Two reasons.
One, they fall asleep if sitting idle for a few months and are next to impossible to wake up.
Two, I have 18 of these decoder-equipped locomotives.
My layout season typically ends in April as golf season begins up here in the Midwest and then starts up again in late November or early December. This year has been no exception.
The problem is that when I select a loco by its long address, the lights and the sound respond, but the loco will not move. Essentially, the only way to get it moving again is to delete the long address, do a 3-step CV change to factory default, then place the loco on the programming track and reprogram it including the long address.
Anybody else plagued by this type of decoder behavior? Any suggestions?
Rich
Alton Junction
I have 2 Atlas Dash8-40CW with these QSI sound decoders. I use them only once a year during a show and they remain boxed the rest of the time. Never had an issue with them.
Jack W.
I should mention that I have QSI sound decoders in a number of locos from different manufacturers including BLI, Life Like, Walthers Proto and Intermountain. The two most recent occurrences were with BLI and Walthers Proto locos.
But, I don't think that the loco manufacturer matters. It is the QSI decoder that is at fault.
Yep I've had this problem too. But not just with QSI decoders.
Just last week I had 3 locos with problems. MTH, Walthers with QSI, and BLI with Paragon 2. They sat for a few months. And I had to reset these back to defaults to get them working again.
What gives?
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
Motley Yep I've had this problem too. But not just with QSI decoders. Just last week I had 3 locos with problems. MTH, Walthers with QSI, and BLI with Paragon 2. They sat for a few months. And I had to reset these back to defaults to get them working again. What gives?
Ditto:
Just last night I was running an A-B-B-A set of B&O F-7s from BLI. They are all programmed to the same engine number and I had been running this consist for weeks with not even a hiccup.
Of course, 6 grandkids wanting to see trains run and I had these four engines running when I noticed that they wouldn't get the 66 car train up the grade. Don't 'ya know the second B unit is unresponsive. I broke up the four and they all responded independantly except the one B unit. Why THEN? Yes, I know... Murphy.
Of course with a basement full of young'uns you can't take time to re-program right then so I had to do a little five-finger hostling.
Actually, I don't notice any more of a problem with QSI and Paragon than with most other brands. Actually, it amazes me when I dust off a locomotive that I haven't run in YEARS and it just walks away like nobody's business. Some of these have the old Digitrax DH-121s in them.
Never fails, Ed
I don't play much with my trains these months. At any one time, I have three able to be used, actually sitting on the rails. The others are in boxes awaiting their turns in the very slow rotation. I have never failed to get a loco to perform as I intend unless the decoder goes kaput. And it happened in the most recent instance, about 16 months ago, to a PCM Y6b with its then seven year old decoder. It now has a QSI Titan, by current go-to.
With the QSI's and Paragon decoders, they do go silent if let idle for any length of time. For the QSI's a press on the Digitrax encoder knobs and I get a steam let-off sound. That means it's still my friend. If not, I double-press F6 in the event I boxed it for long term storage with the decoder in the F9 "coma." Again, one way or another, no failures to date on about 8 QSI decoders of various vintages for me. My only true failure has been the LokSound.
With the Paragons, once the loco stops, if you power down, or it goes to sleep, it won't make any sounds or move unless you add a speed step to the throttle with its address engaged. It immediately comes to life. I don't really like that feature, but it does have its advantages. I don't get Paragon sounds (pretty good for my tastes) competing with the other locos I want to use.
Try powering off the rails, powering up, double press F6, and see what your QSI's do from there.
BTW, the Tsunamis have this feature in a high CV number, but it must be enabled. Also, the only QSI that I have where it's very consistent is the early version in my Lionel HO Challenger. It was that decoder's behaviour, reliably, that caught my attention. If I played with it, then had a session days later where I was not activated on the throttle, it would go silent completely on subsequent sessions. It would only activate once I engaged it on an active throttle. Some of my QSI's have to be silenced with F8 or placed into the F9 double-press coma.
Let me restate my issue and add a little more clarity.
The QSI decoder doesn't "fail" in the sense that it is fried or anything like that.
What happens is that the sound and lights respond to throttle commands but the motor function does not respond. The loco simply won't move. This has happened before to QSI-equipped locos which have sat idle for a period of time.
