Good fortune brought a Spectrum Northern into my stable last night. It is HO and DCC but runs on my DC layout. I also have a BLI Mike with sound. They look real nice together in front of a string of coal cars I got with the Northern. Using the rubber wheel on the Mike I can deal with the extreem grades on my Mountain pass. THE PROBLEM - In starting, while the Mike is chugging away, the Northern is spinning like crazy until I get the throtle up to the Mike’s starting setting. Is there anything I can do to have these run better together until I finally get DCC?
You can re-program the starting setting on the BLI, but I don’t think it’ll do that much good–about the lowest DC starting voltage I’ve been able to get on my BLI’s is about 5 volts, and by that time, the Spectrum would be spinning like crazy. I’ve been able to program my BLI’s to double-head, but I’ve had no luck double-heading them with any of my other non-sound locos. It boils down to all of the extra DC voltage that it takes to kick in the sound decoder on the BLI.
That’s my experience, at least. Maybe someone else will have an answer for BOTH of us.
Tom [:D]
I think you might also get them both synched in CV’s 3 and 4 (inertia and momentum, respectively). Once you get them to accelerate and pass a given point (distance…time them) from the same start-point, you will have them acting like the real McCoys. [:D] Try setting each loco to a value of “90” in each of those CV’s, and watch how they accelerate to an end point. Adjust by values of 10 until they appear to cross the “finish line” at very nearly the same time. Then, once you have their starting voltages adjusted so that one click of the throttle gets them both grinding, the rest is already synched and you can snap the throttle up to 20 or 30 and watch them chuff and puff as they get the train moving.
P.S. - I hope by now that you have begun routinely pressing the button for “coupler crash” every time you move away from a stop. [:D] Say “yes.”
Art,
Despite the visual appeal of double-heading the Northern and the Mike together up the steep grade, do you really NEED the Northern to help pull the coal load? Or, is it primarily because it looks cool? Maybe you should just get another BLI Mike…
Tom
It looks cool, I have the engine and I am not that much into prototype. I am a bad boy there. I plan to try it with my Sierra. That will really bother the prototype types, but it might look cool. The real issue is that with out a rubber wheel, my grades are prohibitive for mainline type trains and my BLI is the onle one I have so far.