Hi all, interesting problem. Spent some time working on a Bowser / Stewart AS-16s conversion to sound with a Tsunami lightboard replacement (BW-1000 I think Soundtraxx calls it?) Anyway, worked fine the last couple of days, then was running it tonight and it went dead. No short circuit warning on the DCC system, or anything like that; it just quit working. No movement, no sound.
I tried doing factory re-set - I'd had to do that before with this one, and it worked fine after that time. This time, all that happens after the re-set is the lights come on for maybe a minute, then go off for a minute, then back on. I've checked the wiring and it all looks fine, ran another engine to verify the track works fine. I sent something to Soundtraxx but they're closed til Monday. Any ideas??
My guess would be that the decoder fried or something is heating up and causing the decoder to shut down (to protect itself). The once it cools, comes back to (momentary) life and repeats the cycle.
I use soundtraxx and they're pretty good about responding to customers. I usually call and ask for tech support. I had one stop working as the loco was moving around the track. Called them and they said to return it. Sent it back and they sent me a new one.
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Double check your current draw, and that the motor is 100% isolated from any power source other than the decoder.
Lights cycling on/off is symptomatic of either overheating, due to current draw, or motor drawing power from somewhere on the frame.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
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There's a fault light on the Tsunami board. See if it's lit (You'll see more then 1 led LIT) The blink count is the problem. The documentation will tell you what the # of blinks means.
Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions
Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!
Well, I tried it again today, and now the lights are blinking 11 times, then pausing, then 11 times. Soundtraxx website said to e-mail them saying the number of blinks; I couldn't find any place that had a listing of what the 'blink codes' means(??)
BTW this engine has been running with a regular DCC decoder for maybe 10 years, so I'm pretty sure there isn't a problem with the motor not being separated etc.
wjstix Well, I tried it again today, and now the lights are blinking 11 times, then pausing, then 11 times. Soundtraxx website said to e-mail them saying the number of blinks; I couldn't find any place that had a listing of what the 'blink codes' means(??) BTW this engine has been running with a regular DCC decoder for maybe 10 years, so I'm pretty sure there isn't a problem with the motor not being separated etc.
cool, now we're getting somewhere! According to Soundtraxx Quick Start Guide http://www.soundtraxx.com/manuals/quickstart.pdf, page 12, Error 11 (flashes) means motor connection fault.
I would check and see if there's a pinched wire, a wire with worn insulation rubing either the frame or motor, prong get bent and touching something, etc?
On a good note, doesn't seem like the decoder is fried.....
PennCentral99cool, now we're getting somewhere! According to Soundtraxx Quick Start Guide http://www.soundtraxx.com/manuals/quickstart.pdf, page 12, Error 11 (flashes) means motor connection fault. I would check and see if there's a pinched wire, a wire with worn insulation rubing either the frame or motor, prong get bent and touching something, etc?
I was just going to say
When I did my first Tsunami install, I thought I'd killed mine, sent it back to Durango. What happened was all the back and forth getting it up and running pulled one of the connections lose UNDER the warranty shrinkwrap. I think it's something like 90 days after purchase (but look at your paperwork) that this would apply. If you've had the decoder past the warranty period, then you've got nothing to lose by peeling the shrink back enough to confirm the status of the wire connections (or not) to the board. Obviously, a gentle tug on each could confirm that without cutting the shrink, too.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
mlehman When I did my first Tsunami install, I thought I'd killed mine, sent it back to Durango. What happened was all the back and forth getting it up and running pulled one of the connections lose UNDER the warranty shrinkwrap. I think it's something like 90 days after purchase (but look at your paperwork) that this would apply. If you've had the decoder past the warranty period, then you've got nothing to lose by peeling the shrink back enough to confirm the status of the wire connections (or not) to the board. Obviously, a gentle tug on each could confirm that without cutting the shrink, too.
He said he installed a BW1000. Don't think that's quite what we're looking for, unless he installed his own shrink wrap.
Well, there's no shrink wrap, since it's a lightboard replacement decoder.
I unsoldered the connections from the motor to the decoder, and the flashing stopped. I reconnected them, and it started again. I can find nothing that looks like it would be causing a short - the wires connecting the power pickups on the truck appear fine, and are wired to the decoder correctly. The wires coming from the motor are the factory installed ones, seems to be no problem there. I've made sure the decoder isn't touching anything metal. Besides, wouldn't my DCC system's short circuit warning have come on if there was a short?
I don't know, just seems odd that it would run fine for years and then work for a few days with the new decoder and then just stop dead...maybe I will try removing the decoder and temporarily connecting the track power connections directly to the motor wires, and see if I can get it to work on DC?
OK, makes sense, I don't keep up on all the modern stuff.
My guess is it's still going to be something like a feed from the motor to the board. Any possibility of wire damage or compromise is the obvious stuff. Sometimes you make a marginal connection and it takes years to work itself lose?
I don't know how this loco is designed...is it possible that it may have picked up some metal debris that shorts the motor (or leads) to the frame that wouldn't be visible from the top?
Stix,
Just because the wires to the motor are factory installed does not rule them out. If the insulation rubbed thin, a strand broke off/through, or it got pinched just right.... You would have power from both decoder and whatever that wire touches. There you get a problem.
