Hi,
Lately I've been on a CV "roll", and I appreciate all your help in furthering my education.
As I understand, one can program a loco and/or sound decoder via this method. The "only" downside - as I understand - is you can't read your input in that mode. The upside is you can quickly find out if your programming "took" or not.
Is the above correct?
And in that regard, I should be able to do all my programming needs for the QSI, Tsunami, Digitrax, and NCE decoders (all mobile) via this method. Is this correct?
Am I missing something in my assumptions?
Thank you,
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
That's pretty much right, except that I'd probably change one line.
You said ,"you can't read your input in that mode." Well, your throttle's display will probably echo your input.
But what you can't read back is the contents of any of the CV's. That holds true whether you've "input" any changes to them or not.
P.S. Especially since you have a Digitrax system, do yourself a favor and get a PR3 and a suitable power supply for it, and also the free JMRI suite. The PR3 will program and read back from all those sound decoders, and JMRI will allow you to keep a profile of the CV values for each loco.
mobilman44 The "only" downside - as I understand - is you can't read your input in that mode. The upside is you can quickly find out if your programming "took" or not.
The "only" downside - as I understand - is you can't read your input in that mode. The upside is you can quickly find out if your programming "took" or not.
Essentially correct. I use NCE, and while it's true that ops mode programming doesn't give you true readback capability, the Pro Cab will display the last CV setting on the particular decoder you're currently programming until you change your selection to a different decoder. This is helpful for quickly tuning up a few things like back emf and CVs 5 and 6, as the screen will display what you programmed last so you don't have to remember each setting.
As to whether the programming "takes," note that it's easy to set an invalid value that will have no impact on how the decoder works, so if you don't get the desired response it could be from a typo. Using your programming track or JMRI will help you there.
Rob Spangler
The only other thing to add is setting addresses. The automatic setting of CV17, 18, and 29 might not work when doing Ops Mode programming. In such cases youc an use the calculator I posted in the other thread to calculate values for CV17 and 18, then set CV29. Upon setting CV29, you will loose control of the loco as this will activate the new long address. Select that address and youw ill get the loco back.
If the current address is a short address, say a defaulot of 3, you can program a long address. If the current address is already a long address, you can only program CV1 for a short address and then set CV29 to use the short address. So to use Ops Mode to change an existing long address, you'd have to set to a short address first, and then set the new long address.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
First and foremost: I am NOT an expert with DCC or programming, I limp my way through it just like you are
I use a digitrax xtra (no hand helds yet) and the only issue I have had with programming is the address. Even though Randy gave me the CV17,CV18 formula, it still wouldn't take. I had to use the "blast mode" to program the long address, everything else is programmed through the ops mode.
Yes, I can't read back the CV's, but that's why I have a spread sheet to keep track of my programming. The blast mode process is explained in the back of the manual in the OpSw Table. Be careful with the blast mode, you must remove ALL other locos from the track that you don't want to program.
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Tsunamis I don;t think allow address programming ont he main, yet ANOTHER miss on their part. However, my one Tsunami programs just fine with my Zephyr on the program track.
Hi!
Well, thru a lot of trial and error today, I've figured out that operations programming works great for some changes, while the programming track works better for others.
Unlike those "gimme hats", one size does not fit all.
I do have one more question, but I'll ask that on a new post.
thank you all!
You can program almost any CV in operations mode, except for the decoder address, which cannot be changed. It doesn't allow reading back the values in a CV either.
In service mode you can change the address and any other CV, but, it will cause the CVs of every decoder on the track to change as well. In service mode instructions are not directed at any one specific decoder. But you can read back the contents of the CVs.
Only some decoders won;t allow address changing in Ops Mode. Most you can do just fine, I change addresses with Ops Mode all the time.