I have heard there is a way to program your locomotives so that they will run all together, like making them run only at a curtain speed when the throttle is all the way up. I’m not talking about MU’ing them. Like an Atlas running with a Proto 2000 or an Overland model without one pulling or shoving the other.
I have A digitrax system, so mabye some one can run me through this.
Any help is greatfull.
James
James,
I’m not an expert, but if I understand your question you can “fine tune” your locos using the CV values to make them all run about the same.
For example you can set the CV for max voltage for each loco so that they will all have the same top speed. But it’s a bit more complicated to make them all respond the same at all throttle settings.
Is this what you were asking. [:)]
Thats it!! Now, how do you program them on the throttle?
James
You can set up V-start, V-mid and V-max and probably get the results you want. Look at your manual for programming and CV numbers. In Digitrax, only the 3 series decoders (i.e. DH123, DH163, etc.) support those CVs in 128 step mode.
The actual speed matching can be a little tricky. The way I do it is to set the V-start for one locomotive so that it starts to move at throttle step one and I use this loco as the ‘master’ for all the others. Now I put a second loco on the track and set both throttles to 1 and enter ops mode programming. I then gradually increase the V-start value of the second loco until it matches the speed of the first loco. Next, exit programming and increase both throttles to 50. Re-enter ops mode programming and adjust the V-mid in the second loco until it matches the speed of the ‘master’ loco. Repeat the process for V-max with the throttle at 99. I do this on a flat oval of track to make it easy to see both locos at the same time and keep them close. Using ops mode allows the locos to be moving the whole time and the changes to the CVs are immediate, taking away some of the guess work.
~Joshua
Thanks allot for the info. I think I will try that.
James
Joshua has it pretty much right. Its a little different for each decoder brand so check your manual, but you set how much voltage the decoder sends to the motor at a given throttle setting. Whatever settings you decide are best you should write down in your decoder manuals in case you ever need to re program.
If you have decoderpro you can program each individual speed step. You don’t need decoderpro to do this, but if you do each CV one at a time it could take a while. Programming each step isnt necessary in my opinion, but I know some very picky people who will match all 128 of them.