Using The JMRI Roster

In about ten years since I went to DCC, I've converted the best part of a lifetime roster of locos with decoders. I've slowly begun to see that I need to keep better records. It's important to know what type of decoder I've installed in each loco -- for instance, if one dies, it's good to have a source where you can see if it takes an 8-pin, 9-pin, 24-pin, or whatever other style of decoder to replace it.

But also, it's good to have a record of what CVs are set in a particular decoder. For instance, to use Digitrax decoders with advanced consists, you need to set CV 57 to 102. To disable the prime mover acceleration delay with ESU LokSound decoders, you need to set CV 124=16. But also, other CVs need to be set. Other starting voltage and speed curve CVs are set for individual locos.

It would be great to be able to reload these values into a new decoder from a file, or if for whatever reason you had to reset the decoder to default values.The JMRI roster lets you maintain these records for each loco and reprogram them directly from the roster record if needed.

Up to now, while I've been using the JMRI rosters in Operations under PanelPro, I hadn't been maintaining my roster much in DecoderPro. I started using DecoderPro via an NCE 2021 USB interface to my Power Cab when that was what I was using instead of an SB5 booster. That worked until my layout's current draw exceeded the PowerCab. But around the same time, my desktop died, and its replacement didn't have enough extra USB ports for the JMRI connection, while given the need to replace the Power Cab, a USB port extender wasn't an urgent need.

None of that changed until a few months ago, when I got a new desktop with an additional USB port and I reconnected JMRI to the NCE 2021 and the SB5. Up to then, I had been maintaining a manual record of locos, decoders, and CVs in Word Pad, cross-referenced to the Operations loco roster in PanelPro and to photos on my desktop. None of these was complete or accurate. I've spent the past week putting all the records in one place on DecoderPro.

The JMRI PanelPro roster includes the ability to store a photo image. This has the advantage for someone like me with a lifetime roster of being able to call up the photo from a roster entry. This makes it a lot easier to recognize just what loco i'm talking about:

This isn't possible with the Operations loco roster in PanelPro. On the other hand, you can't dispatch locos in JMRI Operations from the DecoderPro roster, so you have to maintain both rosters.

Another feature is the ability to use the DCC Throttle feature that's associated with the DeocderPro roster. In addition to maintaining records of CVs, JMRI lets you label throttle function keys. This is important, because much beyond F0 for lights, F1 for bell, and F2 for horn, there's no real standard for other light or sound features in DCC, and decoders often differ. Having these features labeled in the display for individual sound products and decoders is a real help. You can click on the image for a larger, more detailed view.

If you call up the JMRI throttle on your computer screen and the roster record has a photo, this is what you see.

There is a wide set of optioms for using the JMRI throttle on a walkaround basis with a wireless phone. I'm still working on this.