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Courtesy of Trainorders. I'm not DCC or a Bachmann guy but I saved this for future use. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Reply To This Message ] [ Quote This Message ] [ Edit Post ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A clarification here... I have a Spectrum Heavy Mountain which is a great model. I did, however, have problems when I tried installing a decoder. In this case it was a Digitrax DH163 series. I had erratic running problems and could not resolve it. Finally, I found an app note on the TCS web page concerning this problem. It seems Bachmann is trying to deal with European RFI/EMI restrictions. These are pretty severe because they still want to use rabbit ear antennas on their TVs and don't like interference from noisy motors, as in your favorite model train. Thus Bachmann has gone to some lengths to suppress this by installing hash filters in the motor leads. The filters are highly reactive, consisting of capacitors and inductors, or at least a capacitor. This kind of load affects the feedback that the decoder sees. The result is that the decoder can't figure out how to handle it, gets lost and does strange things. My solution was to remove the filter components altogether. When I did that, the loco ran just fine with no hiccups at all. A second piece of information came in a recent article in Model Railroad News. The writer, John Sipple (also editor) described how he took the board out completely to cure his loco, a different model. The item on Tony's web page doesn't seem to quite fit but in my years of dealing with customer's technical problems, it often turns out that the complaint doesn't quite describe the actual problem and maybe gets a bit exaggerated out of frustration. I must say that this was one place Bachmann fell down on support. The only response I could get from them was "send it in for repair." That didn't appeal to me as it left me with the feeling that it would have led to one of those "no problem found" results. Certainly Bachmann must be familiar with this by now and have a fix. The least they could do is let their customers know about it. The Digitrax data sheet didn't help either. There was a vague reference to the possibility of a capacitor across the motor leads causing problems but that was it. They could have been more specific as well. The bottom line is if you have a Bachmann loco, don't hesitate to remove those filter components. It might be a pain to identify them but you can leave the board in place. If there are inductors, there will usually be two of them and they will be in series with the motor leads. You will have to replace them with a jumper. The caps can just be removed. If all else fails remove the board and wire in your decoder. Almost certain to work. Edited 1 times. Last edit at 05/10/04 14:52 by . [ Reply To This Message ] [ Quote This Message ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ Subscribe To Thread ] [ Search ] [ Start a New Thread ] [ Back to Thread List ] [ Next> ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2005 Trainorders.com Inc, All Rights Reserved. Click here for our privacy statement. Read our Service Goal 0.2315 secs
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