Have any of you had the problem at starting up the Digatrax zepher and then all engines take off. Has only done this one time, but would like to know why, thanks in advance. BTW added duplex radio a year ago and no problems there.
That's usually caused by the booster (your Zephyr in this case) putting a signal on the track at startup that the decoders interpret as DC. To fix it, turn off the analog conversion feature on all your decoders.
I had this issue a few times myself, especially when recovering from a short. Disabling DC/analog feature of the decoder resolves the issue.
As I understand it, the booster delivers the power to the track. The decoder sees this power, and does not immediately see any DCC command packets. The decoder interprets this as DC and since it is full voltage the loco takes off immediately at full speed. The worst occurrence of this was few years ago when my boys were 8 and 6. They were running the layout on their own when one ran a switch. The resultant recovery caused about 10 locos to take off at full speed all over the layout. Numerous crashes resulted, the noise was unbelievable as 2 boys panicked and burst into tears. No harm done, but I learned real quick to disable that feature on all my decoders from then on.
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
I also had this issue. I don't recall doing anything about it. It seems to have resolved itself, since it hasn't happened in over a year. I have a dozen sound equipped locos sitting around the layour rumbling away, and they may absorb any power spikes on turn on. I get just 1 or 2 zeros on turn on that are gone in an instant, which tells me there is a heavy current draw on startup.
simon1966 I had this issue a few times myself, especially when recovering from a short. Disabling DC/analog feature of the decoder resolves the issue. As I understand it, the booster delivers the power to the track. The decoder sees this power, and does not immediately see any DCC command packets. The decoder interprets this as DC and since it is full voltage the loco takes off immediately at full speed. The worst occurrence of this was few years ago when my boys were 8 and 6. They were running the layout on their own when one ran a switch. The resultant recovery caused about 10 locos to take off at full speed all over the layout. Numerous crashes resulted, the noise was unbelievable as 2 boys panicked and burst into tears. No harm done, but I learned real quick to disable that feature on all my decoders from then on.
That would have been a great set of photos for the train wrecks!!
Massey
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