A DT402 stays on the power screen, where it says Y=ON N=OFF until you press Exit, at least mne does. The DT400 drops off the power screen immediately like you said. Not sure that was a great change, but that's the way they work, at least, again, my two, on my system.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I think the manual also says to hit the function key after you restore track power, but I have not had to do that with the DT400 throttle encoder knobs. As soon as I click or rotate one of them, the system is ready to go.
Would the locomotive be a steamer or a diesel? A steamer might need the tether between tender and locomotive inserted more deeply.
Also, it is sometimes best to just reset a decoder to restore it to factory defaults and try again. If it responds, you had a glitch. If it doesn't, you may have a defectived decoder or you are still not doing something you should.
Crandell
Look on the display on your throttle. On the right side of the display there is a dot that appears above the loco address. When you turn on the track power with the throttle the dot must be on solid, if it is flashing you have to hit the power key and the Y key again to make the dot stay illuminated solid. You may have to hit power and Y several times to accomplish this. By the way you must be fast when hitting the power and Y keys. Power first then the Y.
I've tried various things, and I feel like I've read the manual 15 times. I'm still working on it. I won't give up until I get this right!
Thanks for your help.
I cleaned the wheels (I had already cleaned the track). That's a pretty great way to clean wheels! But back on the DCC track again I got nothing. I feel like I've read the manual 15 times. Someone suggested changing to a Digitrax decoder, which I might. Also my "local" (one hour away) hobby store has a guy who is pretty good at DCC. I think it's time to pay him a visit.
Hi,
After 50 years in DC, I switched to DCC two years ago - also to a Digitrax super chief with a second booster, circuit breakers, and second throttle.
The switch was made only after many months (almost a year) of reading Kalmbach DCC books, and asking all the usual questions of the good folks on this forum. Ha, without "them", I probably would not have made the switch - and might be flying model planes or racing model cars today.
When I got the system - coincident with building a replacement 11x15 HO layout - I first did a simple install for testing purposes.
What I want to say is that with DCC, one needs to go slow, start out with the very basic commands, read all you can, and ask specific questions of the good folks on the forum. I have found that to simply run trains and do some basic programming, DCC is not all that complicated. But, there is a huge amount of advanced capabilities resident in your system - be it Digitrax or NCE or ??? - that are best left alone until we really know what we are doing.
For what its worth..................
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
The Alarm message indicates you managed to access the fast clock in the system and set an alarm for yourself. It doesn't mean there's a system problem.
The first thing you should probably do is carefully read the manual. In the throttle section it will explain the fast clock display and how to get out of it. If you press the wrong button, usually pressing the Exit button will get you out of whatever you are in and back to basic throttle mode.
You might want to clean the wheels on the engine and also clean your track with a bright boy available at most hobby stores. A eraser will also work in an emergency. If you can get some one to help use a old transformer with the wires connected to the track side at mid to full power and have them touch a wire to each side of the engine and get a q tip with some alcohol on it to clean the wheels while they are spinning, when they are shiny again they are clean, do all wheels. Try that and get back to us if it works again on the Dcc track, Jim
First of all, I have absolutely no experience with DCC. I bought a Digitrax Super Chief, I have read the owners manual, and I have read articles in Modelrailroader. I have started an N scale layout - something else brand new to me since I used to have HO. Well, I have a section of track laid about 18 feet long. It is sort of the end of a dog bone, so it doubles back on itself and ends right beside where it starts. I wired this before I went any farther so I could troubleshoot early on, and I've got trouble. I only have one engine at this point. Once, it ran. Then I reversed it and it ran the other way. Then it didn't run. I probably pushed some wrong buttons on the throttle. A few days later it didn't run, even after trying to reprogram things on the throttle. A few days later it ran one way, but wouldn't go the other way. By that time I was trying to be more aware of things and I noticed the throttle screen said "alarm" for about a second. Now I can't get it to go. I have put a nickel on the track. The command station does its beeps and lights for a short like it should, and when I take the nickel off it goes back to normal. I bought this engine at a train show. They ran it on a test track and it worked fine. I don't know what brand of decoder is in it. Have I zapped the decoder? Should I install a Digitrax decoder? Am I missing something with the throttle? It would seem like the track is wired properly since the engine ran two different days. Any thoughts??