Advanced Consisting with Commanders that Have Version 3.0 Software.

This procedure is intended ONLY for use with Commanders that were originally manufactured with Version 3.0 of the Commander software and have not been subsequently upgraded to Version 3.2 of the software.
Consisting, by definition, is a group of digital decoders that have been linked together; for example, several locomotives MU’d together would form a consist.

To setup a consist with the Atlas Commander, your decoders must support Direct Mode programming. Atlas’ new Dual-Mode Decoder (DMD) supports both Direct Mode and Register Mode Programming. If you have an Atlas DMD-Equipped engine to add to a consist, you may skip the first set of steps below.

To determine if your decoder supports Direct Mode Programming, follow these steps:

Place the locomotive on the programming track.
Enter into the Menu system by pressing the forward and reverse buttons (up and down arrows) simultaneously. Use the + or – buttons to scroll to “Pro,” and press Enter to enter into Programming mode. The display will show “r .1,“ which stands for Register 1.
Press Enter and the display will show “u .-“.
Press Enter again to read the current value of Register 1; the display will blink and then show your locomotive’s address (which is the value of R1).
Press Exit to return to “r .1”.
Press the + button until the display reads “r.8”. If your decoder supports Direct Mode programming, the next time you press the + button the display will read “c09”. This is Configuration Variable 9 (CV9). If it does not support Direct Mode Programming, you will see “r.1” again.

If your decoder does support Direct Mode Programming, you may continue to set up a consist. Engines in a consist will respond to the commands given to the lead locomotive (which does not need to be programmed or modified). Follow the below steps to add a locomotive to the consist. The address of the consist is ultimately the address of the lead locomotive. The steps below will basically take you through programming CV19 – the consist address variable - of engines you want to add to the consist.

Go into the Programming menu, and into the register menu as described in step 1 & 2 above.
Press the + button to scroll to “c19,” which reads the consist address of the locomotive.
Press enter. The display will read “u .-“
Use the + or – button to scroll to the select the address of the lead locomotive, and press Enter to set.
Press Exit to return to locomotive control. Controlling the lead locomotive will control the entire consist.

Repeat steps 1-4 for additional engines to be added to the consist.

Note: If you want any locomotive in the consist to run in reverse, you must add 128 to the address you enter into CV19. For example, if your lead locomotive is address 77 and you want it to run in reverse, enter 205 into CV19.

Locomotives operating as part of a consist will not respond to speed or direction changes sent to their base address. However their Functions may be controlled from their base address.

To remove a locomotive from a consist, set CV19 back to 0.