My friend just got a new Conrail SD60I with sound from Athearn. Our layout is a Digitrax DCC layout and we are using DT402D & UT4 throttles.
Now we love the starting sound of the SD60I but we can only here when we first turn on the locomotive and will not here it again unless we take if off and put it back on. Now we know we can turn the sound off, but we do not know how or even if you can turn off the sound and then turn the locomotive back on with the start-up sound and not have it jump straight to an idling sound.
My sound equiped diesel loco's are Proto 2000 and Atlas. To get the start up sequence sounds the locos must first be shut down using the shut down sequence. Double clicking the #9 button puts it in the idle mode. Double clicking #9 a second time puts it in disconnect mode. Finally double clicking #9 a third time completely shuts down the loco with the last sound being the engineer leaving the cab and closing the door.
To get the loco to go through the start up mode all you need to do is double click the #6 button which the first sound is the engineer entering the cab and closing the door. At least this is what the Proto and Atlas loco's do. The Athearns may be different.
That's the sequence for the QSI decoders used by Proto and Atlas. The Tsunami in the Athearn is different - and really seems to be a pretty poor design on the part of SOundtraxx (yes, here's me ranting on Soundtraxx again - but sometimes I have to wonder what their engineers are thinking. To get the startup sounds to trigger on a Tsunami, first you have to get it to shut down. This usually involves using the E-stop button on your system. This is NOT configurable, like remap it to another function key. Then, to get it to start up you address it and set the speed to step 1 and it will play the startup sounds. Or it will go through the startup when the track power is removed and reapplied. Basically, you have to get your system to stop sending packets to the loco so it can shut down, then when you start addressing packets to it, it will first do the startup sequence and then go to idle.
While people sometimes get confused with QSI decoders, getting it into the 'disconnect' mode where the sounds work but the loco doesn't move, at least there's a button option to control all that. Tsunamis try to be automatic, and it doesn't work cleanly with all DC systems. Plus the auto restart is annoying when you have an engine terminal full of locos. The only way around that is to insualte each storage track and cut the power, so when you turn the DCC system back on the decoders don;t all run through the startup sounds. Sorry but that is an ANNOYING and INCONVENIENT 'feature'
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
It depends on what brand of decoder is in the locomotive.
I use Tsunamis and NCE. To make the loco shut down, I press the red emergency stop button when the loco is stopped. To start it up again, just go to speed step one.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
That should work on Digitrax too unless the throttle has been reconfigured - by default the e-stop is only for your train, but it can be reconfigured to be e-stop for the entire layout.
The Zephyr and the UT-4 utlity throttle do not have e-stop buttons, so you're out of luck there.
Sequences may be different for Lenz and CVP.
Like I said, not thought out very well on Soundtraxx's part. There's 28 functions available, how hard would it have been to make one of them a startup/shutdown function, that could be remapped to any desired key?
Thanks for the info. I will let you know how things work out. It may be a while.
It could be either a MRC or Soundtraxx decoder. The MRCs were used until recently. Athearn has the links to Soundtraxx documentation if a Soundtraxx was used in your loco. Otherwise it's probably an MRC. I have an MRC equipped challenger(unfortunately) and it was made specifically for Athearn. So the CVs are specific to that model. Soon to be changed out to Soundtraxx.
You may have to research the possible MRC functions and CVs. My MRC Athearn loco came with great documentation on how to make the sounds function.
Richard
The op should figure out which decoder he has. My SD 60i came with an MRC decoder right before they did the switch.
Springfield PA