Simon my friend brought back my PR 3 today. We switched the USB cable to the front hub and it is reading Loksound and QSI decoders! I posted some time ago I could not get a QSI BLI Heavy Mike to reset, PR 3 read and set it so it working now! (how it got switched to a address of 256 is beyond me)
Only engine it would not read was a Blue Line. We tried with and with out motor decoder installed. Got error 308 again. We then picked BLI Blue Line decoder from menu and it seemed to want to write, made chirping sounds like CV's where being read but did not change any CV's that we could tell.
Any tips with Blue Line?
Thanks for all the help you kind folks have given.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
Did you disconnect the motor decoder in the Blue Line? Usuaully you cannot program or read properly if there are two decoders connected, as there would be if you installed a motor decoder in the Blueline.
255 is a possible value on a failed read. 'Reading' decoders isn;t the command station saying "Hey, what value do you have in CVxx" and the decoder responding, it's the command station going "Is the value in CVxx 0?" and the decoder saying yes or no, if no, it then says "Is the value 1?" and so on until the decoder says yes.
Too late to change the specs that would allow far faster reading - guess none of the geniuses at the time thought of having the decoder make 3 possible pulse signals - Yes, Higher, or Lower. Then the command station could say "Is the value 128?" and for example if the decoder said "lower" the command station could then try 64. Higher, try 96. Lower, try 80, Higher, try 88, lower try 84, lower try 82, higher 83 - YES. 8 reads to get to 83 vs 83 the current way.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Yep Randy, motor decoder out.
It was weird, the loco chirps away as if CV's are being read, but Decoder Pro does not acknowledge. I thought perhaps the decoder was locked, but that did not seem to be the case. Having read everything else we threw at it, it was disappointing that these Blue Lines could not be read.
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
simon1966 Yep Randy, motor decoder out. It was weird, the loco chirps away as if CV's are being read, but Decoder Pro does not acknowledge. I thought perhaps the decoder was locked, but that did not seem to be the case. Having read everything else we threw at it, it was disappointing that these Blue Lines could not be read.
Is the sound decoder controlling the lights ? If not, the problem may be that there is no load, which is a common problem reading CVs and I'd suggest changing the jumper to allow the sound decoder to control the lights. The other thing I see with BLIs is to use Direct mode programming, not Page mode. When I have the motor controllers in I use Page mode for the motor controller and Direct mode for the BLI Sound decoder.
Engineer Jeff NS Nut Visit my layout at: http://www.thebinks.com/trains/
Jeff, the lights are the way they came from Blue Line. Controlled by the sound decoder. I think we tried both Direct and Page with the Blue Line but was not taking notes. I will work with them when I get home this afternoon.
Thanks for the help folks, Ken
cudaken Jeff, the lights are the way they came from Blue Line. Controlled by the sound decoder. I think we tried both Direct and Page with the Blue Line but was not taking notes. I will work with them when I get home this afternoon. Thanks for the help folks, Ken
If the lights are connected to the sound decoder then they should blink when you are trying to read the CVs.