i have 2 Bachmann GP 40 Diesel locos that came with DCC on board. I’ve had them for about 2 years now. The issue I having is when the one loco is standing by on a live rail it starts up and jumps a inch or so from time to time even when the throttle says 0 for speed. I thought the throttle may not have been turned down all the way but i’ turned the throttle back even when it say 0. It dos this in forward and reverse. Does this mean the decoder is going bad or is something else the issue. What is the life of a decoder.
Also I have a spectrum prewar steamer K4 4-6-2 1 with sound from a Tsunami Traxx sound. It to loud, is there a volume control that the system can set. I have the Digitrax Super Empire Builder system that’s about 4 or 5 years old.
A couple of things, and none of it intended to be gruff or unkind.
Download the manuals for all your hobby electronics. Seriously. Do it. And actually spend 30 minutes browsing through them. Really good use of your time.
Secondly, you should clear your throttle of unused engines, or idle ones. Assuming you use the DT400, press Loco with the engine you want expunged from the active list flashing/acquired in the display, and press “Dispatch”. Get into the habit of doing that little cleanup chore…just like your supper dishes prior to bed time.
It might help to also re-zero the throttle for that engine prior to dispatching it. Just spin the encoder knob counter-clockwise a turn and that should take care of any spurious speed setting lingering that doesn’t display. It happens from time-to-time.
Also, if you don’t ever use DC anywhere, say at a friend’s or at a club, set CV 29 to 34 on all your decoders. Stops them from mistakenly assuming they’re getting DC current.
Tanks again. After going through my system manual I found nothing around volume control. I then pulled out the box the steamer came in a low and behold in the middle of the papers there was a CD for the tsunami. After going through it I was able adjust the volume and more like auto whistle.
On the issue with the GP40 the decoder may be picking up momentary signals that are telling it there’s a DC signal on the rails and it should move. I have one that used to do the exact same thing. I’m assuming this loco still has the Bachmann decoder in it. Assuming that changing CV29 to 30 should set it to recognize digital (DCC) signals only and that should stop the jumps.
I’ve never heard of such a problem with a Tsunami decoder.
Try setting CV 29 to a value of 34 if the decoder is set to a long address. I don’t know for sure what a setting of 30 tells the decoder, but 34 is what I always use to set the decoder to 28 speed steps, DCC operation only, long address, and no custom speed table.
You may have CV116 messed up so the decoder doesn’t understand its basic setting and gets erratic.The default value for CV116 is 39 for typical model operation.Then if you want to give manual notching a try,give CV116 a value of 16 (man. notch. +throttle interlock).