I'm having major issues with the new Athearn ES44AC with DCC Soundtrax Decoder. I use the digitrax super chief and DT402 throttle. I could not get it to take the unit number I wanted to program it with. I took it to my hobby shop and they programed it. I changed my 9 volt battery like he suggested, and tried to change the CV'S for the speed since it moves really fast. I set it at 30, 128, and 255 and it still moves like a bat out of hell. I don't understand why I can't program it with my system, yet everything else will program just fine. Any ideas?
Soundtraxx decoders take more power on the program track. You can get their PTB-100 program track booster or, for a lot of things, just use Ops Mode and program it on the main.
Unless they changed things, the custom version used in the Genesis locos does not support CV6 for mid speed. And anyway, if you set CV2 to 30, CV6 to 128, and CV5 to 255, you haven't reduced the top speed at all. 255 is the max. If you want full throttle to be slower than default, you need to use a lower value in CV5. If it starts up like a jackrabbit, you need to use a lower value in CV2, this is the starting voltage. The higher the value in CV2, the faster the loco will run on speed step 1.
Ops mode only programs to the selected address, so if you dial up this loco and verify that you are indeed controlling it, you then hit the program button until it says Po. You can then pick a CV and a value just like you do when using the program track. No other locos will be affected.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
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