Well, not fixing/rebuilding a mobile decoder. A review of the CV setting of your 'fleet'. I helped a friend set up Decoder Pro on his layout. He really got comfortable with using Decoder Pro to 'program' his engines. He has at least 200 decoder equipped engines, IIRC.
A couple of weeks ago, he was having trouble with a pair of P1K F3's that he had 'hard wired' many years ago. Both have Digitrax DH123 decoders. We set up a 'measured' mile on his layout and one decoder programmed just fine when we set up the Vstart/mid/max values(he want a max speed of about 70 scale mph, and the engine to 'start' at the first 'click' on his DT400R throttles. There was no way we could program the second decoder to get it to speed match the first one.
At first we thought that we had a bad decoder. On a 'hunch' I suggested that we do a 'reset' on both decoders and re-program them from Decoder Pro. They had been programmed with a DT100 many years ago. Guess what; we were able to 'rescue' that 'bad' decoder. We looked at several other decoders with Decoder Pro and found different values in some of the CV's on the same decoder model!
Both of us have been 'reset/re-programming' all of our engines via Decoder Pro, and verifying the settings. I think we accidentally 'flipped' some bits back in the old days when using the throttles for programming and there are now some strange CV values in the decoders. At this point I am also turning off DC enable and using the 'decoder lock' if the decoder has the feature, after I get done programming it. I only have about 50 engines, and I got through 12 of them last night(went to bed a 3 AM).
Jim Bernier
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Hi Jim: They're some great tips! Thanks for posting them.
Also a good idea for a brand new decoder - reset it first, and then program it as desired. You never know what strangeness may have been set during final testing. At least with a reset you have a known starting point.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
rrinker Also a good idea for a brand new decoder - reset it first, and then program it as desired. You never know what strangeness may have been set during final testing. At least with a reset you have a known starting point. --Randy
I'll second Randy's suggestion. I have ran into some really bizarre CV settings that can wreak havoc on brand new decoders.
I would not reset a sound decoder without first having a list of the cv settings, as I have had experience that with Loksound, for example, after doing a reset some of the sounds have disappeared. Not deleted from the decoder but that they no longer operate as programmed and the largely incomprehensible Loksound manual is no help in trying to return to the original settings.
Dave