Layout running terrible. Not sure what this locomotive is trying to tell me.

[robkoz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mHBFyatgeU

All of my locomotives are starting and stopping all of a sudden. Then I caught this loco doing this with it's lights. Do I have a short somewhere? Is my NCE SB5 starting to fail? The track was cleaned as were the locos so I have no clue what's going on. Hoping what this loco is doing with it's lights can give me some insight.

[CSX Robert]

Were you adjusting the speed of the loco when that was happening?  It looks like the loco is set for 14 speed steps and the command station is sending 28 speed step commands.  In 14 speed step commands, the speed, direction, and headlight are all sent in one byte.  In 28 speed step commands, the bit for the headlight on/off is used for the lowest bit of the speed command (the headlight is sent in a seperate command).  The result of that is if the decoder is expecting 14 speed step commands and the command station is sending 28 speed step commands, the decoder sees increasing or decreasing speed commands as turning the headlight on and off as you go through the speed steps.

[tstage]

Rob,

 

A few questions for you...

1. Did all this happen AFTER you cleaned your track?  Or was it prior to cleaning it?
2. Did you do any programming to the geep prior to the strobing effect?
3. Did you do any trackwork prior to the issues you are experiencing?
4. How many locomotives on your layout might be drawing current while idle? - e.g. audible sound from any sound locomotives

For the Geep you could try performing a decoder reset to return it back to factory settings, which should address the strobing issue.  Another thing to try would be to remove ALL of your locomotives from the layout then place them back on the track one at a time to see if any or all of them continue to start & stop.  Then you'll know whether it's the track or whether one of your locomotives is the culprit.  I suspect the track.

Tom

[know2go]

If all locos lose power identically, its not the cleaning, its the wiring and/or your power supply. Check for consistency and continuity before putting the locos onto it.

[wrench567]

   Do a quarter test around your suspect areas. You may have some feeders come loose or bad solder joint.

    Pete.

[wjstix]

In the video that particular engine seems to be running fine but with it's headlight flashing on and off. Is it possible that somehow or another the CV controlling that light got changed to some type of strobe or other flashing setting? If you know it's an NCE decoder is in it, you can look up the appropriate CV and then read that CV from the engine and see what it is set to (or read all the settings in decoder pro, including the 14 vs 28/128 one) and change it so the light doesn't go on and off.