I am very frustrated and I am hoping someone on here can help me. This is my first attempt at DCC. I have a brand new Digitrax Super Chief and I am having tremendous issues getting my locomotive to work properly. Please watch this video I uploaded of a brand new Athearn Genesis GP9 with tsunami sound on my layout: http://youtu.be/7y3w_Y658SQ In the video, I am not ringing the bell or turning the light on and off, it is doing that on its own. I also started the loco on the rail with the soldered feeder wires and I tried it in two separate locations of the layout.
This is a brand new layout and I am wiring in compliance with the Digitrax instructions and reading wiringfordcc.com. I have a 14g solid core bus line (the two bus wires are at least 6 in apart) and 22g solid core feeders. I have several feeders in the sections of layout I shot the video. I have soldered the rails on a few sections to see if I had a bad connection between rails. I was using suitcase connectors to connect the feeders to the bus and I replaced all of those with soldered connections. I have cleaned the extensively track with a bright boy. I just don't know what is wrong. It acts like I have a short. The only thing that I can think of: 1) I have bad soldered connections (not likely because I have multiple feeders and the odds of every connection being a cold connection is unlikely) 2) I have a bad decoder in my loco (a likely scenario but I have no other way of testing it out, my local hobby shop does not have a test track and I don't know anyone around here with a DCC layout) 3) there is an issue with my Super Chief. I am not sure if anyone has experienced issues like this before and can help me. I really appreciate any advice from anyone!
Jared
It sounds like you have done your homework on hooking up the track, and I don't think that is your problem. I also don't think the DCC system is at fault.
I don't think you have a short. What I think you have is an intermittent contact between the decoder and the track. The light going off and back on, plus the single bell and engine sounds tells me this. The two things between these items are the wheel contacts on the locomotive, and the contact between the wheels and the track. You have cleaned the track, but have you cleaned the wheels?
Two things that you can do that may help is the following: 1- Put a small amount of WD-40 on the electrical pick-ups on each wheel. Use a toothpick to apply it. 2- Put a little WD-40 on your finger and then wipe it on the rails where you are testing the loco. Sometimes when you clean the track, it becomes too dry. Another thing you should do after using a bright boy on your track is to then wipe any dust from the bright boy off your track with your finger. This dust residue can also cause intermittent contact between the track and loco wheels.
The above things are the quick fixes that usually work most of the time.
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.
Hi Jared,
Your lights going out a short time after the locomotive starts to move, suggest there is to much current some where in the Decoder. Take the cover off, and feel if there is any motor binding?
Bob Frey
Website: http://bobfrey.auclair.com
From the way the loco is performing it looks like there is something wrong with it and you should take it back to the place you bought it.
There is another thing that you can try. Do a reset on the command station by resetting the option switch 39. The instructions are in the manual but I do it once a week on my clubs two layouts.
Sometimes if a loco is not properly dispatched the throttle will think it is still running and will send out an upgrade packet to its decoder. If you try to run the same loco again it will send out an upgrade packet to it also which may cause the start stop condition you are experencing.
1. With the track power on, flip the right toggle to the center position. This will turn off the track power. On the throttle push the top right button that says SWCH. Using the keypad enter the number 39. Press enter and then shut off the right toggle on the command station. Wait a few seconds and restore the right toggle to the run position, and turn the track power back on. Depending on the command station you may or may not hear eight beeps from it.
Looks to me like something is binding in the drive system somewhere or it needs lubed. No telling how long it had been sitting in the store. The binding is making the motor work to hard and is overloading the decoder making it get hot and shut down. Jim.
Were it me I'd apply the Keep It Simple Stupid trouble shooting procedure. Point being, you can eliminate the entire layout trackage and wiring from the equation by disconnecting it from the command station and then run separate wires from the A and B outputs directly to a separate 3 foot section of flex track and test the loco. If it runs smooth then the problem is somewhere in your layout track wiring. If if jerks/starts/stops as before then you know it's a problem with the engine.
Earlier this year I installed an ESU Loksound decoder in a Genesis F-7. It sputtered exactly the same as your GP-9. I thought the decoder was defective so I swapped it for another of the same that I had on hand... Same bad performance.
Did a Google search on Genesis pickup problems and found that others had similar complaints. I took apart the truck side frames and soldered the wire connection to the bronze axle retainer. Now ALL connections to the decoder were soldered and I got rid of all the plastic wire clips.
SAME intermittant sputtering. I drenched the wheels and axle points in contact cleaner to wash off any oils (this was a brand new engine) still... no help.
