Addressing Locos

[Tonita]

I have set up my Locos (by the book) and they seem to run fine but once I take them off the track to do something else and then return them to run them their address numbers have either dissappeared or changed to something else. Why? Also, why does a Loco

 

run when it's not called?

[DaveAus]

Are you doing your addressing on a programming track that is fully isolated from the running track. That made a difference in my early days.

[Fishmanoz]

Welcome to the forums Tonita.

 

The decoders certainly aren't supposed to lose their settings including address like that. It is possible it may happen sometimes and reported to be most likely if you have momentary shorts or such.

 

Locos moving

 

off when not called suggests one of 2 things. The first is you've managed to program them both to the same address, even if you don't think you have, or that they have both reset to default 03. Dave's question above about programming with only one loco on

 

the programming track is relevant to this.

 

From what you've said, the other reason - a loco running away at full speed because it has wrongly thought it was getting a DC signal when in fact it is DCC - I think is unlikely from what you have said.

 

Does

 

any of this make sense? If more help needed, tell us what controller you are using and what decoders.

[Fishmanoz]

Forgot to say, shorts may occur removing or replacing locos on the layout. Therefore it is a good idea to turn the DCC off by unplugging, not just turning locos back to stopped. If the latter is all you do, there is still a DCC signal to the track, unlike

 

DC.

[Fishmanoz]

I mean unplug it before removing or replacing locos.

[Rog RJ]

When adding or replacing locos I usually just press the emergency stop button on my Elite, as this removes the track power, a bit more convenient and quicker than unplugging it but I don't think the emergency stop button on the Select removes track power

 

though, just sends out an "all stop" signal.

[poliss]

It might not be when you're taking the locos off the track, but when you're putting them back on. Accidents do happen and locos sometimes derail on corners when you get a little too enthusiastic with the speed knob. I've never heard of locos losing their

 

address when that happens. It could be that there's a spike in the power when you're putting them back onto the track. I always turn my controller off at the socket before putting locos on the track.

[mal]

Hi Linked with this thread but not sure if exactly the same. I have an engine programmed at 23 - noticed was not working and also a wire had broken on tender connection to engine. Repaired and still no activity and no other apparent problem so decided

 

to reprogramme with elite using separate prog. track. Still would not work so presumed the decoder must have shorted out or something so put in a new decoder and worked straight away obviously on default 3. Reprogrammed again as above to 23 but did not work

 

on 23 or 3 as it did appear to programme correctly. Programmed it again but this to 3 and it worked, tried 23 again and neither 23 or 3 would work so now programmed to 31 and no problems. Any ideas please as seems very odd. Malcolm

[Rog RJ]

You could try resetting the decoder or resetting the controller. If you reset the Elite you will lose all the loco name information if you have entered it.

[mal]

Rog (RJ) said:

You could try resetting the decoder or resetting the controller. If you reset the Elite you will lose all the loco name information if you have entered it.

Thanks very much. I try to avoid resetting things if

I can as I have had some bad experiences in the past with other electronics. It is easy for me to use 31 but just wondered if anyone had a technical reason why you can code a decoder but not with 23 especially when it is a brand new one thanks again Malcolm

[81F]

mal said:

Thanks very much. I try to avoid resetting things if I can as I have had some bad experiences in the past with other electronics. It is easy for me to use 31 but just wondered if anyone had a technical reason why you can code a

decoder but not with 23 especially when it is a brand new one thanks again Malcolm

I have had similar things happen to me - certainly the runaways! These seem to be with the older DCC chips (that you could not programme above 59) although not

exclusively. I never did get fully to the bottom of it but it hasn't happened recently.

[Fishmanoz]

Runaways are usually decoder getting poor quality DCC signal, interpreting it to be DC, then taking off at full speed as DCC signal is at full volts all the time.

 

Solution is to turn off the DC running feature by adding 4 to the value of CV29,

 

if the decoder supports this. It is always a good idea to do this if you can but the controller and decoder must be able to support doing so, which means not the Select for a start.