Last night I had a brand new BLI steamer jump a Walthers DCC friendly frog and short out the whole layout. I've had this happen before with other locos, but this time I ended up with a dead steamer. I can no longer send any commands to the BLI unit, it just sits there puffing out a drizzle of smoke. All of the other locos that were running on the layout at the same time were not damaged.
So, I'm just wondering, are the BLI chips more susceptible to damage from shorts, or did I just end up with a weak loco? Is there anything I should do to my setup to prevent this from happening again? What went wrong this time?
I have a pretty simple dogbone layout, with DCC friendly turnouts, no reversing loops or anything like that. I had 3 other trains going at the same time on a 2 amp NCE power cab system. I do not have separate power blocks.
One of my friends suggested something about a circuit breaker to reduce the chance of this happening, but the NCE system I have already shuts down when it detects a short, so I'm not sure what this will buy me. I don't have the NCE 5 amp power box, just one controller powering the whole layout.
I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible at this point.
Any advice would be appreciated!
Thanks!
If a BLI locomotive is removed from powered track, it should reset when placed back on a powered track. If it doesn't, you need to perform a factory reset of the decoder. The documentation that came with the loco should explain what CV or CVs to set.
Not uncommon for decoders to get scrambled. Check the plug on the back of the loco first then do a reset if the plug is still good. I have had decoders get scrambled that were not even involved in the short occurrence but happened to be in the same block.
Your Power cabs breaker should be sufficient for a one man layout. Its not how many amps the decoder can take. It takes less than one amp to stop a human heart. It takes even less to scramble a decoder. The best thing you can do is a quarter test all around your layout to see if your Power cab trips instantly or takes a second. The cab should trip in blink of an eye quickness.
Pete
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
Try performing a reset before doing anything else:
After the reset you'll have to reprogram the long address for your locomotive and any specific CVs you've adjusted.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
I had a Proto 2K steamer with a QSI decoder do this. The decoder had gotten into some sort of "deep sleep" mode.
If this is a QSI decoder, first try putting it on the track, addressing it and then pressing F6 a few times. F6 is the "wakeup call" from hibernation. If that doesn't work, try address 3, in case it got reset.
None of this worked for me, of course, but I took the engine to my LHS. He has a QSI programmer, and he was able to slowly restore it from its deep slumber.
You might try doing a reset in Ops mode. Your programming track might not have enough power to get through to this thing. Take your other engines off the track when you do this, though. You don't want to reset them all.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I have quite a few Broadway Limited engines with the QSI decoder and this has been somewhat of a frequent occurrence. As Pete stated, the short doesn't have to involve that particular engine.
One of my Pennsy J1s seems to be prone to "losing its mind" and it happens to have a reed switch in the tender. I found that the "Magic wand" supplied with the locomotive isn't always strong enough to make the switch so I resorted to using a super strong magnet pulled from an old hard drive. Or you might have to slip off the tender shell to find it.
SOME of the BLI engines have a reset button under the water hatch, the GG1 has a button under a roof hatch and some of the early Hudsons and maybe others have a button right on the PC board in the tender. The instructions are kind of vague when explaining what and where the button or reed switch is.
When you are successful the engine will tell you "reset complete" or something like that
I have tried CV resets and using Decoder Pro factory reset to no avail, it has to be a physical reset with the button or switch. I believe you have to apply track power while the switch or button is engaged. Seems to me I'v seen other threads where the reed switch is defective so you have to physically jumper the switch... a pain but as a last resort! BLI documentation doesn't seem to adhere to any specific locomotive.
Hope this helps...Ed
Hey guys,
Thanks for your quick replies and the valuable info! I've tried resetting CV8 to 8 now as you suggested. The model responded as if to take the CV setting, however, it's still not responding to any commands on address 3. I'll have to try the reset switch on the decoder tomorrow. Looks like I have to open the tender to do this.
Thanks again!
Hey guys, the "ez reset" button on the decoder did the trick.
Thanks for your help!