I just installed my first Quantum Revolution-A and like it a lot. Sound is nice with good volume and the horn is excellent. My questions relate to motor control.
First of all it's in an Athearn RS3 that ran smooth with a Lenz decoder plugged in, but was a bit noisy. Now with the Quantum, it starts to crawl a speed step 1 (using 128 speed steps) but continues to just crawl until I get up to 12% to 16% on my Digitrax throttle. Then it starts to pick up speed. I turned off Regulated Throttle Control and it doesn't seem to make any difference. Is this normal?
Secondly, when it's crawling there is a slight jerkiness in the speed, not bad but it is obvious until it gets up to about 6% or 7% on the throttle. Didn't do this with the Lenz decoder. Any suggestions on how to correct this?
Lastly, any suggestions on speed matching this with a Digitrax decoder equpped loco? The main problem is the very slow initial crawl until it finally starts to pick up speed.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Jerry
Rio Grande vs. Santa Fe.....the battle is over but the glory remains!
Here's a link to the decoder manual. It's very good. If the engine is jerking you might have to set the kick rate and kick depth. It's all covered very well in the manual. Good read. I printed it out since it's 267 pages.
http://www.qsisolutions.com/pdf/quantumdccrefmanual_4_4_1.pdf
Springfield PA
Hamltnblue Here's a link to the decoder manual. It's very good. If the engine is jerking you might have to set the kick rate and kick depth. It's all covered very well in the manual. Good read. I printed it out since it's 267 pages. http://www.qsisolutions.com/pdf/quantumdccrefmanual_4_4_1.pdf
Thanks. I should have realized that a more comprehensive manual was available. I was just referring to the small manual that came with the decoder. I'll do some studying and see what adjustments I can make.
There is an error on page 10 of the 28 page manual that comes with the decoder. CV52 in the blue column in the two lower sections should read CV56.
I called QSI Solutions to get advice on eliminating the slow speed jerkiness. They were very helpful and told me to adjust the Very Low Speed PID values. Since the manual doesn't show the defaults it was helpful for them to give them to me so I could have a starting point. These adjustements helped a lot and it runs much smoother now. I'm finding Quantum Revolution to be a pretty neat system.
Well, are you going to share the values?
Hamltnblue Well, are you going to share the values?
Well I can but they are most likely to be different for every loco. In my case:
CV 56.18.1 = 2 (default = 2)
CV 56.18.2 = 40 (default = 80)
Also, after making PID adjustments, you may have to change CV2. I had to increase it up to 54. It was suggested that I should first play with CV 56.18.1 but if that didn't help return it to its default and then try changes on CV 56.18.2. I may experiment with further adjustments but for now it's running very well.
Pardon my ignorance, but how do you address CVs with decimal points like CV 56.18.1 on your DCC control system? Thanks.
Dave
USAF (Retired)
ripvanwnkl Pardon my ignorance, but how do you address CVs with decimal points like CV 56.18.1 on your DCC control system? Thanks.
Someone else can probably explain this better than I but here is what I know.
With QSI some CVs are programmed just like any other decoder, like CV2, 3, 4, 5, 29, etc. Then for some they have what they call indexed CVs. This is where there are two or three numbers separated by decimal points. In these case you simply program several CV numbers to get your result.
For example, with CV 56.18.2 you first progam CV 50 to 2, then CV 49 to 18 and then CV 56 to one of the values in their charts. It's all explained and shown clearly in their manuals and is not a all difficicult once you get the hang of it. Their manuals are very well done.
I haven't done it yet but suspect that some of these operations would be much easier and quicker in Decoder Pro. But even doing it with normal throttle programming it really isn't hard.
The manual above has instructions.
There are many more settings in the quantum than are available in the normal CV range.
So what they did was create a couple of grids to squeeze in more. Think of it as an excel spread sheet with rows and colums. The first number is programmed with the primary index which is like the row. The second number is the secondary index which is the column. The third number is the data that goes in the cell that the first 2 point to. In an excel sheet if you woul go to a cell, say C10 and put a value in it. In quantum you do 55.5.1 (Row represented by 55, column represented by 5, data in the spot is 1.)
This allows a large amount of data in a relatively small CV range.
I cheat and use DecoderPro :-)