After spending WAY too much time trying to figure this one out on my own, I was hoping the group could help me with this one.
I’m trying to program one of the special lighting effects (Random flicker) via the purple output wire to F6. I’ve struggled and struggled to make it work, and hopefully someone can provide some input. I cannot figure out the proper values and the CV’s I need to program.
FWIW, I screwed up so badly, I ended up resetting the decoder.
Also, while I have everyone on the line, I also cannot get the front headlight to go off. It’s always on (even after the reset.) It’s connected to the white output wire. It does increase in brightness when the loco is moving forward, but stays on even in reverse. Honestly, it’s not a big deal, but it’s bugging me. It’s a 3v LED with a 1K ohm resistor inline (if it maters)
Thank you in advance for any and all help, I’ve only been doing this about 4-5 months…
As for the front headlight, normally CV49 controls the front headlight and CV50 the rear light. Sometimes with Digitrax it can be very hard to find the right value to put in a lighting CV to get it to do what you want. I’ve sometimes just entered 1, see what happens, enter 2, see what happens, etc. until it starts to do what I want.
FWIW it’s actually pretty rare for a real engine to have lights that fo on and off based on the direction of travel. Normally front and rear headlights are both on or both off when the engine is running by itself (not m.u.'ed with other engines).
First, if you don’t already have it, you need the full Digitrax decoder manual - the basic sheets supplied with the decoder won;t have the detals of remappign the wires to different function keys.
Next, look at table XVIII on page 65. This shows what CV is used to mape a throttle F key to what output wires. It’s the middle of the three charts that shows CV40 controls what F6 will operate. Default is White with blue wire (which only exists on decoders with LOTS of functions - more than 6). But if you look across the columns it does mention the violet wire. The value shown for the violet wire is 1. So setting CV40 to 1 will make F6 control the violet wire. Pretty straightforward.
Now that you have it turning on and off with the proper F key, now you need to set the desired effect. That starts back on page 52. The table at the bottom shows that CV116 controls the effect on the F6 button. So now you know that CV116 is the one to set. Set to what? Move up to Table XI on Page 58. You may need to add some values to get a total. First thing, random flicker is 1. The next table is the modifiers - for non-direction, on when you turn the F key on, you add the value 32. So the total is 33 - set CV116 to 33.
Notice they put all the modifiers as whole decimal numbers now, no calculating hex values any more. Just pick the effect from the first table, and the modifier from the second table, add them together, and that is the CV value. Pretty straighforward.
Sounds like you have Rule 17 lighting set up on the headlight. For just a plain on/off directional light, set CV49 (F0F, white wire) to 0 (on when function key is on, forward direction) and set CV50 (F0R, yellow wire) to 16 (on when function key on, reverse direction). Those values are de
Thanks for the reply. Sorry for the delay in answering back. I tried exactly what you said, and still couldn’t make it work. So obviously there’s a snag somewhere. I have a few guesses.
1). Operator error (programming or operating)
2). Installation error of decoder or LED’s (by me).
3). Decoder error.
If I get some more time over the holidays, I’ll dig into it again (and report back if I can make it work).
Thanks again for the help, even tho I couldn’t make this install work (as of yet), I still learned alot.