Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago!
Started by krswen8 posts5 min read
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RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago, bnsf1959, Dec-24-02, 01:49 PM, (1) RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago, dchagar, Dec-24-02, 01:57 PM, (2) RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago, rgarber, Dec-24-02, 02:30 PM, (3) RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago, dchagar, Dec-24-02, 03:33 PM, (4) RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago, GMOF3A, Dec-24-02, 03:52 PM, (6) RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago, cn_bayview, Dec-24-02, 03:44 PM, (5) RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago, krswen, Dec-24-02, 03:59 PM, (7)
RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago
LAST EDITED ON Dec-24-02 AT 01:51 PM (EST)
Yeah, my came an half hour ago. I used the regular delivery, too. I'm thrilled! I have to clean off my desk a little bit to make room. BTW, I ordered it yesterday and it's here today. WOW!Ken "United We Stand." "Love America or Get Out!"
RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago
Santa dressed in a UPS suit dropped mine off this AM. The only thing I've found wrong so far, is that the "up" view (four-way rocker switch up) doesn't work, and the "Zoom/Rocker" button doesn't do anything.
RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago
On the unit I got the rocker switch is the same as cab view (look forward/look back). Only on units that support this view will they work. Now if you are in an external view, it zooms and unzooms. The 4 way rocker will rotate your view. Hope this helps!Rich Garber
RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago
Rich, The four-way rocker switch rotates the view fine, and the down button lowers the view, but pressing the upper portion of it does not raise it. I also downloaded the latest software from their site, but still doesn't work. The two-way rocker doesn't seem to do anything in any view.
RE: Woohoo! RailDriver just came about ten minutes ago
OK .... first impressions:The packaging was very well done ... no damage or loose parts. However, the long strip labels for the key legends were just floating in the box and I almost threw them out thinking they were stray cutoffs from the manual or something.You have to apply the labels yourself. And, the little pockets they go into are only just the right size! These old eyes aren't what they used to be so I used an OptiVISOR head-mounted magnifier and a pair of sharp tweezers. Even then I had to do the ALERT label twice to get it straight. I couldn't figure out how to attach the wiper and headlight labels without either slitting them or removing the switchknobs temporarily. It wasn't obvious how to remove the knobs, so I'm going to hold off on those two labels until I can get some advise from the RailDriver folks. Other than that, the labels are nicely made.The software loading (I'm running XP) went flawlessly as did the calibration (I thought).You can either start RailDriver from the desktop icon, in which case it launches MSTS, or start MSTS yourself and push the RailDriver Run/Stop button to synchronize the two.The pass-through sound works fine ... I'm sending analog output from my sound card to a stereo amplifier to drive large speakers and the signal does also vibrate the RailDriver control unit.I started my first trial with a Cahon Pass activity using a Dash 9. The reverser works fine, the brakes seem OK but the throttle for some reason is VERY non-linear and full of hysteresis. I have to pull it to what should be notch 6 to get it out of idle. Then the rest of the notches come in the little travel that's left. To come out of notch 8 I have to push it to about where N2 should be. In the other direction, the dynamic brake seems reasonably linear. I've tried recalibrating twice .... no improvement.Then I tried an SD75M, also from Cajon. About the same on the throttle, but here the auto brake is very touchy and non-linear. It's hard to get just a 6-7 pound set.The independent brake seems to work OK.So far I'm impressed with the overall quality of the RailDriver other than the throttle problems which I'm hoping is just something that can be tuned with a software patch. Frankly, the throttle response right now is so bad that I wouldn't run a route that has hills and needs a lot of careful throttle jockeying.krswen
