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Hello all,

I have a strange issue that i encountered when i upgraded a 30-1329-1 railking steam locomotive from the protosound 2 3v board to protosound 3. I did a simple swap of the boards keeping all of the plugs the same along with removing the battery and associated components. I wanted to do this since i like the engine and i wanted to further my knowledge with protosound 3.

I completed the upgrade about 24 hours ago. Everything worked fine under both conventional and DCS mode. I removed the jumper and ran it on my DCC system both last night and this morning. Everything worked under the standard address of 3. This afternoon, i get no response from the engine under DCC. I tried to reset it using DCC, but failed. No short, no smoke, no smell, no burning, just no response. Removed the tender shell and reinstalled the jumper for DCS. Worked perfect! Conventional? Worked perfect! Switch back to DCC, Nada. 

A forum search turned up nothing relating to how an Mth engine would decide to not be recognized under ANY dcc address, (believe me, i tried to write basically any address under the sun, and tried to read the address,) and got "no engine on track." Sounds familiar. Could anything have blown up on the board without a short or smell? This engine was the one that did previously sustain a short in the lighting circuit, but functioned fine beforehand in spite of this. I am lost and confused.

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@AGHRMatt posted:

I'm not sure about the upgrade boards, but in the Rail King locomotives, instead of a switch, there's a jumper that activates the DCC decoder. Is there a jumper on the upgrade board?

Yes, there is a jumper which I removed each time for DCC and replaced each time for dcs. I also performed both conventional and DCS resets.

@rplst8 posted:

I would venture a guess that one of the pins on the jumper is either shorting out or has loosened the solder from the pad on the pcb.

Thanks, I'll try to reflow both pins.

Hello all,

A forum search turned up nothing relating to how an Mth engine would decide to not be recognized under ANY dcc address, (believe me, i tried to write basically any address under the sun, and tried to read the address,) and got "no engine on track." Sounds familiar. Could anything have blown up on the board without a short or smell?

This engine was the one that did previously sustain a short in the lighting circuit, but functioned fine beforehand in spite of this. I am lost and confused.

That sure is a strange problem. I agree with the above suggestions. Just curious, but what DCC system are you using that gives you "no engine on track" messages? AFAIK, you cannot change the DCC address with DCS but I guess I could be wrong. After a factory reset the locomotive should respond to address 3 in DCC mode but if it isn't responding to anything at all in DCC mode you cannot change the address.

Also confused. Did the engine perform normally after  the short in lighting circuit?

Keep us posted.

Last edited by Hudson J1e
@Hudson J1e posted:

That sure is a strange problem. I agree with the above suggestions. Just curious, but what DCC system are you using that gives you "no engine on track" messages? AFAIK, you cannot change the DCC address with DCS but I guess I could be wrong. After a factory reset the locomotive should respond to address 3 in DCC mode but if it isn't responding to anything at all in DCC mode you cannot change the address.

Using the "read address" with JMRI and a digikeijs dr5000. All other mth dcc engines respond correctly. Track is clean and wires are secured.

Also confused. Did the engine perform normally after  the short in lighting circuit?

Yes, minus control of the headlight, but it does not bother me. I just am disturbed that just DCC does not work, but the board works.

Keep us posted.

Will do!

 

Wow, that is cool. I have a laptop I intend to use for JMRI for my DCC system but I never got around to it. That is really cool that it works like that. 

I did a very similar install with an upgrade PS3 but being old I have CRS. (Can’t remember s) What I don’t remember is if those two pins are shorted for DCS or open. Obviously, it would be the opposite for DCC. I suspect they are open and the locomotive is always in DCS mode. I would (if possible) check with an ohmmeter from the pin to where it is soldered to the board. It could be a cold solder joint. You should get 0 ohms on each pin to the solder joint. I assume the pins are soldered to the board. Again my CRS. 

Last edited by Hudson J1e

Look in the manual for the 55-55-55 reset.  I had a locomotive that seemed to ignore all DCC commands.  I did the 55-55-55 reset and it came back to life.  Also, were you running it in a consist? If so delete the consists.  Sometimes my locomotives in consists will stop responding to everything and I have to delete them from the consist for them to come back to life.  Also, I have found if they are in a consist they don't respond to non consists commands.  FYI- I use the NCE 10amp command system.

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