At the moment, I have two such locos in that situation. To test possible solutions, I am waiting for some hoped for advice before I remedy the problem in the only way that seems to work for me.
Pressing F6 twice does nothing. These locos come equipped with a magnetic wand to reset the decoder to factory default, but I cannot get the wand to work.
What does work is a 3-step CV adjustment to reset to factory default.
CV49=128, CV50 = 255, CV56=113.
But even to do that, I first need to delete the long address and revert to the short address of 003. Then, do the 3-step CV adjustment, using POM. Then, set the loco on the Programming Track and reprogram the decoder including the long address.
I have had a few of my QSI equipped engines do just as you have stated.
I usually only find this out at the beginning of my twice monthly OPs Sessions and it will happen once or twice a year.
I just grab the offending engine and place it on my programming track - as my Digitrax system will reprogram engines even while the layout is hosting operations and I just program the engine number back into the engine and it comes alive again.
If I had the time to get a reading on CV17/18 (4 digit number location) and CV29 maybe it would show that they have been changed.
I don't think I have ever had to do a total reset to get my QSI engines back up and running - yet.
While I may not have been able to get them to retake the engines number - during the OPs Session - the next day - when I don't have everyone there from the OPs Session - then engines responds to the reprogrammed engine number and is back in operation for another 6 months or so!
Funny thing is that some of my QSI engines have never given me any problems - but if I probably checked - they might be the newer units.
BOB H - Clarion, PA
If the decoders/engines are in "sleep mode", have you tried just 'waking them up'?? I forget which function buttons are used, but it's something like hit an F button 3 times to go into sleep mode, and an F button 2 times to come out of it.
I've had the same problem with several QSI decoders going to sleep when not operated for an extended period of time, and nothing short of reprogramming will wake them up. Lights and sound work, but no movement. The manual says F6 puts them in shutdown mode and is supposed to wake them up, but it never works that way.
Another club member has two Broadway Limited New York Central steam locomotives with QSI decoders that run only periodically. One of them has to be reset and reprogrammed practically every time he wants to run them.
Stix, F9 puts QSI decoders into the three stages of 'sleep.' F6 wakes it up again with a single double-tap of the key.
I don't have any issues like that with any of my Tsunami decoders. That is why I like them and not these other brands that you can change the sounds programming on. Too many features can tend to get in the way of their basic operations. And yes, I have ONE QSI and ONE LokSound. Never again.
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.
Well, I found the problem.
Back in the late spring, I killed some consists, but it turned out that the consist number in each case remained stored in CV19. I zeroed out CV19 on each locomotive this afternoon, and I was able to move the locomotives once again.
Last spring, after killing the consists, the locos still moved but, apparently, once I powered down the layout, those locomotives weren't going to move again the next time that I powered up the layout. I didn't discover that problem until recently when I started trying to run those locos once again.
All of this seemed vaguely familiar, so I did a forum search and turned up a thread that I started last December.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/744/p/225744/2513231.aspx#2513231
In that thread, the issue was similar but the problem was that upon creating a consist, CV19 remained at zero. So, I had to manually enter the consist number in CV19. Now the opposite problem occurs. I kill the consist, but CV19 is not cleared, so I have to clear it manually.
richhotrainPressing F6 twice does nothing. These locos come equipped with a magnetic wand to reset the decoder to factory default, but I cannot get the wand to work.
I have been in this situation, too. On a few of my PRR engines the reset button was under a tender water hatch (good idea!) on others I had to remove the tender shell to get the magnet close enough to the reed switch.
So what I found was a magnet that I tore out of an old computer hard drive. This thing would lift the Queen Mary out of the water. I keep it handy for those times when I need to do the QSI dance. It trips that switch without fail.
Just a FYI... Ed
I only have one QSI loco, an Atlas Trainmaster, and it gets used about once a year at a club show. So far, no problems.
One of my Loksound PCM steamers sat for about 3 years until I got it back, no problems with that one.
I have a couple others that sat in their boxes for 5 years until I got them back (non sound). All worked on the cab address to which they were originally programmed.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I have found that QSI decoders seem after they have went into a coma can only been awakened by a manual reset. This video shows the methods- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX493I0WpNw