Revolution Radio Control

Under construction/modification by Eric Timberlake (talk)

Precision RC, aka Crest 'Revolution'

Formed as an offshoot of Aristocraft as they created their own RC control solution.

Train Engineer

Precision RC 
16 Chestnut St. Ste 201E
Emerson, NJ 07630 USA

what is it?

Revolution is based on a 2.4GHz "Zigbee Network" to create a network infrastructure similar to WiFi with the throttle at one end and various decoders at the other end. This allows the formation of a zigbee mesh network and the support of consists with multiple locomotives, for instance.

Revolution sells a DCC Command booster, but it's not clear to me if one could assume that the throttle is then DCC compliant? I have not read the DCC product manuals as yet, but this COULD be the equivalent of an Airwire C60x command booster and a T6000 throttle?

Tools

Deep withing the bowels of the Revoelectronics Website you can download sound files, throttle firmware and the Windows program(s) to move these files around using the correct USB adapter..

Goals

There is exactly ZERO documentation provided for any of these tools that I can find and many "use at your own risk" warnings. Sooo... Use at your own risk.  ;-) The goal is to figure out and document just how this all plays together..

Observations

Loading the Programmer Interface tool

Running the Windows SW is simple and so far, it works MOST OF THE TIME, with just a few caveats.

So, you insert the USB programming adapter into a USB 2.0 Type A port. Then start either the cleverly named "PC Software v1.0" or "PC Software v1.1"

The photo below shows a modern Arm architecture Mac running Windows 11 within Parallels Desktop.. There can be a little bit of tom-foolery getting the USB to passthrough, but it's quite straight forward, and can be set to be 'remembered' so successive runs "just work"..

Also visible in the photo is an off the shelf USB-C to USB-A adapter (the little red cable) readily available at Amazon and other suppliers.

Of course, this will also work with a standard x86 windows laptop, which I have tested as well, I just hate windows and didn't feel like taking time to take photos of my super cheap authentic windows laptop. The point here is that you can do this using a virtual machine on Arm hardware or a real x86 based machine without issue.

Running "PC Software v1.1"

So, now you should have Windows (real or virtual) running, the Programmer Interface inserted into a USB port.. Time to light up the programing SW interface, called "PC Software v1.1".. You can ALSO use the slightly down rev "PC Software v1.0" version if you desire..

After starting up the SW, you should see a screen SIMILAR to the photo below. Note in this photo that the USB Programmer Interface is NOT visible - I took the screen shot before actually inserting the tool. The tool can and sometimes MUST BE inserted while "PC Software v1.1" is running - more on that later!

Using the Tool

Pre-stage the file to the Programming Interface

After the tool is started, the first step is get that field under the logo to say "Programmer found". Sometimes this works right off the bat if the dongle is pre-inserted, other times it needs to be "hot plugged" while "PC Software v1.1" program is actually running. When inserted the Programming Interface will lighgt a blue LED in a steady state.

Once you get to the "Programmer found" status, the work flow runs like this:

1. Select the device you want to send a file to in the upper left dialog window.
2. Select the actual FILE you want to send to the device using the "File Open" button, which will bring up a normal file selection dialog.
3. Select the "Load/Program" button.

This will result in a file transfer status being shown - this is important, you are NOT sending the file to your device at this point, you are "pre-loading" the Programming Interface with the file for further processing after the entire file is loaded into the Programming Interface. While this pre-load is happening, a red LED will light in a steady state.

Sending the staged file from the Programming Interface to the target

Once the "Load/Program" process is completed, the dialog window will update to say, "Searching Target Device Signal". You should also note that the red LED on the Programming Interface changes from a steady state to a rapid blinking state! If you do NOT see the LED blinking, something is wrong! (See hints towards end of article..)

Starting the upload

So, NOW, move to your staged device - you should have it powered up and at a minimum the "link" button attached. In the photo further up the article you will note a speaker, a motor and the link button all attached to the decoder.

The link button has DUAL FUNCTIONALITY. A short press doesn't do anything. A medium length press puts the decoder in linking mode. A LONG PRESS (what we want to do in this case) triggers upgrade mode and will immediately link with the Programmer Interface and start transferring the staged file embedded in the Programming Interface. You should be able to see the transfer progress updating in the "PC Software v1.1" window.

When it is completed, it will note "Transfer Successfully Finished".. This is a good sign!