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Introduction

How to re-create a 'Factory' default recovery file.

Background

LCC configuration information and values are stored in the nodes themselves. This means that any changes to a Node are stored in that node and will overwrite the original contents. The correct thing to do is to make a 'Backup' of the initial data and save it as an option to undo all the changes that you have made to the node's configuration.

This note shows how to recreate that initial backup if you failed to save it initially. 

How It Works

Clone and then Edit a default file.

All default EventIDs are based on the Node ID and follow a distinct pattern that depends on the type of node. This means that the only differences between one node and another when they are new is the Node ID portion itself.

What we will do is copy a default file, then do a find and replace to change it from the default values to the Node ID of the desired restore node.

  1. Download the default file for your node type. For example:
    default.xtowerlccx.txt
    default.xsignallccx.txt
  2. Make a Copy of the file and rename the copy to be "default.02.01.57.00.00.1B.txt" where "02.01.57.00.00.1B" is the Node ID of the missing backup.
  3. Open the file "default.02.01.57.00.00.1B.txt" with a text editor such as Notepad. Do NOT use a word processing program such as Word. It will add formatting that may make the file unusable as a Restore file.
  4. Find "xtowerlccx" (or "xsignallccx") and 'Replace All' with "02.01.57.00.00.1B" (use the actual Node ID of your node) (do not include the quotation marks) This should change all EventIDs with the form 'xtowerlccx.00.00' into the form '02.01.57.00.00.1B.00.00'.  
  5. Once you have finished the find/replace process, save your new file.

Restore your Node to factory defaults or a previous version.

  1. At the bottom of the CDI window locate this row of options. Click [Restore].
  2. Locate the edited file that you just made. Highlight it and select [Open].
  3. This will load the CDI with the contents of the new restore file.
  4. To load the new default contents of the CDI into the Node itself Select [Save changed].

Modifications

Clone an already configured Node to another similar node to pre-configure signal logic or other repeated common configurations.

  1. After copying and renaming one node's backup file to the other, simply do a Find and Replace to change one Node ID into the other.
  2. Remember that the Node ID is just the first 6 bytes. The last two bytes are the specific EventIDs for each function. You will only be changing the first 6 bytes of every EventID to match the new Node.
  3. Once you have Restored and Saved Changes to the new node, then you will still need to open its CDI and change any track speed pointers and user names to match the new Node's location.

Warning!

Be sure that the node's firmware is at the current version before doing this.

  1. Node restore relies on the names of each entry in the CDI. Some items in older versions had different names than the same items in newer version. These items will not be restored to their original values because of name mismatch.
  2. Newer versions of the CDI may include new EventIDs that didn't even exist in older versions.