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Help, my intermountain engine wont move or respond

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Help, my intermountain engine wont move or respond
Posted by the old train man on Saturday, May 20, 2017 4:41 PM

I have a new intermountain sd40-2 and I was resetting some cvs. I tried to make it move and I get no response. The sound is there but nothing else.  I tried putting cv 8 to 8 without any luck. Any ideas? Thanks.

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Posted by BigDaddy on Saturday, May 20, 2017 5:06 PM

IM's are supposed to have Loksound Select decoders.  Somebody will probably ask, may as well be me. 

What DCC system are you using?                                                     Did you cycle the power off and on?                                                       What CV's were you monkeying with?

 

Henry

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Posted by the old train man on Saturday, May 20, 2017 5:13 PM

Digitrax,cant remember which cvs

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Posted by tstage on Saturday, May 20, 2017 5:23 PM

It's always a good habit to write down the defaults and new values of any CVs you change so that you do HAVE to reset the decoder to the original settings in order to fix a decoder that isn't responding.

CV 8=8 is the correct reset value for a Loksound decoder.  As suggested, cycling the power is always a good idea after a reset to ensure the reset took.

Tom

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Posted by the old train man on Saturday, May 20, 2017 5:27 PM

Just found my list.as follows    

 

cv116 to 15,cv209 to50,cv210 to 1,cv212 to 25

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Posted by BigDaddy on Saturday, May 20, 2017 5:28 PM

Can we assume this is an established working model railroad and DCC system; not brand new construction with your first engine?

Henry

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Posted by the old train man on Saturday, May 20, 2017 5:33 PM

Yes and this layout has been in operation 15 years.All of my other sound,dcc engines respond perfect.

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Posted by richg1998 on Saturday, May 20, 2017 6:21 PM

It has been a while but after a successful reset and cycling the track power, after six seconds the headlight will flash a number of times. The loco should respond to address 3.

Rich

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Posted by the old train man on Saturday, May 20, 2017 6:26 PM

Rich,I tries 8 to 8, no change no blinking,the engine sound is on but cant control functions.

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Posted by PennCentral99 on Saturday, May 20, 2017 7:47 PM

Lost/Non-Responsive Decoder – PROG → OPS → Address “00” → CV 8 = 8, CV 30 = 2 → Power Down. You should regain control under address 03

You may want to remove other locos, just to ensure they don't get reset

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Posted by Drumguy on Saturday, May 20, 2017 8:37 PM

I had a similar thing happen with one of mine a while back (I'm using Digitrax). Finally got JMRI up and running and did a Decoder read using Decoder Pro, turns out it had spontaneously decided it was part of a consist (In other words, I unwittingly did something stupid). Can't remember which CV(s) handle consist info, but many on this forum know them inside and out. I corrected the errant consist CVs, and got full control back.

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Posted by mfm37 on Saturday, May 20, 2017 8:38 PM

PennCentral99

You may want to remove other locos, just to ensure they don't get reset

Definitely remove all other engines/decoders. They will be changed when programming address 00 in OP's mode.

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Posted by Mark R. on Saturday, May 20, 2017 10:06 PM

CVs above 255 need to have upper register Cvs 31and 32 set properly first as there are multiples of the same CV number depending on how the upper register CVs are set. If you don't know what you are doing whe setting these upper register Cvs, hard to tell just what you set.

On the program track, write a value of 8 to CV8 and power cycle the engine. The address will be reset to the same address it was set to when you bought it -not necessarily address 3 if it was set to the engine number from the factory.

Mark.

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Posted by the old train man on Saturday, May 20, 2017 10:22 PM

Thanks for ideas but still no solution.Crying

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Posted by richhotrain on Sunday, May 21, 2017 6:14 AM

the old train man

I have a new intermountain sd40-2 and I was resetting some cvs. I tried to make it move and I get no response. The sound is there but nothing else.  I tried putting cv 8 to 8 without any luck. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

OK, so the loco was new and you reset some CVs. Did the loco initially work "out of the box? Or, did you immediately reset those CVs before even testing the loco on the layout?

Rich

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Posted by richhotrain on Sunday, May 21, 2017 6:20 AM

the old train man

Just found my list.as follows    

 

cv116 to 15,cv209 to50,cv210 to 1,cv212 to 25

 

What was it that you were trying to do?

The Loksound Select manual provided on the IM site doesn't even mention CV116 in the list of CVs?

Rich

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Posted by richhotrain on Sunday, May 21, 2017 6:24 AM

Hmm, say wait a minute. Is this a Tsunami decoder?

If it is, try CV30=2 in OPS mode, then cycle power to the decoder by turning power to the track off and then back on.

Rich

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Posted by the old train man on Sunday, May 21, 2017 8:33 AM

Rich,I did test run the engine a few minutes on the layout,it worked fine,then i read on some forum to make intermountain engines run better change the cv values to the values I mentioned before then i got locked out. It seems as though I accidently locked something and nothing works. I do dread sending the unit back to intermountain for something I did.Oops - Sign

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Posted by BigDaddy on Sunday, May 21, 2017 8:56 AM

The enemy of good is better.

I'm not the DCC guru for sure, but it looks like current production IM's have Loksound.  You haven't said differently.  There is a locking function in decoders, Loksound doesn't address this in the parts of the manual that I read, but CV 15 & 16 are used to do this in some decoders. 

