I recently bought an N scale Broadway Limited Diesel engine with Paragon 3 Decoder. The engine is excellent, as expected. My problem: On my home layout I would like to run the loco in DC and . in consists with other DC locos (Kato). However, because of the decoder the Broadway engine doesn´t start to run with the other engines. Can I deactivate the decoder or is it necessary to install a DC board?
to the forum. Your posts get delayed in moderation for a while.
Reading between the lines, do you belong to a club that runs DCC? BLI decoders are a bit of an anomoly but all other recently produced decoders are dual mode. Most who exclusively run DCC disable the DC running ability. That is done with CV 29. Perhaps it is disabled on your loco.
CV 29 controls multiple things and here is a calculator
If you don't belong to a club and did not buy your engine from a local train store, then you can tell us where you live and maybe another member, local to you, can help you out
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
I gather the BLI locomotive has sound and the Kato are plain jane DC? Out of the box it runs on DC but the starting voltage is way higher than the Kato. Unfortunately deactivating the decoder is not the answer. You will have to eliminate the decoder and rewire the locomotive. Probably the best thing is to sell the unit and buy another Kato.
Pete.
Just to amplify the earlier responses, if by "deactivate" you mean essentially "bypass", the answer is no. The problem I believe you're having is that a sound-equipped DCC engine is set up so when DC power is applied, it first goes towards the sounds. This can take around 6-8 volts more or less depending on the decoder and it's settings. Then what's left over is applied to the engine's motor to make it move. With a regular DC engine, the power goes right to the motor so it starts running at very low voltage.
I mentioned settings because sometimes you can adjust the CVs (Control Values) of the decoder so it starts sooner. But you probably will never be able to match it up to your straight DC engines.
If your engine's sound decoder is plugged into a (probably green) lightboard, you might be able to get a 'dummy' plug from BLI and replace the decoder with it. Then it would be a DC-only engine. You might be able to sell the sound decoder to someone, a good chunk of the cost of the engine was probably the sound decoder installed in it.
If that's not possible, as mentioned above, you could remove the lightboard and 'hardwire' the engine's wires. You could also sell the DCC engine and use the money to buy a DC-only engine from a different manufacturer. (Unfortunately I believe BLI engines - at least up until very recently - are only available with DCC/Sound. Most manufacturers offer their engines in "DCC ready" (i.e., DC power) or DCC/Sound installed versions.)
Welcome Knuti.
Unfortunately, there is no "easy" way to bypass the BLI board, as they use a specialized decoder control board. While the BLI locomotive is DC compatible, it can not be made to run with non-sound locomotives without major modifications.
This is due to the sound board requiring a higher voltage to start up, and that board in BLI units controls lights, motor, and sound, all at once.
You will need to do one of two options to run it together with the Kato(s):
1 - Remove the BLI board completely and hardwire the locomotive to run (without sound) on straight DC. This will allow the BLI locomotive to be a much closer match to the Kato DC locomotives.
Note: No part of the BLI sound board may remain if you elect this option. All of the sound and control board must be removed, and the lights and motor rewired completely.
DC control works by changing at track level how much power is supplied, therby allowing speed control, and by changing polarity at track level to change direction of movement.
Because of this, no other sound board may be used in place of the BLI board either, due to all on-board sound systems requirement of a higher start voltage than non-sound locomotives on DC power.
Or option 2 - Upgrade the layout and Kato unit(s) to run DCC.
If you decide to change the Kato units and layout and go DCC, a small starter system would work just fine on most home layouts. DCC with or without sound can be consisted together on DCC only. To keep cost down, you could go with a small starter DCC system and non-sound decoders in the Kato units.
This works, as on DCC systems, the track receives a constant voltage, high enough to run sound boards and non-sound boards alike, and the decoders use what they need (when told) to control lights, sound, along with both speed and direction of movement.
But it is impossible to consist the DCC & Sound BLI locomotive on DC with non-DCC & Sound locomotives as is.
You do have other options, such as not running the BLI locomotive with your other non-sound locomotives, which would allow you to keep the locomotives you already have without making modifications to them, while still running everything via DC control.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
1: It's my railroad, my rules.
2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
As others mentioned, due to the electronics, they do require more power before running. If you are fine running it in DC, and OK with sounds not matching, you could pretty easily just wire the motor to track power directly. You could disconnect the speakers as well then since the sounds it makes under load and such will no longer work. BUT if you do that, you should still have lighting anyways.
With that said, if you have their DC Master, so you can program CV's still on them, there are some you can try to adjust such as CV252, which relates to the starting voltage, meaning you can set it to start running at a lower volage. Of course though, if you are running them against plan old DC, motors right to track power, etc. then tweaking CV's may not help either, to where you may just need to do the same on the engine then.
Many thanks. I hoped it would be easier.
Knuti
You could do the 'old fashioned' (pre-DCC) method of speed matching, which would be to add resistors to each of the other DC engines until they slowed down to be at least roughly the same speed as the BLI engine.
I would at least consider the possibility of converting to DCC before doing anything to the BLI engine. You would need to add decoders to each DC engine; many engine have a DCC plug installed to make converting them super easy, or have a 'drop in' decoder that replaces the lightboard. Non-sound decoders aren't all that expensive.
If you currently have a working DC layout, it would take about 5 minutes to convert the layout itself DCC. Basically just moving the two wires from the DC powerpack to the DCC controller output.
Were you able to figure this out? I just bought one from this company but I am unable to run it in DC. I have steam engine that runs but not paragon rolling thunder 6281 ac6000. Any advice would be appreciated. IT says its ready to run in dc.
Knuti I recently bought an N scale Broadway Limited Diesel engine with Paragon 3 Decoder. The engine is excellent, as expected. My problem: On my home layout I would like to run the loco in DC and . in consists with other DC locos (Kato). However, because of the decoder the Broadway engine doesn´t start to run with the other engines. Can I deactivate the decoder or is it necessary to install a DC board?
In order to run your Broadway Limited Diesel engine with other DC locomotives, you have the option to either deactivate the decoder or install a DC board, depending on your preference and the specific requirements of your layout.
io games
Almost all DCC decoders made in the last say 15-20 years are made to just pass through DC signal, so will work on DC. There is no way to "deactivate" the decoder other than removing it and rewiring the engine (which doesn't need a "DC board", just connect the track wires to the motor and lights).
Unfortunately, a DCC-sound engine won't move on DC until it gets pretty close to full power. The power goes to the sound first, so the engine may start making sounds at 70% power and not move until 80 or 90% power. You may be able to adjust some CVs (control values) to make it run at a bit lower power perhaps, but it's not going to work that well on DC.
Options basically are (a) buy a DCC starter outfit, convert all engines to DCC (takes a couple of minutes usually, pull out a dummy plug and plug in the decoder) or sell the DCC-sound engines and get DC-only or at least DCC/DC non-sound engines.