Hello,
I'm have not spending enough time with my trains recent years, so I guess I missed something...

I've just bought a new croc, acutally my first, after 50+ years of wait... Acutally, the black (!) one. It has mfx decoder with
lots of sounds. Standard procedure for me is to set the secondary address in register 75 as primary address+1, as this is the way
the Intellibox handles function f0-f8. However, it did not work as expected; I could not access functions f5-f8.
Perhaps I've made something wrong, or is it common knowledge that Märklin nowadays don't map the secondary address any longer for Motorola use?

OK, I'll try that.

Did I understand correctly that more addresses could be set than the one in REG 75 for (which AFAIK is for f5-f8)?

Lars,

It might be time to think about an upgrade to an eCOS or CS2?

I used to have an Intellibox, but the real benefits of mFx are to be found in the more advanced control stations.

Cheers

What was the problem? I don't seem to have any problems with mfX on my eCos..

ESU shipped the L.Net adapter months ago and as far as I'm concerned it works fine.
Roco announced they would implement the full LocoNet functionality by and by (according to their FAQ they didn't get very far yet, but one year ago they claimed they were working at it at "high pressure").

It's a crippled 60942. No DCC. Use MM programming only.
The 60942 manual is the best source of information, but not all documented registers (for MM programming) may work.

Thanks for the very informative blog. I now understand the issue. I don't have this problem because I only have a few locos on the layout and when I add a new one I am happy to wait for the registration process to finish.

I know of people operate their layout like you and I can see that mFx is not a good protocol for unpowered shadow stations. However, the effort to remap the functions on the small number of locos that I have would frustrate me. The DCC option sounds more sensible, if very expensive. Of course, the other option is to keep the shadow yard powered and then there is the cost of one or two boosters and the associated increase in power bills.

It looks like mFx was a work in progress from its initial release, which may go some way to explaining why some decoders have more than one secondary address.

The only problem I have had with mFx is when the MM address was used instead of the mFx address. This meant that functions above f4 would not work. It has not happened for a long time, but I suspect that it was a WindigiPet (WDP) problem that was fixed in a later release, or an incorrect link between the eCos and WDP databases.

No problems with mfx so far.

The way I run my trains is that I swap the trains on the layout for a new set from my collection once a week or so. When I do so I delete the trains registered on my MS2 and start again, as there is no way I can store all my 100+ locos on the MS2. I place the trains one by one on the layout, and the mfx ones register in seconds. The non-mfx ones I have to either select from the database or enter as a new loco. Either way I have to put a bit of though to the process, whereas the mfx does it all for me.

I get more problems when entering my non-mfx locos, as sometimes I forget there is another loco on the layout and end up messing up the addresses. The mfx locos don't seem to care if there are other locos around.

I appreciate that you guys have a more complex way of operating, and maybe you need the more accessible adjustments available with DCC, but I think that mfx is ideal for someone like me who can't be bothered with too much adjustment when I just want to get on with it and see my trains running.

My MS2 controls all my digital locos, including those with Delta, 6080, 6090 and 6090x, without any problems, and I mix and match all these with mfx locos at the same time without any problems.

Can you explain what difficulty you get when mixing these decoders?

A user on Stummi's Forum just confirmed that he had to set CV 49 to 5 to activate the secondary address on his new BR 182 loco (Märklin #39840). Bug or feature, but it seems Märklin no longer activate the secondary address by default.