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Hello Everyone,

I recently acquired the last locomotive in an legacy ABBA set.  These are equipped with bluetooth, and when running only three of them I am able to use the lionchief app to control the locos.  However, when I add the 4th locomotive, the lionchief app will only connect with three of them.  I have powered on/off and reset the connection many, many times, and the app will never connect with more than 3 locomotives  (the lead unit and two other units at random).

Is anyone here using the lionchief app/bluetooth to run an ABBA setup? I am suspecting that the app might be limited here.  I might have to find someone local just to test out the setup in legacy (I dont have the equipment).

Thank you greatly for any time/insight

-Roger

Last edited by Roger OverNOut
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#1 yes, the app is limited to 1 engine at a time.

#2 in factory as sold ABA sets, the lead engine shows up in the app and can be connected to- the other 2 locos are passive mode- meaning receive only. They listen for the lead engine to be connected and then follow those commands as they receive them from the app, but again, they do not "connect".

Thank you for the response. 

w.r.t. #2 above, this is most certainly the case when running with legacy, as the lead loco is the only addressable until.  However, while there is still only a single addressable locomotive in bluetooth/app mode, I'm not sure communication works the same way. 

As we know, each individual locomotive has a bluetooth switch.  When that switch is off, a subordinate locomotive cannot be controlled via the app, even if the lead locomotive is still being controlled.  Hence, each locomotive is communicating via bluetooth.  Thus the subordinate locomotives are communicating via bluetooth with the app, or the they are communicating via bluetooth with the lead locomotive.

The reason I think that each locomotive is communicating with the app is that when I leave power on and only reset the connection with the app, the locomotives connected with the app change randomly.  That is, it appears that there is not a continuous connection between the lead locomotive ande subordinates that is then accessed via the app.  The app seems to randomly selects two of the other units to operate and leave one unconnected even when all 3 subordinate locomotives have bluetooth on.

Needless to say, I'll be calling Lionel tomorrow to hopefully get some clarification.  Just checking to see if someone else is using the app to run an ABBA setup.

Thanks!

Hello All,

I called Lionel Tech Support and they confirmed this limitation with engineering. That is, you cannot use the Lionchief app to run the Alco FA2,FB2 units as an ABBA.  When using bluetooth you are limited to ABA or ABB (only two subordinated locomotives can be connected to the app).  The ABBA setup should work fine with Legacy.

This should be expressed somewhere so I guess this is the place :-)

-Roger

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