Well I’ve finally managed to get my Athearn Genesis Challenger programmed! After having the club’s ZTC controller sent away for new software I tried programming engine and tender together; alas no joy, still the same Track Overload warning sprang up, but at least the speaker did give a pop sound (so at least some current was getting through).
This was when one of the guys had the bright idea of removing the loco and leaving the tender on the programming track (since this has the decoder in it). His view was that the loco had probably had an enormous motor in it and this was sucking most of the current - since the controller tries to send info to the decoder to shift the loco once programing is done for confirmation purposes. We tried this and the controller didn’t return a Track Overload message but this time we got a No Response Received message instead, (now sidetracking slightly - I’ve had this message before with NCE decoders and they’ve programmed fine), fingers were crossed the tender returned to the loco and we called up the new number…
…Success the challenger moved under the new number for the first time since I got hold of it 3 years ago [:D]
[banghead] If only we’d thought of that before we’d have saved so much time and money, but at least all our sound equipped locos can now be programmed.
Kind of surprising this actually worked since the typical method of acknowledging the program commands it a short burst of current to the motor. Hence the no response message you got. But the load of cound decoders is typically a large capacitor in the power supply that until charged appears as a short circuit to the DCC supply. If the lights are turned off the loco should not draw excessive current. Unless - does your odel have a smoke unit? The smoke units are usually wired directly to the track pickups and will appear as too great a load, particularly on the program track.
Well, I am glad you had success, but after the first attempt, I have never tried to program mine WITH the locomotive attached. I have always only tried with only the tender on the track. My unit STILL hasn’t moved in three years. So, I guess I am saying I think you were lucky and it probably had nothing to do with having only the tender on the track.
And I’ll repeat the normal warning to everyone else. AVOID the Athearn Genesis units with DCC decoders and sound installed from the factory. They are pure and simply JUNK.
I had trouble pogramming my P2K with QSI sound on the programming track, but I was able to program it on the main (I have an NCE PowerCab). The NCE system won’t allow changing the address on the main, but with the short address active, it did let me change the long address stored in the decoder. Then as a second step, I changed the bit in CV29 (I think) to activate the long address. It seems the NCE system allowed me to circumvent the address change protection. The QSI sound decoder provides verbal CV feedback through the speaker if you learn how to use it.
Funny you should mention this, Randy. I was looking over the manual for my Trix Mike and it says if a smoke unit is installed, it must be removed before altering any CV settings.