i have a Mrc prodigy express, and i have the speed step to 28. When running my athearn Rtr train it will studder and stop & go randomly when the speed i set too 14 and only at 14 not 13 or 15… And it does this in reverse aswell. The track is clean. Can you help?
Just this one engine? Does this engine have sound or did it come with an MRC decoder? I have only one Athearn with sound and the MRC decoder they use. It behaved much like you described. Very irritating with sound because you could here it slamming on the brakes and speeding up all over the layout, even with freshly cleaned wheels and rails. Long story short, I called Athearn, they gave me the number of MRC in New Jeresy, I sent it back there and they fixed it. Runs well now, but I am always watching it.
Nope a digitrax decoder.
Could there possibly be a loose wire? I would take it apart and check that first. Did it run on DC ok before you installed the decoder or are you like me and never run them first on 00? I’ve just started to run all my new loco’s on 00 just to make sure there are no bugs in it before I rip it apart to install a decoder. If it runs good without a decoder and runs like crap with one then its easier to narrow down the problem to something I did or the decoder itself. 99.9% of the time its something I did, lol.
Theres no loose wires. And i dont think this problem occured without decoder. I’ll try re-programing it…
You said the track was clean, are the wheels clean? Is this an older Athearn with the sintered steel wheels, if so, change the wheels to nicklesilver.
I suspect a loose wire somewhere…
David B
It’s a new engine.
The Wires are not loose I checked.
And Re-Programing did not work…
…I still suspect loose wire. Doesnt matter if it is new or not.
David B
I usually like participating in electricity and electronics topics, however, yesterday I was reprimanded by a moderator for violating the “personal attack or name-calling” prohibition on an issue involving this topic; not wishing to repeat that experience I think I will steer clear of this one and let you people beat each other black and blue!
Hey conrail
Try a reset of the decoder and adjust CV29 for a standard speed steps. Re address the loco and try to run it again.
Pete
Try re-setting the decoder to the factory settings as explained at the following digitrax web page. http://www.digitrax.com/kb/index.php?a=197
After that you may need to reduce the value of the CV’s used for speed compensation. Check the Digitrax site for this information by looking up the data sheet for your decoder.
These steps have cured a couple of jumping engines for me.
-Bill
(I see Pete beat me to it while I was looking up the Digitrax page and making a cup of coffee!)
Me too, I’ve had a couple Proto’s that had a broken wire. It was still attached were it was soldered but with the vibration it would break its connection causing a sporadic surge. Took me a few days to find it. Once I soldered it again it was ok.
I had the same problem with a atherns engine. I have a PH pro with a NCE decoder in it and my problem was I had the cv settings wrong and they where conflictiong with each other.
When adjustiong your CV do one at a time or you will not find out where you went wrong.
Hope this helps