Tender lamps... for a friend!

[JamesLit]

Hi guys,

Asking for a friend.

What would be the best way to approach fully working tender lamps that talk to the lamps on the front of the loco?

One would assume scripting. He's giving scripting it a go but is having some difficulties. What kind of approach should he be taking? Thanks gents.

[VictoryWorks]

Consist messages are what you need on this one.

Basically whenever a lamp change of some kind occurs on the loco then you transmit a message to the tender. When the message is received by the tender it shows/hides lamps, glows, etc. in the normal way.
The way you choose to send the information in the message is really up to you - one by one, as a string of all of them (e.g. 1100). You just need to be able to read the message when it's received - string.sub is your friend on that one.

[JamesLit]

Consist messages are what you need on this one.

Basically whenever a lamp change of some kind occurs on the loco then you transmit a message to the tender. When the message is received by the tender it shows/hides lamps, glows, etc. in the normal way.
The way you choose to send the information in the message is really up to you - one by one, as a string of all of them (e.g. 1100). You just need to be able to read the message when it's received - string.sub is your friend on that one.

I thought as much on the consist messages front!

I'll get that back to him and hopefully we can wrap this one up shortly. Many thanks, Pete.

[cjbarnes5294]

It's worth adding to Pete's excellent description just to say that you should only send a consist message when you need to, not just hammer it out every time the script updates, because it can be particularly costly on runtime performance. So for example, only send a consist message if there is a detected change in a lamp control value since the last update and when the control value is exactly equal to 1, or 0, or whatever. This helps to keep everything running efficiently.

Chris

[JamesLit]

It's worth adding to Pete's excellent description just to say that you should only send a consist message when you need to, not just hammer it out every time the script updates, because it can be particularly costly on runtime performance. So for example, only send a consist message if there is a detected change in a lamp control value since the last update and when the control value is exactly equal to 1, or 0, or whatever. This helps to keep everything running efficiently.

Chris

Thanks Chris, thankfully he's knowledgeable enough to know the right thing there - but it's an important thing for anyone else reading this thread who may not have that knowledge! Not heard whether he's had any luck yet, I shall keep pestering him....

[Carinthia]

It may be worth studying the Steam Sounds Supreme mods to the Jubilee. This achieves headlamp control on the tender as on the smokebox end but it is at the expense of the standard automatic tail lamp arrangement on the rear of the train.

John

[JamesLit]

It may be worth studying the Steam Sounds Supreme mods to the Jubilee. This achieves headlamp control on the tender as on the smokebox end but it is at the expense of the standard automatic tail lamp arrangement on the rear of the train.

John

An idea indeed but I'm pretty sure all SSS related scripts are compiled .out files.

He seems to have got it sorted now so thanks for your help, all.