I recently picked up a U25B with DCC/sound and was having some issues with getting it programmed. I took it to the WGH show in Cleveland hoping to get it up and running. Bowser had a booth there and Matt Herman went out of his way to get the loco programmed, I had it running on the Free-Mo layout Sunday due to his efforts. He also hooked me up with some sunshades that had been missing from the box. I can’t express strongly enough the level of customer service Matt exhibited to make sure I was satisfied. The hobby is lucky to have a company like Bowser and their staff.
Ricky Keil
I am happy to hear of your success, Ricky.
Would you please describe the nature of your difficulty, what the rep may have said to you, and what you have come away with in terms of a practice or a method for dealing with the problem? It may be interesting to others here.
-Crandell
Crandell
The main problem was with programming the Tsunami sound decoder. Evidently, several DCC systems may not have enough power on the programming track to program the decoder. I tried to use a friend’s Digitrax programming track to set the decoder to the loco roadnumber. It didn’t take and the factory default didn’t work either. I contacted Soundtraxx and we went thru the reset procedure to no avail. Soundtraxx suggested buying a PTB-100 (Program Track Booster) that would solve the issue, unfortunately, we couldn’t get it before the show. Matt (at Bowser) worked with the Digitrax folks to see if he could get it programmed. He finally took a Tsunami from another U25B at the show and swapped the decoders and was able to get the roadnumber to take. It appears that when the program doesn’t take, your roadnumber could be anything making it difficult to try various options like programming in Ops mode on the main. He did try some other Tsunami equipped engines and had the same issue as me, so getting mine to work was really an effort. When I purchase my DCC system, I will be gettting the PTB-100 and I did let the Digitrax folks know about the issue the Soundtraxx raised.
Ricky