Been doing that, nothing. Turning the volumes up did nothing. The speaker is an 8ohm which would work with decoder. I’m calling it defective. Tried on a 3rd locomotive nothing.
Noted and corrected.
I could be confused too:
You have a single decoder and you have tried it in two different engines and 3 speakers?
Ed #2 has beaucoup locos. I don’t think the average model railroader has a decoder tester, although in retrospect I could have used one once.
We have European member that could be of more help when they see this thread. Most of us model using N American manufacturers. If F8 doesn’t work, there doesn’t appear to by anything obvious wrong. Again, if you have solder extending from one soldering pad to the other, on the circuit board, that would be bad. I just can’t see that for sure, but you can.
The red and black wire look thicker than the usual decoder wire. If you are going to be doing more conversions, get yourself some correctly colored 30 ga wire from one of the DCC online shops.
I have had a DCC installation that didn’t work and it was very frustrating because nothing was obviously wrong that I could see. When I could see better after cataract surgery I saw what was wrong. Then again, sometimes things come from the factory broken.
@bigdaddy make that 2 locos now. I tried in on a Bachmann tornado which clearly has marked spots for the speaker wires on the board. Still nothing. I give up.
Edit: I thought about replacing those wires but since the decoder works with no 21pin i have, eh.
OK Let start from scratch. How do you know speaker is GOOD?
got a second sound decOder you can hook your speaker to?
test speaker with know GOOD decoder-if said speaker works with your known good decoder-hook that speaker to your 21 pin decoder at pins 9&10 if it does not make sounds- you decoder is DEAD on the audio !
I have several sound locos but they’re factory installed save for my Gs4 from Bachmann of which i soldered in the speaker myself. I also added a Mars light to it. But yeah i guess I’ll check and get back to you.
@woodone speaker tested and working.
OK, if that speaker is the one you have been using dwith the 21 pin decoder, The decoder is BAD. Very easy to do. You can still have motor drive and lidghts BUT no SOUND! Bad decoder, send it back to SoundTraxx and dwith your reciet when you purchased it. You also have to fill out a warranty return form.
Go to Soundtraxx sit and under service download the return form.
woodone
It’s $45 for repairs… I think I’ll just get my money back for the decoder. But thank you for helping!
If it less than 90 days old they will repair or replace at no charge.
Oh, well I already put in the request for refund.
I’m surprised it’s returnable, best of luck with whatever works. Let us know when you get it running. I’m sure you will.
Same thoughts here. Most decoder manufactures want to handle warranty problems on a one on one with the customer.
I didn’t buy from Soundtraxx, i ordered it from EBay.
You never said that in your first post but you did say it is returnable. You are lucky.
Rich
I keep an old MP-3 player at the bench where I do my decoder installs. I use it to check the sound output of speaker assemblies before I install them into the locomotive.
By playing a “wide dynamic range” piece of music I can get a pretty good idea of how the decoder will sound after it has been installed.
You can get a 1/8" phone plug and solder brass probes on to the wires. I had an old pair of earbuds and used the wire/plug from that.
While you wait for your replacement decoder you can poke these probes on to the traces of the PC board to make sure the speaker and connections are working on the motherboard before you plug in the new decoder.
Cheers, Ed
Update, it was the decoder. I got another and all is well! You can see a video of the loco here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/busDaf5eoUTZKTov7
Thanks for getting back to us. Sometimes we hear nothing and sometimes we here a thank you, without identifying exactly what fixed the problem.