Headlights not working

[Potteringpete]

Hi

I have a Bachmann class 70 locomotive with headlights and cab lights. However, after a recent railmaster update, the loco travelled backwards, but reading the manual I found I could reverse the direction in CV29, which I did, but for whatever reason instead of just writing that CV, it wrote them all which took about an hour and now the headlights will not work but the cab lights still do. I hope somebody can help because I cannot get my head round railmaster CV's yet.

Many thanks

[idlemarvel]

You could try a decoder reset by writing value 8 to CV8.  This might reset the direction but it might get your lights working again.  If that fixes the lights but the direction is still wrong change CV29 (first bit).  There is a pop-up window for CV29 which I think you get by double clicking the value.  Read the RM manual carefully and you should not be writing all the CVs. More likely you accidentally read all the CVs last time, that's easy to do but you can click the stop-hand button to halt reading CVs.  BTW in case you thought this, CVs are not a RailMaster thing, they are part of DCC generally, RM just gives you a relatively easy way to read and write CVs.

[Potteringpete]

Thanks very much, I will get that a go.

[peter _murray]

I had that problem and solved it by resetting CV 29. Conntrary to other opinions Railmaster statEs clearly as you do that readjustment that the correct speed value must be in place for directional lighting to work. If I remember rightly I reset CV 29 to value 3 to get the desired effect. The generally and strongly held opinion is that the speed values have no effect but as you work through it with Railmaster you will see it states otherwise. I have no idea why resetting the directional of the loco has the effect of adjusting the other CV values. Peter

[Fishmanoz]

Setting CV29 to 3 reverses your loco direction and sets speed steps to 28/128. No light things included in there although I seem to remember someone saying something about lighting only working if not 14 speed steps. I would expect if this works, setting it to 2 will work too  

And yes, it has been previously reported that writing to CVs can affect CV29 too. I think HRMS have said they are looking into this. 

All that said, idlemarvel's advice to reset the decoder by writing 8 to CV8 will work too. Interesting to know what that will set Cv29 to. 

[Rog RJ]

Fishmanoz said

"All that said, idlemarvel's advice to reset the decoder by writing 8 to CV8 will work too. Interesting to know what that will set Cv29 to."

This should set CV29 to 6.  This gives short (two digit) adressing, dc running enabled and 28/128 speed steps.

[Fishmanoz]

Thanks Rog and, if the theory is correct lights will work due to the speed steps. 

But this raises something that hadn't occurred to me before. When you use Elite or RM to write a long address, it does the switching of bit 5 in CV29 for you to specify the long addressing. From what others have said though, it may not just be adding 32 as required to switch on bit 5, it may be doing something different. 

Comment from HRMS a would be appreciated. 

[Potteringpete]

Peter

Thanks for the information. I do find it difficult getting my head round all this, but I reset CV29 to 3 and the lights are working again. Many thanks, Ian

[hans_van de burgt]

I had the same problem with a loc. I installed (after a suggestion here) the software again.
The problem was solved.

Grzz, Hans

[Fishmanoz]

Hans, do you mean you uninstalled then reinstalled RM?  If so, that is not something that should ever be needed, and is a good way to lose any data you entered in the program if you haven't done a full backup. 

Resetting CV29 is quite different to reinstalling software.