (Digikeijs DR5088) but with the number of blocks to be wired, it will be expensive to fit Railcom detection everywhere. Thus I am wondering if I can use standard non-Railcom detectors in most locations with the Railcom detectors in use in a few common areas (e.g. the loco depot turntable or ready tracks) with non-Railcom detectors on the mainlines and staging (fiddle) loops. I assume the loco ID will pass from block to block (providing I have got the settings right), so once the ID is detected and thus the ID will be known by Rocrail in non-Railcom blocks.

Advice would be welcome.

[rjversluis]

Hi 'apemberton',

you do not need any RailCom detector wenn running trains with Rocrail.
But you can mix all kinds of detectors in Rocrail as long as they are reliable.

What do you want to achieve with RailCom?

[apemberton]

Thanks Rob, I thought that was the case. Straight Loconet sensors in future for new blocks to be electrified!

Railcom is a luxury I guess and once the mobile ID is found by Rocrail, Railcom has less value (but you knew that already! ). However, it does give the feedback factor (depending on the mobile decoder used) which can, for example, see if locos are getting overloaded on grades.

BTW, I have swapped the Rocrail RasperryPi 3 with 1 GB for a Rock64 with 4GB, a USB 3 HDD running Armbian. Still takes an age (several minutes) to load my .xml file. Htop shows 100%(+) CPU utilisation while loading (presumably interpreting the .xml) but once loaded, the performance is much better.

Thanks, Tony Pemberton

[rjversluis]

Hi Tony,

can you attach your files?
http://wiki.rocrail.net/doku.php?id=issue-en

[apemberton]

I attach two .zip files, one from my '/home/tonyp/rocrail' directory and the other from the subdirectory '/home/tonyp/rocrail/Orscha' which contains an up to date plan.

Please note that the plan and settings are far from complete with much wiring and physical work to be done before configuring my plan.

Thanks Tony Pemberton

PS. files transferred from the RR server to my network PC (which accesses your forum) internally .

[rjversluis]

Hi,

did you read this?
http://wiki.rocrail.net/doku.php?id=goldenrules-en
You should define your layout schematically, and not as a 1:1 copy of your rails...

[apemberton]

My plan has grown from basic trial and error. As such it is probably not optimal but it will do for now. yes it take a long time to load, but I can live with that for the time being.

I assume there is some info in the on how to break up a diagram into tabs. It must work seamlessly with nothing going amiss in an obscured tab as I will be the only operator and there will have to be automation of loops in due course.

[rjversluis]

The main problem in your plan is that you use tons of none functional objects.
Every visible object in Rocview is a window and needs resources.
But if you are happy with this confusing, slow, oversized diagram of your layout then all is OK for you.

orscha.png