Hi all,
I have a Broadway Limited BRO 1004CN brass 4-6-4 steam that was marketed through Hobbycraft Canada. The unit dates back to somewhere between 2000 and 2004. It has a Quantum sound decoder. There's a water fill trap on the tender that flips up and there's a volume pot and a switch. I have no idea what the switch does.
I can't find the manual and I'd like to tweak some of the settings.
Using JMRI on my Digitrax (updated) DCS100 and a PR4 I the decoder doesn't talk back. Now I know I managed to reprogram it when I first got it...it kept its long address and my JMRI roster looks as though I may have been able to read the decoder way back when.
Does anyone by chance have one of these or any idea where I can get a manual?
Its a beautiful model, runs very nicely, just needs a bit of tweaking.
Many thanks for any suggestions/help.
Cheers and keep well,
Christian
So, you are able to operate the loco, you just can't read or write to the decoder?
A lot of the early sound locos needed a booster on the programming track. That may be your issue here. I'm a NCE guy, so not sure if your cited Digitrax accomplishes that but someone else will know. With my Power Cab and Blackstone Tsunami's, I thought I needed one at first so bought a PTB-100 IIRC, then sold it once I realized the PowerCab didn't need the booster to deal wiuth the Tsunamis.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
The manuals are on the BLI site:
https://www.broadway-limited.com/supportdocumentation.aspx
The switch is the decoder reset.
While the DCS100 program track might not be able to read the decoder, if you use the PR4 in standalone mode (it will require a power supply - should have come with one), then connect the PR4 track terminals to an isolated piece of track, the Loconet cable does not need to be connected, you should be able to program the decoder. I have a PR3, and I have not found a decoder it can't read and program, with no extra program track booster. Writing, even my original Zephyr could write to the early QSI equipped BLI locos. The only tricky part was the address. The QSI decoder needs some amount of delay when setting a long address between getting the values for CV17 and CV17, and setting CV29. The Zephyr just sends the three values based on the address you enter. Unlike the DT40x throttles which have the prompt for long address, until you press y, or it times out, it does not send anything for CV29. Once I got a DT400 to use with my Zephyr, I could program the address in the QSI without having to resort to manually setting the CVs. When prompted to enable the long address, I just hit Y a few times before exiting out.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Thanks Mike,
Yup the loco works fine. I have a PowerPax booster and am able to read and program most other older Tsunami's.
Hi Randy,
The only part missing was I had to change the JMRI settings to "Standalone Programmer" and boom! ...it works.
My only issue is that changes to CVs 2, 3 & 4 (vstart, accel & decel) seem to make only a small difference. Changing CV 2 from its default 32 down to 15 is barely noticeable. I'll keep playing with it.
And as luck would have it I finally found the instruction booklet and inside I can see how I calculated the CVs for the long address some 10 years ago or more. I must have done it "manually".
So many thanks for your excellent solution, have a great long weekend.
I think the QSI decoders allow momentum values from 0-255, wheres some Loksound decoders only go 0-32, so the amount of change per value in the CV isn;t alyways the same. There's a recommendation for what it is supposed to represent but since it's an RP and not a Standard, not all manufacturers follow it.
I'm surprised the default v-start is that high. That's like a value another decoder would use to run an old Athearn Blue Box loco. My TCS and Loksound decoders pretty much all have this set to 0 or 1, and the locos start creeping on step 1.
Yes, QSI momentum can be 0-255. They use CV3 * 0.896 / number of speed steps which gives you the number of seconds per speed step. So a value of 127 should make it take .896 seconds at each speed step if you crank the throttle - it would reach step 10 after 8.96 seconds.
Finally found a few minutes to come back inside and try the programming.
Thanks to your observations on 0-255, I increased CVs 3 and 4 to 70 and CV 2 down to 1. The loco now runs exactly the way I wanted it to. I too, wonder why the vstart default is so high; it made the darn thing run like a Tyco. I have another BLI which I'll test out and probably re-program.
I'm gradually upgrading my locos with the TCS kits that come with the keep-alive and speaker. The keep alive is fantastic especially on the Proto 0-6-0 and 0-8-0; I've done a few Proto diesels too and I'm very pleased with the results. All of the units run beautifully.
So thanks again for your kind help.
Stay healthy!