Thanks and Advice Needed

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I’ve been a member of this forum for a while and after listening to the discussion of the various DCC systems, I bought a Digitrax Zephyr system from Loy’s Toys. Thanks to you all. The system is just what I need. I do have a problem that is puzzling me. My decoder locos perform beautifully and I can run one of my straight DC locos on address 00 with no problem. However, my Athearn Ready to Roll GP35 (Quick Plug DCC Ready) is another story. I have not added a decoder to it yet and when I attempt to run it at address 00 the display blanks and the Track Status LED blinks green indicating a short. If I remove the loco from the track and reset the Zephyr everything is OK until I apply throttle and the loco just starts to move. The short indication happens again. This loco runs very well with a straight DC power pack and only draws 200 milliamps at 12 volts. With the wheels slipping the current draw is 400 milliamps. Can anyone offer any suggestions? I’d like to solve this before I try to install a decoder into this loco.

Joe

2

Is there perhaps a jumper or a switch that you are to add/remove/flick in order for that loco to perform as you would like it to? Check the instructions that came with it to see if there is a function you were to perform in order to make it set for DC ops. Otherwise, you definitely have a short in it someplace.

3

Thanks for the advice Selector. After about two hours of short finding I found that the light control circuit board was faulty. I also found that the “Quick Plug” was wired incorrectly. I have followed Jeffrey W’s advice and removed the board and hard wired in a TCS 9 pin socket and now the loco performs very well with a TCS T1 decoder.

Joe

4

Hi Joe. Welcome to the forum. Always good to meet a new face from my neck of the woods.

5

Excellent news. I feel badly when people post with potentially complicatied and confounding problems with their engines because they are the biggest pleaser on one’s railroad.

Good for you!

6

Thanks for the welcome Space Mouse. I’ve really enjoyed the discussions and valuable information freely exchanged in this forum. By the way, I’ve visited your website and really enjoyed it also.

Joe