I have a Bachmann DCC sound 2-8-2 locomotive Item #54303. I have just purchased it used. It was very lightly used by previous owner on a DC (not DCC) layout. Obviously well taken care of and has no visible signs of wear. The seller sent me videos of it running before it was shipped. After it arrived, I put it on my track (also just old school DC) and the train won’t move forward or backward. When the power is turned up, there is a brief sound from the sound box and the tender light flashes repeatedly. No movement. What might the problem be?
Thanks
Welcome to the forum!
About your problem: is your track clean? Are the loco wheels clean? When operating in DC mode, you probably need to use a lot of power to get the wheels to turn.
Simon
What kind of DC power pack are you using?
Track is new. Wheels are clean. Train is only DCC sound. Never been DCC controlled. Has alwayscr un on DC track. It was given full power but made no attempt to move. Only flashing tender light and brief noise from sound box.
MRC power pack. All other trains run fine with it - other Bachmanns, Kato, Stewart/Kato, Athearn and Mantua and a Riverossi (Heisler logging that was new in box).
this is unusual. i’d open it up and check how the motor is wired.
if it’s clearly wired to the track, i’d use clip leads to attach the motor to the power pack and verify that the motor works as expected.
if it’s actually wired to the Sound decoder, you rewire to the track and re-test
If you have an MRC with momentum, that can “confuse” some DCC decoders. Can you turn the momentum and brake features off?
Simon
It does not have momentum or brake feature. Just power on/off and direction switch.
I rechecked the paperwork - it is “for use with all NMRA/NEM compliant DCC systems and also compatible with conventional DC powered layouts.” However, the previous owner only had a simple DC oval that he would run trains on occasionally. Never got around to building a full-on layout. It saw light use and was not electronically altered.
Have you double checked that the plugged connection is tight between the loco and tender?
can you post what you actually have. what is the brand and model #
We have threads from the old forum about types of DC power pack that are poorly compatible with some makes of decoder. Certain models of MRC production were high on the list, the general reason being that they produce poorly-rectified “DC” as a feature can simulate PCM in some respects, and that some decoders can ‘think’ is DCC pulse modulation. What specific model of power pack are you using?
If this is actually an issue, you might try building an output ‘filter’ for the variable DC output, with capacitors and inductors to get a more smoothed DC without residual rectification artifacts.
Bachmann item #54303 HO 2-8-2 USRA light Mikado
Im just getting into this again after a very long time (not since1980). So all the technical lingo is a bit bd my pay grade. My powerpack is a “vintage” MRC Ampack. All the other newer trains I’ve run since purchasing them over the past two months work fine except for a couple that need some lubricating - including a Bachmann Spectrum 4-6-2
trainsz says it’s comes with DCC
My personal opinion has been that you do NOT try to operate a DCC locomotive on legacy DC, whether it claims to be ‘DC compatible’ or not. It’s a kludge, and while I earned the honorific ‘kludgemeister’ in college, that’s not a good sort of kludge…
If you have access to a 'scope see if you can look at the output waveform at different pot-controlled voltages on the Ampack. I suspect you will see a weird half-melted-looking ripple at 120 Hz which is the full-wave-rectified but ‘poorly smoothed’ waveform – this doesn’t have the sharp transitions and ‘ringing’ that Lenz DCC modulation can suffer from, but the decoder may read it as the kind of interrupted DC that DCC modulation effectively is.
Yes, I realized that after looking at the paperwork again. From information Im gathering it seems that my antique, reostat style powerpack may not work well with this train. I reached out to the seller and asked what he used with the train, as he ran it DC without issue.
not sure what “without issue” means
can make it run, but the decoder probably needs at least 5V on the track before it starts to move.
Smooth starts without having to crank the power. Smooth running at slow speeds. Smooth at normal running speeds. In forward and reverse. He must have a power pack with regulated DC output.
As has been mentioned, not all dual mode decoders are compatible with ALL DC power supplies or throttles.
Way back in the day many power packs had no filters, just a full wave bridge, transformer and rheostat. The wave forms can be very choppy depending on the type of rectifier bridge used.
Dual mode decoders don’t like dirty, choppy DC and they don’t like high quality true full voltage pulse width modulated DC throttles like the Crest/Aristo Train Engineer throttles I use.
If I try to run a dual mode decoder loco on my layout, the reactions are typically it sits there and makes a buzzing noise, or, there are two speeds, off and full throttle - no speed control.
But with a regular non decoder DC loco, my throttles provide precise speed control similar to most DCC decoders. This why I remove decoders…
And this is why my first question was “what kind of power pack?”
Just my hard opinion, dual mode decoders are a joke on DC, a waste of time, a gimmick to lore basic DC users into DCC.
If you want sound, spring for DCC, and save yourself all this trouble. The speed control range on most dual mode decoders when operated on DC is terrible - why would you settle for that?
Sheldon