I just purchased two Walthers Proto 2000 GP7 locomotives with DCC/Sound from my local hobby shop that is going out of business.
When I place either locomotive on the programming track, I get an error that it cannot read the CV value. I placed one of my Atlas locomotives on the programming track, and my wireless ProCab found the decoder right away.
What could be causing the system to not read the decoder? I placed the locomotive on a DC powered track and it worked so is there a jumper that needs to be moved? I have the body off the locomotive and don’t see any jumpers.
I’m new to DCC so any help would be greatly appreciated.
What DCC system are you using? Many of the new DCC with sound locos take more power than the programming track can provide. I have no problem programming mine on the main. Let us know what system you’re using and I’m sure we can come up with more information to help you.
I have NCE Wireless ProCab. I was able to read deeper into the NCE manual to discover that some of the sound-equipped decoders require too much power (just like Don Z. wrote) so it generates the error message on the controller. I was able to just press Enter and continue was able to program both locomotives.
Now the next question is how to shut the sound off. The Walthers instructions say to use F9 for shut down, but I wasn’t able to get that to work on my NCE controller. Is it an issue of programming the F9 function in the controller or is there some other CV variable?
I keep looking through both manuals but haven’t found anything that clearly mentions this; and I don’t want to mess anything up.
If you want to disable the sound but still run the loco, press F8. That will mute the sound until you select F8 again. To shut the loco down, you have to hit F9 twice, as in 99. You’ll hear a sound such as air release, then hit 99 again. The loco should go into a stand-by idle (low volume), then hit 99 again to hear the final shut down sequence of the prime mover turning off, complete with the engineer shuffling his papers and slamming the cab door on his way out of the loco.
You can always buy one of the PowerPax boosters from Tony’s Train Exchange to help with programming the sound decoders:
The older ProCabs had this issue. When NCE brought out the Power Cab last year, they addressed this issue. I don’t know if the new upgrade to the ProCab addresses this or not. It may be worth a call or an e-mail to Larry @ NCE.
F8 will mute the sound. F9 will start the shut down procedure but you have to hit it twice quickly in succession. To completely shut a locomotive down you have to perform this three times.
I didn’t realize I had to keep hitting F9 twice in order to inital the Shut Down mode. I’ve had the NCE ProCab for a few months but had not really had to chance to really dig deep into all the functions and buttons it had.
The two engines run and sound great! Sound has really added another dimension to model railroading. After being away from the hobby for about 15 years, the quality has gone up and made it that much more enjoyable. [:)]
