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FREMO Contents | FREMODCC | Loconet-DIY | FRED |
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What
is a FRED?
How
can I request and acquire a locomotive ?
What
to do when everything seems to fail to work?
For many years the FREMO-community has been using a simple
hand-held throttle with just a rotary knob for Speed Control and a
Direction Switch. This throttle has proved very successful and user friendly
in analog DC-operations
The FRED is an operationally and form-factor look-alike of that throttle
for use with Loconet® of Digitrax.
The FRED-throttle was developed by Stefan Bormann and Martin Pischky to be used at FREMO club meets with DCC-operation. The idea was that, by limiting the functions of the throttle to the essential ones, inexperienced users would also be able to operate a loco with this throttle, without having to learn the intricacities of a DT100.
So the FRED is in fact a SimpleLocoNetTHRottle. As SLNTHR would not be easy to pronounce, Bart Bakker coined FRED as short for Fremo’s Einfacher Drehregler (rotary-throttle), or in english: Fremo’s Easy Digital throttle. (With his apologies for possible confusion with a flashing rear end device ;-)
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| LED-color | Function |
| after plugging in: a loco has been allocated to this FRED | |
| green | loco allocated, reconnect protocol succesful |
| “turn to zero, dummy!!” | |
| red | no loco assigned to this FRED, can be done by a DT100 |
If the LED does not light up, the FRED is not yet connected to the LocoNet.
Even if the RJ12 seems to be plugged in, it may be badly connected: so
just plug it out and in again.
Quite a lot and also quite little ;-)
One can drive a locomotive, but one cannot select it with the FRED.
This function has deliberately not been built in, to prevent that an inexperienced
user would accidentally ‘steal’ someone elses loco.
You have to acquire a loco by having it selected and dispatched
through a throttle that has more rights, like a DT100.
With the FRED you can operate one (your) loco and are not able to change any parameters of the loco’s decoder. But you can control direction, speed, lights other functions (F0, F1 and F2).
Via another throttle that is capable to select a loco, like a Digitrax DT100 or a Uhlenbrock / Modeltreno Intellibox. Needless to say that you also need a Fred and a loco that will be assigned to your FRED.
First you select the loco with the DT100 as usual. It is a good idea
to confirm this selection with a short test-run on the track.
To make this loco available for the LocoNet, push first [SEL/SET] on the
DT100 and then [MODE/DISP].
Please note. The Chief can only dispatch ONE loco at a time for selection.
Therefore it is wise to inform all other DT100 users that you are going
to dispatch a loco.
Then push EMERGENCY STOP (6) on the FRED and hold it, followed
by one of the Function Buttons (1,2,3).
If the loco is properly acquired the LED changes from red to green.
Plug the RJ12 plug (8) in a LocoNet-box. Ortherwise nothing will happen…
Then check whether that loco has been acquired. The color
of the LEDcolor of the LED (4) will tell if this is the case. If no
loco has been assigned to this FRED, is should be done now (see
above...).
Now the loco can be controlled in the same fashion as with the familiar
analog Fremo-throttle.
The Speed Control knob (5) is a old-fashioned potmeter: if turned in the
zero-position (maximum to the left) the loco stands still, if turned to
the right speed increases until 100% speed is reached when the knob notches
to the right. The Direction Control switch (7) controls forward/backward.
Please note: if the direction is reversed when
the Speed Control (5) is not at the zero-position, an Emergency STOP is
invoked for this loco, which is indicated by a green flashing of the LED.
When the Speed Control (5) is turned to the zero
position the Emergency STOP is released.
Because you can walk around with the FRED, it may happen that the Direction Control switch (7) points to the right, while the train moves to the left. This is quite normal for DCC-operation, because ‘forward’ is defined as a characteristic of the loco: boiler end for steam engines, ‘F’-marked end for diesels.
The FRED has some extra buttons, which do not appear on the standard
analog FREMO-throttle.
The STOP Button (6), to the left of the Speed Control Button (5), invokes
an Emergency STOP when pushed. Only for this loco, not global for
the whole section. Turn the the Speed Control (5) to the zero position
to release the Emergency STOP.
The three buttons at the top operate Functions F0, F1 and F2 of the decoder in an on/off mode.
Exactly in the same way as you acquired the loco.
First push STOP (6) and hold it. Then push one on the Function Buttons
(1,2,3).
The LED changes to red.
What
to do when everything seems to fail to work?
Don’t rush to call the dispatcher to halt the fast clock, but verify everything is set up right:
If those things are all right and nothing happens, it might help to unplug the FRED and plug it in again after about 5 seconds.
LocoNet(R) is a Trademark of DIGITRAX Inc., Norcross GA 30071, USA
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FREMO Contents | FREMODCC | Loconet-DIY | FRED |
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Translation: Bart Bakker. Author of this page: Armin Mühl. Back to Armin Mühls DCC-Übersicht |
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