Introduction

Connect the rail via voltage reduction network to a COM-port and collect the datastream in a file. Each packet is timestamped with a relative time in milliseconds. Use the trace formatter utility DIGITRC to display the packets in hecadecimal notation (Froitzheim notation) and interpreted in terms of equivalent Interface commands.

Both the old and new Märklin Motorola protocols are supported. For a detailed description of these see the manuals of Konrad Froitzheim and Andrea Scorzoni.

Since version 2.2 the supported loc address range is 1..255 according to the Uhlenbrock Intellibox encoding scheme.

System Requirements

MKLSniffer is a 32-bits program for OS/2 Warp only, and consequently needs a system on which OS/2 Warp is running. A 386/25 is sufficient.
The COM-port needs to be 'advanced', which means it should have at least an UART of type 16550AF(N) with FIFO hardware buffer.
Depending on the trace time you need considerable amount of free disk space (about 4 KB per second with a not-idle Control Unit).

Installation

Make a physical connection as in the schematic picture below:

                       4.7 K
          red wire   +------+                  receive
          -----------|      |----+------------------
                     +------+    |
                               +---+
 from RAIL                     |   |         to MKLSniffer computer
                               |   | 4.7 K
                               |   |
                               +---+
          brown wire             |             ground
          -----------------------+------------------

Use

Command syntax:

        MKLSNIFF  [port]

                   port  -  number of the comport (1=COM1, 2=COM2, etc)

It is recommended to start MKLSniffer before starting the datastream. MKLSniffer has only limited functionality to determine the start of a packet, especially with the new Märklin/Motorola protocol. If you start MKLSniffer while the datastream is active, the data collection may start in the middle of a packet and the results may not be useful.

MKLSniffer will store the 'raw' datastream in the file MKLSNIFF.TRC, which can be formatted with the DigiTrace Formatting Utility by same author.