My theory is if you changed CV 16 instead of 116 you locked the decoder and won't be able to reset it until it's unlocked.  Again, I'm not the guru, I never locked a decoder and I don't know for sure that function is part of Loksound.  You can read more about it here  http://www.dccwiki.com/Decoder_Programming_Lock

 

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Posted by Mark R. on Sunday, May 21, 2017 12:51 PM

the old train man

Just found my list.as follows    

 

cv116 to 15,cv209 to50,cv210 to 1,cv212 to 25

 

I'd like to know where you got that list. I just inspected the file for the Intermountain SD40-2 and NONE of those CVs are valid numbers for that file. Changing them should have basically done nothing, but they may interact with other CVs. Since they are not valid CVs for that file, go back in and set them all to 0 and see what you get.

Mark.

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Posted by richhotrain on Sunday, May 21, 2017 4:10 PM

BigDaddy

The enemy of good is better.

I'm not the DCC guru for sure, but it looks like current production IM's have Loksound.  You haven't said differently. 

Before InterMountain installed Loksound, they used Tsunami. Tsunami supports those CVs.  Which is it, OP?

Rich

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Posted by richhotrain on Sunday, May 21, 2017 4:11 PM

Mark R.

 

 
the old train man

Just found my list.as follows    

 

cv116 to 15,cv209 to50,cv210 to 1,cv212 to 25

 

 

 

I'd like to know where you got that list. I just inspected the file for the Intermountain SD40-2 and NONE of those CVs are valid numbers for that file. Changing them should have basically done nothing, but they may interact with other CVs. Since they are not valid CVs for that file, go back in and set them all to 0 and see what you get.

Mark.

 

How about reading back the CV values to see what is in there. Heck, might as well see what is in CV16 while you are at it.

Rich

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Posted by the old train man on Sunday, May 21, 2017 6:32 PM

I read them back and they read 0.

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Posted by Mark R. on Sunday, May 21, 2017 11:37 PM

I can't help thinking you aren't accessing the proper address for some reason or the engine is still assigned to another throttle. 

Seeing as how we are down to pulling at straws, tell me what values are in CV1, CV8, CV17, CV18, CV19 and CV29.

Mark.

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Posted by richhotrain on Monday, May 22, 2017 4:23 AM

Mark R.

Seeing as how we are down to pulling at straws, tell me what values are in CV1, CV8, CV17, CV18, CV19 and CV29.

I would start by checking CV8 to determine the Manufacturer ID.  LokSound is a value of 15 whereas Tsunami is a value of 141.

I researched the Tsunami manual and the use of CV116, 209-212 is for "CV Optimization". So, apparently, that is what the OP set out to do after reading about it somewhere, but he may or may not have a Tsunami since IM now uses LokSound.  

The other CV to check is CV16, the Lock CV. If it is set to something other than zero, it is locked and no other CVs can be changed until CV15 = CV16.

So, check CV8 first to determine whose decoder you have and then check CV16 to see if the decoder is locked. Also, recall that if the decoder is a Tsunami, CV30=2 is the preferred reset to factory default but only after CV15=CV16 if CV16 is other than zero.

Rich

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Posted by maxman on Monday, May 22, 2017 7:46 AM

Mark R.

I can't help thinking you aren't accessing the proper address for some reason or the engine is still assigned to another throttle. 

Seeing as how we are down to pulling at straws, tell me what values are in CV1, CV8, CV17, CV18, CV19 and CV29.

Mark.

 

 
And how are you reading back the CV values?  Does your command station support a programming track?  If you are reading back the values "on the main", you will get zeros because you cannot read back on the main.
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Posted by 7j43k on Monday, May 22, 2017 10:45 AM

For DCC, there are (presently) two ways to program a locomotive:  "programming track" and "on the main".

Note that these terms don't really mean the physical track.  Again: THEY DON'T REALLY MEAN THE PHYSICAL TRACK.

The real difference is that the two methods have DIFFERENT characteristics.  And one of them is that you cannot "read back" CV values with "on the main" programming.

So, as has been mentioned or implied by some folks above, you cannot read CV values when you are in the "on the main" mode.  Whatever track you are physically on.  Lifting a loco from your "programming" track to your layout does not affect which mode you are in.  Nor does going in the other direction.

 

 

While the above is obvious to old timers in DCC,  it was NOT obvious to me when I was a beginner.

 

 

Ed

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Posted by the old train man on Monday, May 22, 2017 11:53 AM

Ok guys  I tried reprograming in ops on main line,dir on the program track,nothing worked,finally I got in touch with intermtn tech guy and he walked me thru some cds and we finally figured out that intermtn programed the engine to a 4 letter address,(the engines number) and since it was a new engine I put it on the number3 when I got it,funny thing is I test ran it on 3 on my layout before it started acting up.Now I have it on the four digit engine number and EUREKA it works.....!!!! T hanks to all for your time and help.Big Smile

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Posted by BigDaddy on Monday, May 22, 2017 1:53 PM

So how is it his resets didn't erase the long address?

Henry

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Posted by richhotrain on Monday, May 22, 2017 2:01 PM

BigDaddy

So how is it his resets didn't erase the long address?

 

Good question, Henry.  The OP got the loco running, so he is undoubtedly satisfied, but it leaves some unanswered questions for us interested bystanders.

It is not clear from his comments exactly what the IM tech guy did to get it working.

And, it still leaves unanswered if the decoder was a LokSound or a Tsunami. It may well be a LokSound that he programmed as if it were a Tsunami.

Who knows, he may have locked the decoder in which case even a reset won't work until the decoder is unlocked.

Rich

Alton Junction

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