Post by harborbelt70 on Jul 22, 2024 15:00:48 GMT
Somebody else here will almost certainly be more familiar with this than I am so I am putting this on the Forum in the hope of getting confirmation of what I have found.
I’ve never investigated the Legacy Bluetooth/LionChief App option in detail before because I’ve had no need with a couple of functioning CAB2s and nothing other than TMCC/Legacy engines – I have none of the varieties of LC engines or a universal remote. However, I decided to try the new CAB3 App Bluetooth option mainly because I have control issues with another set (not the one I tested this on) and wondered whether Bluetooth’s one-to-one connection would be a workaround rather than replacing a board or two in the other set because of radio signal issues.
The CAB3 App screen looks a lot like the LionChief App and supposedly has some additional functionality aside from controlling the Base3 (which I don’t have). Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like linked to the engine I have tried using it with:
At bottom right on the Bluetooth control page, which is the default setting, is what looks like a STOP or HALT button. This doesn’t work, or maybe not yet. In fact, on reading some independent online comments it appears that LC and CAB3 Bluetooth control provides NO engine startup or shutdown options. Neither the App manual nor Dave O’s CAB3 App “Demo” webcast tell you this.
The online manual does say that you should power up the track before connecting to an engine via the CAB3 App. Somewhere else I read that you should do this without a CAB2 or TMCC base connected because they might “grab” the engine before Bluetooth connects. On the other hand, the manual for these particular E8/9 engines says quite the opposite i.e. they can be controlled by Bluetooth when there’s a TMCC signal to the track.
On my first test of this I disconnected my CAB2 base, the engine started up straightaway on powering the track and after a while I was able to bring it up in the CAB3 App. I was also able to adjust speed, direction, sound and smoke. But there was no means of shutting down the engine other than by turning off the transformer.
I then tried it with a Legacy base connected and after searching for the engine and linking it startup followed immediately. But there’s still no functioning Bluetooth shutdown option, and very oddly the FWD/REV button would not respond.
While I can see that this App might come into its own with a Base3, I don’t see the point of the limited Legacy Bluetooth functionality if you can’t use it for something as basic as startup and shutdown. I was only thinking about this App as a last resort but I’m not impressed.
One thing I knew before is that Legacy Bluetooth doesn’t/can’t support lash-ups and in an A-A diesel set like mine it only connects to the lead engine and somehow the trailing unit responds to that engine’s controls. I’m no technician but this all seems pretty odd and unsatisfactory to me.
I’ve never investigated the Legacy Bluetooth/LionChief App option in detail before because I’ve had no need with a couple of functioning CAB2s and nothing other than TMCC/Legacy engines – I have none of the varieties of LC engines or a universal remote. However, I decided to try the new CAB3 App Bluetooth option mainly because I have control issues with another set (not the one I tested this on) and wondered whether Bluetooth’s one-to-one connection would be a workaround rather than replacing a board or two in the other set because of radio signal issues.
The CAB3 App screen looks a lot like the LionChief App and supposedly has some additional functionality aside from controlling the Base3 (which I don’t have). Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like linked to the engine I have tried using it with:
At bottom right on the Bluetooth control page, which is the default setting, is what looks like a STOP or HALT button. This doesn’t work, or maybe not yet. In fact, on reading some independent online comments it appears that LC and CAB3 Bluetooth control provides NO engine startup or shutdown options. Neither the App manual nor Dave O’s CAB3 App “Demo” webcast tell you this.
The online manual does say that you should power up the track before connecting to an engine via the CAB3 App. Somewhere else I read that you should do this without a CAB2 or TMCC base connected because they might “grab” the engine before Bluetooth connects. On the other hand, the manual for these particular E8/9 engines says quite the opposite i.e. they can be controlled by Bluetooth when there’s a TMCC signal to the track.
On my first test of this I disconnected my CAB2 base, the engine started up straightaway on powering the track and after a while I was able to bring it up in the CAB3 App. I was also able to adjust speed, direction, sound and smoke. But there was no means of shutting down the engine other than by turning off the transformer.
I then tried it with a Legacy base connected and after searching for the engine and linking it startup followed immediately. But there’s still no functioning Bluetooth shutdown option, and very oddly the FWD/REV button would not respond.
While I can see that this App might come into its own with a Base3, I don’t see the point of the limited Legacy Bluetooth functionality if you can’t use it for something as basic as startup and shutdown. I was only thinking about this App as a last resort but I’m not impressed.
One thing I knew before is that Legacy Bluetooth doesn’t/can’t support lash-ups and in an A-A diesel set like mine it only connects to the lead engine and somehow the trailing unit responds to that engine’s controls. I’m no technician but this all seems pretty odd and unsatisfactory to me.