Maxman, yes, I believe it is the CV set you are talking about. I had a jerky formerly Stealth version of BLI's J Class that I had a Heavy Steam Tsunami installed, and it improved markedly after I saw that thread where those CV's were mentioned and decided to have a go at them myself.
Thanks for your reply.
Crandell
As Noted, The other manufacturers have BEMF which is the same as your explaination of "Kick Start"
QSI calls it RTC Regulated Throttle Control. This is a different version of BEMF and works great on Consists.
Years ago there was a law suit with BEMF which resulted in manufacturers changing the function a little and re-naming it. Seems like whenever something is screwed up there is a lawyer behind it.
Springfield PA
Kickstart isn't needed for decoders with BEMF like the Tsunami. With BEMF there is an implied kick start as the decoder will try to make the motor turn at the command speed. Kick start or toeque compensation is used to ovecome the lack of starting torque when high frequency drive is used.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
selector I can't say yes or no, but I do know that if you are talking about the DCC/Sound that Bachmann sells as a unit, the decoder is a stripped version of the Tsunami from Soundtraxx. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the missing features is one that adds a bit of extra voltage on start-up. Have you tried looking through a manual, if there is one. The real Tsunamis have a darned good start-up smoothing feature in CV's 117-119 if I have those right...it has been a while for me. Crandell
I can't say yes or no, but I do know that if you are talking about the DCC/Sound that Bachmann sells as a unit, the decoder is a stripped version of the Tsunami from Soundtraxx. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the missing features is one that adds a bit of extra voltage on start-up. Have you tried looking through a manual, if there is one. The real Tsunamis have a darned good start-up smoothing feature in CV's 117-119 if I have those right...it has been a while for me.
The aftermarket Tsunami only has a Vstart adjustment, CV 2, for what they call basic speed control. There is no CV 117 and CV 119 appears to be not related to the motor. CV 118 is called motor recovery speed, but seems to have something to do with the speed the motor will return to if there is a momentary power loss.
I think you mean CVs 209-214, which Soundtraxx calls "advanced motor control features". All of these CVs are related to the motor. I have a gut feeling that these will help the motor "run better", but I don't understand how they interact. The Tsunami Diesel Technical reference (http://www.soundtraxx.com/manuals/Tsunami%20Diesel%20Technical%20Reference_1.13.pdf) does define these CVs. For example, CV 209 (Kp coefficient) "contains a value between 0 and 255 that specifies a gain factor for the proportional part of the PID motor control equation". And CV 212 (motor control intensity) "contains a value between 0 and 255, interpreted as n/32 that is fed back from the control loop".
While all of that might be nice, it provokes a "what choo be talkin about, Willis" reaction from me. I did do a search for the PID curve thing, but the definition didn't exactly clear thigs up.
For whatever it might be worth, I've been trying to speed match a couple diesels for a friend. Some of them have Tsunami's. He was unhappy with them because they sort of had a jump start, rather than the just start to crawl speed he wanted to see at speed step one. I was able to get them to move at about 1 smph (depending upon the original mechanism) by using the speed tables. I left all those other advanced motor control CVs at the factory default values.
gandydancer19 Decoder manuals don't usually come with ready to run locos, so you will need to download them from the decoder manufacturers web site. Finding the right manual for the decoder you have is going to be the biggest challenge.
Decoder manuals don't usually come with ready to run locos, so you will need to download them from the decoder manufacturers web site. Finding the right manual for the decoder you have is going to be the biggest challenge.
If they are a SoundTraxx Tsunami equipped product, manuals for the decoders that come with the various brands are available from the SoundTraxx web site.
http://www.soundtraxx.com/factory/index.php
The kickstart feature goes by different names on different manufacturers decoders. But as stated by selector, often the decoders that come in ready to run locos are a cheaper version, with only the very basics and none of the good stuff.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.
I'm pretty new to DCC. Setting up a couple locos it seems that NCE and QSI have a kickstart feature that hads spikes of starting voltage to an engine and gradually decreases as the engine picks up speed. This seemed helpful on a couple of my older locos that i retrofitted with NCE decoders. A couple of my Spectrum locos with Soundtraxx decoders seem to lack this feature. Am I missing something? Do they have a similar but differently named feature that I'm missing?
Thanks in advance.
Mark