I have a blueline ac6000 with a digitrax 8 pin motor decoder. I have an arduino with dcc++ and I cant get it to recognize or program the sound decoder. It only sees the digitrax decoder and when I remove that, it says no response from locomotive. Is there a way around this?
Building my first layout, 4x8 contemporary urban area in HO scale
I don't have a BLI blue line, but since no one else has replied, I'll take a shot... I looked up the BLI blue line and it appears that the sound feature uses DC. I presume it's a chip that measures DC voltage going into the motor, and adjusts sound accordingly. You have added a DCC motor controller, but your sound is still DC and thus cannot be programmed. You're stuck with the sound you've got, unless you install another decoder that can handle sound.
I have 3 Blueline steam locomotives with TCS decoders. Programming on the main works fine for me. You can try to lock the Digitrax decoder using CV15 and 16 plugged into either another locomotive or decoder tester. Then put it in the Blueline and program away.
For what it's worth my Blueline locomotives have been the best running and most trouble free locomotives I have. My M1b ran on a display layout for a week 8 hours a day with zero maintenance or derailments. The plating has completely worn off the wheels and the side rods are a little loose but still runs and sounds great. I don't care for the orange tint on the headlight but what can we expect from $120 steam engine with sound.
Pete
BLI decoders are DCC compatible. The manual show the whole CV listing and they are clearly NMRA standard.
Problems start because the Sound decoder and the Motion decoder are on the same address. So you must use either the CV Lock feature of one (1) of the decoders or detach one (1) decoder from getting the DCC signal during the programming process.
You could also use Long versus Short address to get out of this but would limit the programming to MAIN. Decoders would share a Long address but also have a SHORT address you would use for programming.
What ever solution suits you.
Marc