How do I fix the Lantern of Switch 23?

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  • Sometimes, the automatic positioning of switch lanterns fails. Normally, you can just set the lantern side in the properties of the switch track. But sometimes, that isn't right either. On the image you see the lantern of switch 23 is pointing left to indicate a branch that is actually a branch to the right like all the other switches on the image.

    I have created a test layout in order to experiment with this problem and try to find a way to fix it, but no matter what I do, I cannot get the lantern of switch 23 correct.

    When I open the test layout, the lanterns of switch 19, 22, 23, and 25 are set (automatically) to the right of the switch, which is wrong. Furthermore, the lantern of switch 23 is indicating branch when the switch is actually set to the straight main line.

    First, I enter the Properties dialog of the switches in error and set the lantern position to left. Then, I drive a locomotive through all switches to ensure that they are set to the main line. Now, all lanterns show "main", except the lantern of switch 23 which indicates "branch" to the LEFT! Strangely, in the 2D windows, the arrow is pointing RIGHT.

    I right-click switch 23 and select "Swap main and branch" from the pop-up menu. This does not immediately affect the lantern, but I repeat the little trip with the locomotive and see, that switch 23 changes. The lantern is now showing "main".

    For a moment, everything looks alright, but when I manually change the setting of switch 23 to "branch", the lantern does indicate "branch" too, but it displays an arrow pointing left instead of right.

    In the 2D windows, the arrow is now wrong, poiting left where it should point right. Sic!

    I have tried editing the switch 23 track in the 3D view (which sometimes moves the lantern from one side to the other).

    I have also tried to delete switch 23 and recreate it by duplicating switch 22 forwards or 24 left (and then moving it), but the recreated switch 23 remains erroneous.

    I have tried all possible combinations of lantern side settings in the track properties and several "Swap main and branch" operations, without getting the correct result.

    How do I fix the Lantern of Switch 23?

    If you want a copy of my test layout, please send me a PN (with your mail address).

    Best Regards

    Vogn22

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von Vogn22 (7. Juli 2018 um 16:57)

  • Hi Vogn22,

    the picture "Switch 23 Lantern.jpg" can't be seen by other users. Maybe you deleted the uploaded picture after linking to it in your posting? That's a common mistake ...

    If so, please upload the picture again, link to it in your posting (that can be done by editing your posting) and then do not delete the upload.

    Greetings

    Gerhard

    i7-7800X (12x 4GHz), 32GB RAM | GeForce GTX 1080, 8GB RAM

    Win10Pro (v21H2):

    EEP16.4 (PI1,2,3); EEP17.1 (kein PI, nicht aktiv genutzt)

  • Hi Gerhard,

    Thanks for your advice.

    It's been quite a while since I last posted messages with pictures in this forum, and I only remembered that I had to place the picture on a foreign server such as postimage. I did, but then, I could not find out how to insert the link to the postimage picture in the message...

    I searched "Hilfe zum Forum" for an article describing what to do and found "Wie bekomme ich ein Bild in den Beitrag - Neu !!!" by Icke. To my surprise, there was no description of a foreign server (as I understood the article), so I tried to do what he wrote instead.

    Now, if the "Attachment" ("Dateianhänge") tab does not actually upload the selected file to the forum, I can easily understand, that you cannot see my picture, since my PC is not publicly accessible.

    Instead, it seems that I should have used one of the links created by postimage as attachment instead...

    But then, why the limit of file size and extensions??? Why is the tab called "Attachment" at all, if it does not attach the selected files?

    It would be nice with a crystal clear description of how to insert pictures in the messages.

    I will now edit my post and try to attach a link to the postimage picture in place of the link to my local image.

    Best Regards,

    Vogn22

  • Hi Vogn22,

    first, the picture is visible now :be_1:

    if the "Attachment" ("Dateianhänge") tab does not actually upload the selected file to the forum

    actually it does upload the "attchment" to the forum, it just doesn't show the "attachment" (in this case a picture) automatically in the posting. So we have to use a link to the attchment:

    it seems that I should have used one of the links created by postimage as attachment instead...

    that's correct, and therefore the attachment may not be deleted (removed) as the link would point to "nothing" then ...

