Ok so I tried what you said. When I try on program track I get “cannot read CV”. I also tried on main but it does not seem like anything took. When I move the engine by hand the lights still flicker like before.
Not to be redundant, but if you wrote CV 30 = 2, you have to cycle the power to get the changes to take.
By lifting the engine off the track right? I did that sorry. I am going to have to mess with it more after I get the kids to bed. I have to see what else I can try.
Yes that will work. I didn’t mean to insult your intelligence but we do have people that take shortcuts and then tell us that it didn’t work.
We also had someone who paid top dollar for NIB F7 A&B that was advertised as having a factory sound decoder, but didn’t have any decoder at all. Hopefully that’s not going to be what you find.
There are or should be 2 wires (gray and orange) that go to the motor, right and left (red and black) wires that carry power from the track and a white and blue and a yellow and blue wire that goes to the headlights. The solder connections ought to be shiny, no dull gray. Posting a picture of what you have, may or may not be useful. There are specific directions on how to post pictures in this forum in a sticky thread in the general forum.
I see no mentiooon of what scale these are, but it appears liek the OP is talking about N scale. Doubt there are any wires. The fact that the lights come on with F0, and change direction with the directiooon button definitely means there is a decoder installed - if there was no decoder, the loco would buzz horribly and there would be no control of the lights. However, it is very likely the motor is not hoooked up properly - in N scale, that’s usually some tabs the loop over ‘staples’ on the decoder, however it is important that there be a layer of Kapton tape on the frame where these tabs loop over, because if they contact the frame - oops, so much foor that decoder. Or perhaps that is already what happened. Since both locos appear to be address 3, the person who soold this stuff either messed up the decoder install and blew them (lights would still work, but no motor, and no reading of CVs) or simply didn;t install them correctly so there is no motor coontact (symptons would be identical) and either way couldn;t get them to program and so just gave up and sold it all off.
Take the shell off one and take a picture. It will probably be fairly obviooous what’s wrong if we can see it.
–Randy
My apologies. It is N scale and no there does not appear to be any wires. here are some pics. Would I be able to visibly see if it were indeed fried? I can take more pics if necessary.
Randy knows way more than I do about N-scale decoders. Or to paraphrase Jim Cramer, “I know nothing” That yellowish tape is called Kapton tape and it is an insulating tape and is SOP and much less gooey than electrical tape.
In an HO decoder, we might have seen strands of wire extending from one terminal to the next or a disconnect.
LOL not really, I model HO myself as well, I’ve just seen the same problem over and over again. Part of the reason I don;t do N scale is, my eyes are not the best any more and it’s awfully small, plus the locos I would run (if I switched scales, I would still do the same era and same prorotype) are all older ones that you do not simply swap a circuit board to put a decoder in. I don’t do surface moutn electronics - and I’m not about to try hard wiring decoders in N scale locos. Or milling the frames, for that matter.
The problem here, with the loco pictured is, it is completely missing BOTH motor tabs!. That kapton tape is on the frame where it should be, but the tabs going from the sides of the motor up and over that tape to the decoder are not there. Hopefully, spare parts are avaialble from the loco manufacturer - without those motor tabs, even if you took out the decoder, it won;t run on DC either.
If you look here at the decoder page, the manual is there as a PDF. You can see where there should be two strips running up on each side of the mootor. And actually the kapton tape is in the wroong place for this install, the instructions show it being placed over the motor tab before putting the frame half back on.
https://ncedcc.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000582334-N14A0
–Randy
That indeed is a NCE N-scale decoder. A damaged decoder may not necessarily show visible damage (e.g. component charring), if it’s fried. Take a sniff - seriously. Do you pick up any electrical burning smell from either locomotive?
Tom
Randy the tabs are underneath the decoder. I just separated the 2 halves. They are supposed to make contact with 2 contacts on the bottom side of the decoder. I will try to take some pics to show you.
No Tom it doesn’t have that burnt electronics smell which I know well as I used to install car audio for a living and have seen and smell many fried amplifiers.
The instructioons show the tape being applied to the tab, between the tab and the frame piece, so with the tape on the outside, unless it is wrapped all the way around, there’s a good chance the motor tab touched the frame, which will dmage the decoder. It may or may not smell burnt, but the magic smoke is almost surely released. Or the tabs are not properly inserted int he decoder slots to make solid contact.
–Randy
This one doesn’t actually have slots, the tabs are just supposed to touch the pads on the bottom of the decoder. I guess there are 2 different versions of this decoder one with slots and one without from what I just read. I just bent the tabs a little and lined them up and it works now. Sputtering but that I think is due to a dirty track as my Kato i just bought did the same thing. Now all I have to do is fix the Fairbanks and Morse.
I took the other Atlas engine apart and bent the motor contacts a little and made sure they lined up with the decoder pads and this one works now too. Thanks for everyone’s help!
If it actually an NCE decoder, I would send a photo of it to Ed Wilson at NCE Support. He will be able to ID it in a heart beat and tell you what is wrong.
I got it figured out but thank you I will keep that under my hat for the future!