EVENTUALLY after continuous running MUed with three other nearly identical Genesis F-7s (that never exhibited pick-up problems) it started to improve. Today the engine runs fine and I was never able to pinpoint the problem. It SEEMS to be a lack of electrical continuity at the axle point OR something on the wheel tread itself that eventually wore off.
I was just as stymied as you. Good Luck!
Ed
Hi Everyone -
Thank you for all of your suggestions. I tried most of the suggestions you made and nothing worked. I am about 99% sure I have a decoder issue becuase I soldered two feeders to some new track and hooked it directly to the DCS 100 and it did the exact same thing. I also hooked up the track to the programming inputs and I cannot even get the decoder to be programmed other than "03". Please take a look at this video and please let me know if I am doing something wrong (the road number of the loco I am trying to program is 9185): http://youtu.be/YJQxB1tfSzA
I am going to contact Athearn to see if they can be any help. I am just so frustrated. This is my first attempt at DCC and have pretty much pulled my hair out trying to figure this out. It just couldn't be easy...
IowaDCC Hi Everyone - Thank you for all of your suggestions. I tried most of the suggestions you made and nothing worked. I am about 99% sure I have a decoder issue becuase I soldered two feeders to some new track and hooked it directly to the DCS 100 and it did the exact same thing. I also hooked up the track to the programming inputs and I cannot even get the decoder to be programmed other than "03". Please take a look at this video and please let me know if I am doing something wrong (the road number of the loco I am trying to program is 9185): http://youtu.be/YJQxB1tfSzA I am going to contact Athearn to see if they can be any help. I am just so frustrated. This is my first attempt at DCC and have pretty much pulled my hair out trying to figure this out. It just couldn't be easy...
This may also help http://00200530.pdl.pscdn.net/002/00530/MRH04/DCC%20Shortcuts%20Card.pdf print it out and keep it handy, and I put my Notes on the back so I dont forget them, Jim.
You do NOT set the switch on the DCS100 to OPS for loco programming. The OPS setting on the toggle switch is for setting OPSw settings in the DCS100 itself.
If you mean to use Ops Mode programming on the main, you press the Program button on the DT402 until the display says PO.
To reset the decoder on the main, make sure no other locos with the same address are on the track, select the loco address 3, and then press Program until the display says PO. Dial 30 on the left knob for the CV, and dial 2 on the right dial. Press Enter. Press Exit. Now tip the loco off the track for a few seconds and put it back.
If this fails, there's definitely something else wrong. Seeing the lights blink, it would appear to be a power pickup problem.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
When I first got my Digitrax DCS 100 in the 90's I had a decoder that would'nt reprogram, I called Digitrax and a service tech gave me this info because it was the early Blast signal that some decoders needed to reprogam them. You are NOT changing any SWITCHES in the booster you are changing CV'S in a decoder. I have been doing this for years and have recovered many decoders without any problems. Jim.
This is the first I've ever heard of a Blast Mode in a DCS100, here or on the Digitrax Yahoo group. Zephyrs have Blast Mode, controlled by OpSw7. It's even documented in teh Zephyr Xtra manual, but it was there in the original Zephyr as well.
The only documented use of the mode switch is normal (RUN), sleep mode that keeps power to the railsync so you can plug throttles in and not have them drain their battery, and Ops which is for changing system settings (OpSw values). Even the Tech Support Depot on the Digitrax web site makes no mention of Blast Mode in anything other than a DCS50/51 (Zephyr/Zephyr Xtra).
I suppose if someone at Digitrax said it was there - but the only thing that shoudl happen with the mode switch in Ops is that it accepts switch commands fromt eh throttle.
The simple way to isolate the problem at this point is to replace the decoder with a new one. They're pretty much dirt cheap nowadays (IMO). The other is to try another locomotive. Personally I would try another locomotive of the same kind as well as from another manufacturer. As a side note, I'm just heading towards installing DCC on my layout.
And quite frankly, the problems you are experiencing and the extremely wide range of causes/solutions presented so far is the major reason I haven't embraced DCC yet. It's a whole different language in a different world (another planet). Kind of like the difference between using a good old phonograph record or AM/FM radio verses a digital media server. When the digital thing is working and working properly it's fantastic. When it's not, it's not quite the same thing as going out and buying a new record or moving the antenna around.
A Digitrax-brand power supply. I don't know off-hand exactly the details of the model number but I am 100% sure that it is the correct size for the system.
Thanks, Arto. I completely agree with you, my first attempt at DCC has been challenging. I am confident when I get these issues worked out it will be worth it. It just depends on how much tolerance you have to work through the bugs without asking yourself if it is more trouble than it is worth. Dive in and go for it! I did!