    I'm not a specialist to the forum's software, but what I understand is, that technically speaking also other types of files (pdf, zip, etc) could be attached. It's just the decision of the admins to restrict attachments just to picture files of limited size (and therefore also of limited picture types to avoid large file sizes).

    You are not the first (and you will probably be not the last) who stumbles over this picture uploading/attachment thingy ... but on the bright side, once you stumbled, the next time you know how to do it :)

    Unfortunately I can't help directly with your switch lanterns problem. But I have an idea, just have to try it first. If you want to send me your test layout, please let me know. I'll then PM you with my email address.

    Greetings

    Gerhard

    i7-7800X (12x 4GHz), 32GB RAM | GeForce GTX 1080, 8GB RAM

    Win10Pro (v21H2):

    EEP16.4 (PI1,2,3); EEP17.1 (kein PI, nicht aktiv genutzt)

  • Hi Gerhard,

    first, the picture is visible now

    Great, now I know how to include a picture... until I forget it again... :as_1:I have reached an age where memory is not the best... :ay_1: I am NOT 22 years old, you see...

    Next: I would have attached the .anl3 file of my test layout, had it not been to the limitation of extensions.

    You are SO welcome to send me a PM (or PN :aa_1: ) if you want to study my problem.

    I have come across this problem several times. This time, I just decided to find out what to do about it. Luckily, I was able to create it in a relatively small layout.

    Best Regards,

    Vogn22

  • Hi Vogn22,

    I sent you a PM (or as they call it here, I started a "Konversation")

    Greetings

    Gerhard

    i7-7800X (12x 4GHz), 32GB RAM | GeForce GTX 1080, 8GB RAM

    Win10Pro (v21H2):

    EEP16.4 (PI1,2,3); EEP17.1 (kein PI, nicht aktiv genutzt)

  • Another example of a lantern, that troubles me. At a first glance, the lantern at this image looks fine

    I am not educated within railroads, so I may be wrong, but the whole idea of calling the options "main" and "branch" indicates to me, that...

    With a main line that is a curve and a siding that is straight, the lantern should display main for the curve and branch for the straight part.

    Well, I have not been able to set the lantern according to that.

    I have even tried to cheat EEP by creating the siding as a sharper curve and then edit the properties of the siding track to straight. After that, "Swap main and branch" has no effect!

    Any comments on the settings of lanterns (or my lack of knowledge) is welcome.

    Best Regards,

    Vogn22

  • The last example, I can work with. In the last example, you can "cheat", by placing splines by the smallest length possible, after the switch, that goes and shows the directions you want. And then continue in the direction the tracks had after these two micro-splines...

    I have no idea if your ideology behind this way of splitting tracks are correct. BUT I know for a fact that there are working loko-drivers among the Forumist's, who should be able to put that specific record straight. On that note I have another advice: Don't ask in this section and in English. Take your Q and translate it to German thru deepl.com (the best for german) and place it in a German section of the forum.

    D

    Win 10 Home 64bit - i9 10.9KCPU 10-Core 5.2GHz - 64Gb Ram - NVIDIA GeForce 1650 4Gb

    EEP 13.2 Expert (ENG Steam edition) - EEP 15.1 Expert (ENG Trend edition)

    EEP Bodentextur-Tool, EEP TSPCalc, EEP Texture Multiplier, EEP Model Multiplier,

    EEP Model Files Converter, EEP HomeNOS15, Blender v2.78b, Adobe Photoshop

  • I have not been able to set the lantern according to that.

    Hi :)

    I'm not completely sure. But I assume you problem is described in the FAQ article Building of Switches The point indicator of a switch points in the 3D view into the wrong direction.

    Any comments on the settings of lanterns (or my lack of knowledge) is welcome.

    HTH

    Regards Ingo

  • Problem described in posting #1 solved: Switch 23 is now working properly

    Vogn22 sent me his test layout and I was able to figure out what caused the problem with Switch 23 and repaired it.

    As this might be interesting also for others here comes a description of what I found.

    In this first picture you see the problem more detailed. When the lantern-symbol is pointing "left", the locomotive will go straight, when it shows "straight" the loco will turn right. In the red circle you also see, that the density of the sleepers is double to the normal situation marked with the green circle.

