Charlie, Thanks for the advice. I will give it a try on Saturday. Appreciate the help.
I think I can relate to your problem. I have Prodigy Express and found that I couldn't programme a Bachmann Consolidation with factory Tsunami. It worked on address 03 and all functions worked but I couldn't change the address or any CVs.
Thanks to the advice of our resident guru, David Bedard, I was able to do so without buying a programme track booster. To quote his post of 01-27-09,
" program CV17, 18 then 29(to 34) then program CV1 to your address then set CV29 to 6."
I now have the address changed and can adjust CV's.
Note that the values for CV 17 and 18 were obtained by using a site that will calculate the CV for the address number you want. I can't find it in my notes but I'm sure 'google is your friend'.
CN Charlie
One of our club members swears you can't effectively program on the program track without a booster when using MRC. My question is then why do they instruct you to put a resistor inline when using the program track to knock down the current?
I believe what your saying as you were there and I wasn't but you have to admit that it makes no sense at all hence why I said they have a glitch in their system. Everything that can be done on the program track should also be able to be done on the main, wit the exception of the on the fly or moving loco which is news to me as I never programed on the main at all.
Have you ever been able to program any locomotive on the program track at all? Maybe you just have a wiring issue and then maybe not. unfortunately having to have dealt with MRC for a while now nothing comes as a surprise anymore.
I misspoke,its a Prodigy Advanced Squared, no one tried to tell me different.
"Your solution makes absolutely no sense at all, not saying that it didn't work but there is no DCC system that I am aware of that lets you program an engine on the fly."
I can assure you it happened just as I said it did. In fact wedid it the same way to another engine last night. As far as no DCC system that programs on the fly, I hate to disagree, but that's exactly what Prodigy Advanced does, and even advertises this feature. For example, last night I programmed two different locomotives on the fly. I changed the volume control CV's while they were pulling a train on the layout.
"When you hit program it should ask you if your on the program track or the main. when you select either one the throttle function does not work. 3 is typically the default setting of many if not all decoders, so you set them to default setting then gave them and address by reprogramming them again. Definitely sounds like a typical MRC glitch."
Yeah, I agree. When I try it on the program track it doesn't seem to recognize the engine. When I put it on the main track, as I said, the engine runs without the ability to control it, then when I type in "3" and assign that address, it shuts down. At this point I can control it as the "3" address. The next step is to change it on the main from the "3" to a long address and it works. Same thing happened again to a completely different engine last night.
From the input I've gotten from other forums and from Sountraxx themselves, it looks like we will need to purchase the booster for the porgram track in order to get it to work normally.
Thanks for everyone's help.
Didn't check into it too much then - Digitrax systems allow you to program on the program track while other users are running locos, the entire system does not shut down like NCE does. Plus any system that allows Ops Mode programming shouldn't shut down the layout when doing so - again, Digitrax certainly doesn't. On the fly programming on the main is probably the best way to adjust things like the start voltage - select the loco, set the throttle to speed step one, then program in Ops Mode and adjust CV2 higher and higher until the loco starts moving.
You can also change the address in Ops Mode. If the loco is at the default 3, you select that and you cna program in a long address. You can only change the 'opposite' address withotu some serious workarounds - ie, if the loco has a short address, you can set a long address, but not another short address. If it has along address, you can set a short address, but not another long address.
From the description at one point in this thread, it seems MRC copies NCE in that 3 can be both a short and long address, '3' being short and '003' being long, and of course CV29 has to match - if CV29 is set for short address 3 and you try to select 003 it's not going to work. Short address 3 is the NMRA standard for a factory fresh decoder. The main example of this not being followed that I know of is older Atlas locos with factory decoders, they often came programmed with the last 2 digits of the cab number for a short address instead of 3.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
"the MRC (Prodigy Express Squared)" First off there is no such animal you either have a Prodigy Express or a Prodigy Advance Squared not a hybrid of the two. No matter what MRC tells you and I know from first hand experience that when an Express is updated even if you are using an Advance Squared throttle you DO NOT get all of the functions of an Advance Squared. That being said if you have an Express there are some decoders it may not recognize the Tsunami decoder. I have heard complaints about this but can not say with 100% certainty that this is true or not. What I can attest to as fact is that I have had to program locomotives several times before they seemed to take the codes using the MRC. I have since donated it to my one son's n scale layout. It has been replaced with an NCE Power house pro and not one sigle issue to date.
Your solution makes absolutely no sense at all, not saying that it didn't work but there is no DCC system that I am aware of that lets you program an engine on the fly. When you hit program it should ask you if your on the program track or the main. when you select either one the throttle function does not work. 3 is typically the default setting of many if not all decoders, so you set them to default setting then gave them and address by reprogramming them again. Definitely sounds like a typical MRC glitch.
CSX404...we got the handheld to recognize them by manually typing "3" (not 0003, just 3) in the address line...
It seems that for the MRC system, an address showing 3-4 digits is considered a "long address"? How else to explain your reversion to a simple one digit "3" and finding success?
-Crandell
Unfortunately we don't have another system to check this out. I have been told by a few folks that we may have to add a Power Booster for the program track to be able to read the new Tsunami decoders.
This sounds like a glitch in the MRC Prodigy system more than anything to do with the decoders. Since you say this is a club layout, do they have a different system to try and see if they get the same results?
Interesting. Well, as far as them having been "shipped with the decoders in DC mode", there really is no such animal. Dual-mode decoders, that allow you to run on DC or DCC, are programmed to recognize whether the track power is DC or AC (of course it's AC power for DCC) and respond accordingly.
The other day we ran into an interesting problem at the club layout. We had three locomotives, two Atheran and one Stewart/Bowser that came from the store DCC/Sound equipped with Tsunami decoders. All three locomotives were new out of the box and had the same issue. When we went to program them on the programming track, the MRC (Prodigy Express Squared) system did not recognize them. When we placed them on the main track the engines ran and could not be slowed or stopped. The sound also worked, without any control.
We stumbled upon a solution. While holding the locomotives on the main track (with them running) we got the handheld to recognize them by manually typing "3" (not 0003, just 3) in the address line, hit enter, then assign them an address number.
Don't ask me why, but it worked for all of them. My guess is that they might have been shipped with the deocders in DC mode and perhaps forcing the handheld to recognize them as "3" fixed that. Not sure, just a guess. I'm new to DCC, so perhaps someone else on here knows what happened and why, but I'd like to offer it as a solution to others if it helps.