I have recently purchased a nce powercab and have started to program my n gauge locos. All was ok until I tried to program a DMU. This unit has a decoder in the motor end for running and lights and a decoder in the dummy end for lights. Both are 6 pin Bachman decoders. Both units on the track and it says "cannott read CV’s. Can program the motor unit and all works. The lights only unit will not program. The same also happens with my KATO CLASS 800 GWR which has the motor decoder and 2 decoders in each end for lights. Any help appreciated.
I would recommend trying to have only one decoder equipped piece of rolling stock on the rails at a time. I’ve never had any MU trains myself, but I would guess things would work alright if you work on one unit at a time, Good Luck!
Welcome to the forum, dh399132!
I have several N Kato locomotives that I get the “cannot read CV” messages on my NEC powercab. I can program everything, it just will not read what is there. I don’t let it bother me too much.
Hi dh,
A few questions for you…
- Do the wheels on your dummy units have pickups? If not then there’s your issue.
- Do you have the motor- and function-only decoders on the same or different addresses?
- With your Power Cab, are you programming on “the main” (POM) or in programming track mode?
If your dummies have pickups, you might try cleaning your wheels. I’ve gotten the “cannot read CV” error when either the programming track, locomotive wheels, or both were dirty. You might also consider ditching the Bachmann decoders and going with a better quality decoder like TCS.
I have a Loksound 5 decoder in the lead unit of a Con-Cor Aerotrain and a TCS FL4 (function-only) decoder in the rear observation car. The FL4 operates a custom gyralight on the rear of the observation car and is programmed to the same address as the lead unit. They work quite well together. I did have to program each decoder separately on the programming track to make it work.
Tom
Yep, I agree with Tom on both points.
Rich
There is a feature called Decoder Lock (these decoders may not support that feature) which allows one decoder to be locked while the other is being programmed. If that feature is active attempting to read a CV (other than CV15) will result in the “decoder not found” error.
That way several decoders can share the same address. Not commonly used for that purpose today.
Check the instructions to see if they do support decoder lock, if not, it looks like each unit will have to be programmed individually.
Ugh, I hate the decoder lock feature. That was a real source of trouble on BLI’s Blueline series with the dual decoder setup.
Rich