What is the best way to keep track of your Loco's/Decoders what function button dose what, and what all the CV's are set to in case you need to reset them? David
I second JMRI. You need a way to connect your programming track to your computer but after that it's easy(ish). One railroad I operate on has locomotive cards on top of the stack of car cards for each train. It lists basic decoder functions in addition to how many cars it can handle on the ruling grades east and westbound. If JMRI isn't your thing, an index card can do the same function.
JMRI Decoder Pro (one of the apps in the JMRI suite), is the best way to accomplish what you want. It maintains a database of locomotives you have programmed (or just read into DP). The decoder register screens are very user friendly, indicating names of options and their settings, not just registers addresses and binary codes. As mentioned earlier, JMRI is free software, runs under JAVA on Windows, Mac and Linux (including Raspberry Pi OS, FKA "Raspbian".) With an appropriate computer interface (usually USB based) to your DCC command station, it can program and control both locomotive and stationary (accessory) decoders. JMRI also includes the Wi Throttle server, which communicates with WiFi throttles and smartphone throttle apps to control locomotives and layout switches. And JMRI can do a lot more than that, including layout & train automation, and Virtual Sound Decoder, which produces locomotive sound outputs via your computer, in sync with DCC throttle commands.
