DCC/Sound Locomotive will only run a top speed in reverse - no DCC control at all.

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
21

Is this only happening on the “program” track while in programming mode?

Do your other DCC locos work properly?

I ask because we currently have at the club a PowerCab with a problem. It functions fine while being used as a cab on the main layout. However when used as a stand alone on a separate track in programming mode locos exhibit the same thing you are describing…run away at speed with no control.

I spoke to NCE about this and they say that it appears that something is wrong with the command station side of the cab. We also thought that we had a couple decoder problems until we figured this out.

EDIT: I see now that you state that the main layout is not NCE powered. So I suggest that you put one of your other locos on the NCE powered track and see if it does the same thing as the BLI.

22

Maxman,

Thanks for the info. But The loco behaves the same on the layout the same as it does using the power cab. Also, I have put other locos on the programming track and had no problems with DCC control or changing CV’s.

23

Are you using the Programming track function on the power cab or are you using Program on the Main?

24

BMMECNYC,

I use program on the main - as its not really a progamming track - see previous posts by me.

Anyhoo, I decided to send the loco back for repairs with BLI.

25

Loco Guy,

PLEASE forget trying to fix the loco and send it off to BLI (email them first). I currently have a sound chassis with them for repair, and I’ve had others in the past. They do a great job for reasonable (if any) cost.

While there are some very knowledgeable and helpful DCC gurus on this forum, sometimes the decoder is broken, and we just can’t fix it.

26

Mobilman44,

Yep - totally agree. I have had a great response from BLI and the loco is already on its way to them.

The only reason I created this post is that there are so many knowlegable folks here that I thought it may be an easy fix - as I said in an earlier post - I sometimes have an issue I can’t resolve and this forum usually comes up with a brilliant solution.

27

FYI,

I got the T1 back and it was a bad smoke unit that caused the issue. So I guess we were in the right track (no pun intended) when we thought it may be a short of the wires in the loco. I guess the bad smoke unit was causing a short.

It runs like a dream now - better than when I unboxed it.

28

Wow, that was fast turnaround. Excellent news.

Rich

29

Great news!

Smoke units stink, [+o(] just my opinion, of course. Last night I ran my L1 for the first time and forgot to turn off the mosquito fogger.

Wow! After about five minutes the layout room smelled like the lint in my dryer was on fire.

I’m sure glad BLI provides a physical switch to disable the confounded thing.

Happy Modeling, Loco_Guy!

Ed

30

Rich, Ed,

Thanks for the feedback on my post.

I really do like the fact that these locos produce smoke - it looks good on video etc. However, as I run stuff in the garage you can only do it with the garage door open and plenty of circulation.

They do have a CV (246) that you can set to zero so that the smoke wont start up on power up. Ed, it does have a switch also which is located under the cab - but I don’t want to turn it off completely so I use the CV.

BLI did a great job - and I am not kidding when I say it runs better then when it was unboxed. I set it to speed step 1 on the test track and it moves back and forward. That never hapened when I first got it - probably due to the issue with the gears.

Anyhoo, its running on 18" radius curves with 5 Spectrum PRR heavyweights behind it without a problem - my other T1 runs on the 22" radius curves.