Allan, I do have a few short sidings I can park this beast on, but strangely enough, I started messing around with the hand held and discovered that if I double pulse the light button, the sound turns off(not a shut down sequence) and then another double pulse and the sound comes back on, so I been cheating it I guess. I ran the loco today with a track cleaner car for about a half hour and it sounded great. I didn't mind listening to it at all, but it is my first and only sound loco so far.
Rich
Rich,
If your loco is sitting by itself on a siding, why not isolate the siding with a simple on/off toggle switch.
All of the sidings on my BRVRR are controlled this way which allows for loco storage on the yard tracks, engine facility sidings and all of the industrial sidings if necessary.
A $2.00 switch, some track insulators and a little wire is a small price to pay if you are happy with your present system. And isolating the sidings will pay of when you upgrade as well.
Just a thought.
Remember its your railroad
Allan
Track to the BRVRR Website: http://www.brvrr.com/
I just read through the manual myself, and it appears to handle programming unlike most any other system. It doesn't appear to be able to select individual Cvs as per your own choosing.
Looks like you're going to have to find somebody with a better system to do it for you, or bite the bullet and make an upgrade. NCE has a really nice starter system that won't break the bank.
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
I have the same old Prodigy system. Very reliable but very limited compared to the new systems available now.
Gale
Mark, I would have no clue how to re-map F3 to F8. Is that done in the DCC system itself or in the loco decoder?? I feel an upgrade on the horizon.........lol!!
Thanks for pdf link also......
I was pretty much in the same boat at one time. I used an old Atlas Commander for years when I first went to DCC. It only had F0 to F4 as well. This was fine when I was running all non-sound engines, but when sound decoders began to populate my roster, I soon realized the short-comings of the system.
My first solution was to remap F8 to F3. F3 is usually the coupler crash sound, which I really had no use for. That got things working, but I still couldn't access all the other features. Plus the Atlas Commander could only do 2-digit addressing, which just wasn't cutting it any longer with my growing roster. My only real solution was to upgrade to a better system.
In the interim, you could follow my lead and re-map F8 to the F3 slot which would at least allow you to shut the engine down.
Here's the manual for your system ....
http://www.modelrectifier.com/resources/trainSound/Prodigy_insts.pdf
A few years ago I purchased a SD 40-2 from kato in HO scale. It was an absolutely beautiful piece and ran flawlessly in DC mode. It was not my road of even the era I try to model, but I wanted it, so I bought it. Well, after spending most of its life stuffed away in its box(I don't think I put 1 hour of running time on her) I decided to install an MRC sound decoder made for the unit. The process went smoothly and quicker than I expected, but off to the basement we went for programming and a test run. All went perfect and I was soon running the layout with my first sound dcc diesel. After realizing that this loco is just going to idle forever when not being run, I figured there had to bea way to shut her down. I re-read the decoder manual and it stated to simply push F8 and it would shut down. This may be an issue. I don't have F8 on my throttle. It only goes to F4. My DCC system is an old MRC piece from maybe mid to late 90's, and I seemed to have misplaced the manual. IT has a selector type dial that you turn for addresses 1-16 in white and 17-32 in green. I know its a dinasaur but it still works pretty darn good. Anyone have any expieience with this oldie but goodie??