Hi Guys,
While searching for ways to program my Challenger (the dreaded Athearn variety) I stumbled across this gem - http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/nswmn1/no_read_CVs.htm - could this be the prayer I’m looking for, or has MRC already seen this loophole coming and put in place ways to stop me [censored]
Ian
And if that method doesn’t work then perhaps this other method I’ve found could work.
It takes the place of a program booster, effectively, lamps added in parallel across the programming power leads to boost the available power needed to drive the capacitor on the sound chip. Having this arrangement on an external stripboard (or PCB) with switchable lamps, would allow for fine tuning of current.
The highest current lamps I could quickly source, for 12V rating, were 2W - this equates to approximately 170mA. Add this to the typical program track current of 100mA (new total 270mA) and the current needed to program a sound equipped decoder might just be enough.
Bulbs sourced from Farnell - http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/search2/browse.jsp?N=500015+177220&Ntk=gensearch_001&Ntt=t1+filament+bulbs&Ntx=&_requestid=169630
Information on how to do it - http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/nswmn1/NCE_prog_mod.htm
Ian
PoM only works if one knows the channel number the decoder is set to. For my unit, since that is the thing that got messed up during inital programming - I have no idea what channel number it ended up on.