I installed a TCS LL8 in a P2K GP7 and everyting is going right except programming Rule 17.
What I want :
Forward : Bright Forward light, No rear light.
Reverse : Bright Reverse light, Dimmed Front light.
I can acheive that on all my NCE decoders but not on that TCS LL8 decoder. I tried many CV settings (CVs 49 & 50) by the instruction sheet but all I could acheive is :
What do you have CV49 and CV50 at? They should be 8 and 24 to make the effect directional. Which one needs to be 8 and which one 24 depends on how you oriented the decoder and also the reversed direction with CV29. If either or both are 40, that means non-directional.
Thanks again. I will try that tomorrow morning as I don’t have access to the train room now. First thing of, I will put back CV 29 to 34 (short hood forward) to see what is the result after programming CVs 49 & 50 per the instruction sheet.
With the NCE decoders I had to invert the CVs, like you suggest, and modify one of the values, from trial & error, to achieve the desired results. As I can see it, whatever the brand, CV 29 can be used to invert direction but the CVs used for lighting are related to white and yellow wires and independent of CV 29.
You can leave it inverted, but you may have to set CV49, white wire, to 24 and CV50, yellow wire, to 8 instead of the other way around if CV29 was set for normal. 8 means Rule 12 only in forward direction, 24 is rule 17 only in reverse direction. And no matter which, you can manually dim with F4.
I am just out of the train room and I completely agree with you. I tried running that GP short cab forward (CV29=34) with other CVs (49 & 50) by the instruction sheet. With CV61=17, I get rule 17 for switcher. With CV61=49, I get bright front light and dimmed rear light when running forward and the inverse running backward. I put back CV29 to 35 and inverted the values for CVs 49 and 50 and got the inverted results. So I don’t think it is possible to get the results I want for rule 17, bright front light and no back light when running forward.
Completely independent lights control
F0 = Front light ON/OFF
F1 = Rear light ON/OFF
F3 = Ditch light ON/OFF
F4 = When on Dim litght ON/OFF in the direction of travel
Rear light dim automatically when traveling forward and lit
Thank you for the info. Up to now I didn’t play with the functions. I have hands full with the CVs. But the info will be used in a near future as I will concengrate on how to use functions to widen the choices in using DCC.
Strange, that should have the rear light totally off when moving forward, and vice-versa.
I can’t check and see what mine are set to, I have nothing set up to run trains or read decoders at the moment. Though I don;t use Rule 17, heck my railroad didn’t even run locos with the headlights on in the daylight in the years I model.
I wonder if the CV61 setting overrides the CV49/50 settings - try CV61 = 1, so you have BEMF, but that disables the parts of CV61 that control the Rule 17 lighting, and use the 8 and 24 in CV49/50 for directional Rule 17. My guess is it will work, but you can only dim the lights using F4, not automatically when stopped.
Perhaps. The setting for directional effect plus dim on stop would be the right setting (CV61=17). Not sure why you get opposite dim when set for dim on stop when opposite dim is the other value of CV61.
With CV61=1, it should dim the light when you hit F4. That’s more in line with real locomotive operation anyway, the lights don;t automatically switch or dim, there is a control for this the engineer must operate to dim or switch the direction of the lights.