    I moved the two rails (main & branch) of the switch away (did not delete them) and then found this:

    There was a very short piece of rail left, only 0.3m long. Although it was (according to the Objects Property Menue) perfectly straight, the EEP-Software interpreted it as a branch to the left (I guess a floating point rounding error). This caused the irritation, that the visible main rail was a left branch for the switches core, and the visible right branch rail was the main for it.

    I now removed this short rail and moved the two rails back to their positions: first the straight (main) rail, then the curved (right branch) rail.

    Now the Switch 23 works well like expected:

    Also the loco follows the right path, indicated by the lanterns symbol.

    Greetings

    Gerhard

    i7-7800X (12x 4GHz), 32GB RAM | GeForce GTX 1080, 8GB RAM

    Win10Pro (v21H2):

    EEP16.4 (PI1,2,3); EEP17.1 (kein PI, nicht aktiv genutzt)

  • Top notch - damn good work Gerhard :)

    Win 10 Home 64bit - i9 10.9KCPU 10-Core 5.2GHz - 64Gb Ram - NVIDIA GeForce 1650 4Gb

    EEP 13.2 Expert (ENG Steam edition) - EEP 15.1 Expert (ENG Trend edition)

    EEP Bodentextur-Tool, EEP TSPCalc, EEP Texture Multiplier, EEP Model Multiplier,

    EEP Model Files Converter, EEP HomeNOS15, Blender v2.78b, Adobe Photoshop

  • Thanks Gerhard - Well done!

    And thanks to Schlingo and TransEuropa for their contributions as well.

    The idea of floating point rounding problems also occurred to me, so I created another test layout using the grid facility*). The straight part of each switch going 4 grid units west and 3 grid units north. That gives a length of exactly 5 grid units according to Pythagoras and hence no rounding problems.

    I made 85 switches like that and none of them failed.

    *) Using a grid size of 1,5 meters gave me the desired 4,5 meters distance between each siding, but the same exercise could be done with any grid size.

    Now, I will try to fix the problem in the layout that initiated my lantern discovery tour :am_1:

    Best Regards

    Vogn22

  • Now, I will try to fix the problem in the layout that initiated my lantern discovery tour

    Good luck on this tour!

    Greetings

    Gerhard

    i7-7800X (12x 4GHz), 32GB RAM | GeForce GTX 1080, 8GB RAM

    Win10Pro (v21H2):

    EEP16.4 (PI1,2,3); EEP17.1 (kein PI, nicht aktiv genutzt)

  • The mysterious small pieces of track:

    When solving my lantern problems in the layout that originally triggered me to pursuit this problem, I also realised why there are these small pieces of track, that disturb the selection of lantern side settings.

    I had laid out a long of small straight tracks and converted every second of them into a 2-way switch. I had also created the siding tracks ending in a distance from the main line that appeared to be useful. Finally, I connected the switches with the sidings using Close Gap = Ctrl+G (Gleislücke Schliessen = Strg+G) and that is where the problems began.

    When Ctrl+G cannot create a perfect curve between the two points, it creates a straight track and a curved track. And in those cases, where the siding was a little too close to the main line, the straight part came in the main line end of the gap, creating a switch with two straight tracks connected. Obviously, that can be hard for EEP to handle.

    So, the morale of this story is:
    When using Ctrl+G to connect to a switch, make sure that you do not accidentially create a small straight track at the switch, when you want the gap to be a curve.

    Best Regards,

    Vogn22

  • The curved main line and straight siding:

    I have been able to produce a switch on a curved main line, that leads into a straight siding (a tangent to the circle) in the way TransEuropa proposes. The lantern signals "main" for the main line and "branch" for the siding as desired. It is hard to work with very small pieces of track, but it is possible.

    However: I would love to see a lantern, fully controlled by Settings, in a future version of EEP.

    Best Regards,

    Vogn22

  • EEP is hereby nominated to...

    "The Workaround Game of the Century". ;)

    VG/Regs
    Denn

    Win 10 Home 64bit - i9 10.9KCPU 10-Core 5.2GHz - 64Gb Ram - NVIDIA GeForce 1650 4Gb

    EEP 13.2 Expert (ENG Steam edition) - EEP 15.1 Expert (ENG Trend edition)

    EEP Bodentextur-Tool, EEP TSPCalc, EEP Texture Multiplier, EEP Model Multiplier,

    EEP Model Files Converter, EEP HomeNOS15, Blender v2.78b, Adobe Photoshop