Startup Configuration

Sometimes, you may want to configure your EX‑CommandStation with settings which are not otherwise saved by the Command Station when restarted. For example the ACK min for the Hornby R7150 Decoder (which seemed to need its minimum ACK pulse duration limit set to 2600µS to be recognised).

To automatically run commands at start up, you can create a new file called mySetup.h to contain these commands.

How you create the file will depend on how you load the EX‑CommandStation software onto your Arduino.

By using EX‑Installer
By using the Arduino IDE

If you are using EX-Installer 

You need to create a text file in the CommandStation-EX folder below where you uncompressed the EX‑Installer files, and rename it to mySetup.h

For example, in Microsoft Windows:

Open the File Explorer app
Navigate to where you unzipped the EX‑Installer files that you downloaded from this site.
Open the CommandStation-EX sub-folder
In the ‘Home’ tab, click New Item and then Text Document
Replace the name with mySetup.h and press Enter It will warn you about chnaging the extension (the bit after the ‘.’). Click yes.
[Right click] on the new file, and select Open With ‣ Notepad
The file will open in the ‘Notepad’ app
Enter the commands you need to perform. For Example:

SETUP("<1>");  // Turn track power on at startup

Select File ‣ Exit.
It will ask you the save the file. Click Save
You now need to upload the software using the EX‑Installer just the same as you originally did ( Install the Software)

See examples and information below for adding multiple instructions to mySetup.h.

If you need to change the mySetup.h later, simply find the file you created above, then [Right click] on it, and select Open With ‣ Notepad. Then follow the remaining steps.

If you are using the Arduino IDE 

This will need to be done in the Install using the Arduino IDE, so first make sure you have followed these steps to load up the Arduino IDE.

Create a new tab 

First you will need to add a new file, just like the config.h file. Create a new tab using the following menu option.

Arduino IDE New Tab — Figure 213 Creating a new tab in the Arduino IDE

Creating the mySetup.h file 

At the bottom of the IDE window, a yellow bar will appear asking for a Name for new file, here make sure to enter mySetup.h (case sensitive, so upper case S in setup) and click OK to create the new file.

Adding in the startup commands 

Within the new file that has been created, you can add in the commands that you wish the Command Station to run at startup. For example, if you need to run the following command each time your Command Station starts up:

<D ACK MIN 2600>

Then you would need to enter into the mySetup.h file:

SETUP("<D ACK MIN 2600>");

Note the upper case word SETUP at the start.

Adding in more than one startup command 

If you need to have multiple commands run at start up, you will need to enter each additional command on a new line, so a longer mySetup.h file could look like:

SETUP("<D ACK MAX 9200>"); // Set ACK detection to allow pulses up to 9200uS
SETUP("<D ACK LIMIT 60>"); // 60mA is the default
SETUP("<0>"); // tracks off at startup
SETUP("<D CMD 0>"); // can be set to ON for testing in the serial monitor

Here you can add comments on each line, these can be added by using the double forward slash character // and then your comments. This makes it easier to remember why you added these start up commands.

SETUP("<1>");  // Turn track power on at startup