And, no, it's not a short that the command station breaker could detect. They are set at whatever the maximum current in amps is, and usually that only occurs with a "dead short" situation. One locomotive with a motor decoder wire touching something it shouldn't would not max out your amps if the decoder is shutting down and giving the light code. If we were to fry the decoder, it still would most likely not draw enough power without doing serious damage to the model.
(And, if it is getting the correct polarity anyways, and it most likely is, it would not be a dead short, so, no breaker detection at all, until the maximum amps pass through.)
You need to really recheck those wires carefully.
If the wires are indeed ok, how it the motor isolated? Did that wear through/off? You have power coming somewhere from the frame where it shouldn't be....
EDIT: Bypassing the decoder/light board on DC will not help in this instance, as it will most likely run just fine. Frame contact issue is not applicable to DC loco's like DCC. Most likely, the frame contact point in question is the correct polarity, so bypassing the decoder to test on DC power will yield no useful information.... The problem is power is already bypassing the decoder.
I will check again tonight. The idea of a small piece of metal getting magnetically pulled up into the motor area is a possibility, particularly since the engine stopped while on a relatively new section of the layout. It's possible too (now that I think of it) that a tiny bit of wire might have gotten in there, from when I was cutting and stripping the wires to solder them in place.
The motor comes from the factory mounted on two fairly thick plastic mounting cradles to insulate the can motor from the chassis, and I can't imagine those would wear out - it's not like an old BB Athearn where you have to put down tape or something to isolate the motor, the engine came "DCC ready" with a lightboard with an eight-pin plug receptacle.
More than likely a small piece of metal or a tiny cut end of wire got sucked in the commutator of the motor and is shorting two of the segments. If you have some canned air (or airbrush with no paint - don't use a shop compressor unless you have lots of air and oil traps), try to gently rotate the motor shaft and blow out the commutator area. If it's jammed, don;t force it, try turning back the other way. You could also unhook the decoder (VERY important!) and then clip lead a DC power pack to the motor wires and see if it runs on DC. If there's a short it probably won't start on DC, either.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
+1 to what Randy said.
This is what I would do:
Disconnect from the decoder. Grab a voltmeter and put it on ohms (Omega symbol) Measure the resistence on the motor between the two wires.
Resistence should be no lower then 12 Ohms. (1 amp)...It is most likely ~60 ohms. (.2 amps). Anything lower then 12 Ohms is likely a motor problem.
NOW if that checks out okay, then take one probe from the motor and touch the frame. Your display should reach OL (infinite). If it reads anything but, you have a short to frame.
Wothwhile to check, but I have a couple of those and it would have to be badly broken for the motor to short on the frame. It COULD be a stray cut wire end fallen across the motor terminals, but I still think it's most likely that it picked up something internally.
Kind of the opposite problem I had with an old Atlas/Kato RSC. Apparantly on the day this one was made, the person assembling the motor gave it a few extra squirts of epoxy before attaching the commutatot segments. So one segment plus half of the adjacent ones were covered - effectively insulated. If you turned the motor by hand it would start up and run, but inevitably stopped on the bad segment. Sometimes you'd get lucky. Since the commutator isn't visible without tearing the motor apart, and Kato motors are usually bulletproof, it took me a while to stumble on that one. I have had bits get sucked into motors, usually filing-size stuff, resulting in a nice ring of fire around the commutator until it burned off. These days I'm very careful to police the cut ends of wires when I trim things down to finish a wiring job - a habit I picked up trimming coponent leads when assembling circuit boards. The ONE extra piece you can't account for - will almost certainly be laying on the board shorting out the exact pins needed to fry the most expensive component the instant power is applied.
Eleven blinks happened to me a few years ago with a Tsunami light board decoder. Follwed the SoundTraxx manual.
Sent the decoder back to SoundTraxx for repair. Stuff happens some times. Not a big deal.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
So I took a look at things again tonight. Wires from motor are very thick, no sign of wear. Motor is insulated from chassis by approx. 1/4" thick plastic cradle. I tried finding any foreign objects, couldn't find anything. Tried removing the motor (still wired) to see if there could be short, but nothing. So I disconnected the decoder from the engine, and installed it in my other AS-616. That started up the sound, so I tried moving it. Put the throttle about half way up and it did a jackrabbit start so I turned the throttle down to zero and it came to a halt (with nice brake squeal by the way). Then the lights started flashing 11 times - pause - 11 times....
Seems unlikely two motors - that have been running fine on DCC for a decade - would both decide to give up at the same time. I'm thinking it's the decoder.
I haven't heard from Soundtraxx yet. Unfortunately, even though I just opened the package and installed it a few weeks ago, I actually bought it about a year ago so the 90 day warranty has expired.
wjstix .... I actually bought it about a year ago so the 90 day warranty has expired.
.... I actually bought it about a year ago so the 90 day warranty has expired.
Shhhhh .... they don't have to know that !
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
Ya they do, at least on their website it says the receipt has to be included if you send it back. I suppose they could waive that if they want...still haven't heard back.
wjstix
Then the lights started flashing 11 times - pause - 11 times....
I have an Athearn SD40-2 that I put a Soundtraxx in it and ran fine for months. Now it is doing the same thing as yours 11 blinks. I rewired it and still no luck. I already ordered a new 1. I think it shorted out some how and fried the decoder. Good luck with yours.
Mike
This will probably be the last Tsunami I get. I had another one that went belly-up a while back, and even in the ones that work I've found them to be unreliable as far as keeping programming...assuming you can figure out how to program them to do what you want in the first place.