Creating Shelf Space

Hutch

Hutch

G Gauge, Raising Peaches, Apricots
Over the last few days I have made vegetables out of 2 LGB Locomotives with factory installed DCC. Unhappily I haven't been able to recover either of them, or in fact find the physical DCC components. They were Porters. I was foolishly trying to readdress them so that they weren't duplicate addresses (3) with other engines, or now even wire around the DCC so they would they could be analogue.

When I got back in this hobby I swore that I would limit myself to relays, switches and magnets. Looks like I should have.
 
Moved
 
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Greg Elmassian said:
So nothing from the programming track?

Greg
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Absolutely nothing on the programming track, not even the customary clunk, on the real track, the headlight "breathes" dim to bright while the motor makes no threat of motion in analogue od DCC. I assume that the $139 locos are scrap.
 
Well, it’s quite common for those of us who go to battery and r/c to remove all factory fitted boards; so if you do wire around it the loco should probably run in analogue. You might end up with an EMI problem if you don’t fit a suppressor.
 
Hutch said:
Absolutely nothing on the programming track, not even the customary clunk, on the real track, the headlight "breathes" dim to bright while the motor makes no threat of motion in analogue od DCC. I assume that the $139 locos are scrap.
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The motor blocks in these will have the standard LGB four-pin connections, where the two inner pins are power from the track pickups and the outer pins are connected to the motor terminals. If you want to return the locos to simple DC running (either permanently, or for testing purposes), all you need to do is to bridge each outer pin to its corresponding inner pin - the motor block should then run just fine on analogue DC. You won't have any lights or smoke without some extra re-wiring, but that's something you can do later. If the decoders are indeed shot, for whatever reason, then they won't run on either DCC or DC while the power is still being routed through the dead decoder; but unless the motors are dead (very, very unlikely indeed) then they should run OK when converted back to analogue.

What were you doing with them when they "died"? I didn't think there was any way you could destroy or damage a decoder just by trying to programme it.... The only time (touch wood...) that I've ever killed a decoder was when I made a careless rewiring error.

Jon.
 
Zerogee said:
The motor blocks in these will have the standard LGB four-pin connections, where the two inner pins are power from the track pickups and the outer pins are connected to the motor terminals. If you want to return the locos to simple DC running (either permanently, or for testing purposes), all you need to do is to bridge each outer pin to its corresponding inner pin - the motor block should then run just fine on analogue DC. You won't have any lights or smoke without some extra re-wiring, but that's something you can do later. If the decoders are indeed shot, for whatever reason, then they won't run on either DCC or DC while the power is still being routed through the dead decoder; but unless the motors are dead (very, very unlikely indeed) then they should run OK when converted back to analogue.

What were you doing with them when they "died"? I didn't think there was any way you could destroy or damage a decoder just by trying to programme it.... The only time (touch wood...) that I've ever killed a decoder was when I made a careless rewiring error.

Jon.
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Trying to readdress each with an sprog III from the default 3 to address 2, and 4. (each loco)
 
Hutch said:
Trying to readdress each with an sprog III from the default 3 to address 2, and 4. (each loco)
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Obviously there are many on here who know a lot more about the electronics side than I do.... but, I simply cannot see how just trying to rewrite a CV on a decoder can possibly cause it any permanent harm....?

Jon.
 
Hutch said:
Over the last few days I have made vegetables out of 2 LGB Locomotives with factory installed DCC. Unhappily I haven't been able to recover either of them, or in fact find the physical DCC components. They were Porters. I was foolishly trying to readdress them so that they weren't duplicate addresses (3) with other engines, or now even wire around the DCC so they would they could be analogue.

When I got back in this hobby I swore that I would limit myself to relays, switches and magnets. Looks like I should have.
Click to expand...
Assuming the Locs are 22771 or some such this may help, if you look at this site then you may well find the actual break down diagram based on the Cat Number of the beasts.

https://www.trainli.com/LGB-PDF/LGB Engines/22771-1.PDF

If you delete the end on the above search so that the last / after Engines has gone then you will see the full list of available drawings. Sorry if I appear to be teaching granny to suck eggs but for some computer users this may not necessarily be apparent.

There could be a couple of things going on with your attempts to program.
1 you have made a minor error and it has not been programmed to your desired number.
2 the Track could be a little mucky where you were programming and you are not able to read the Chip number.
 
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Zerogee said:
Obviously there are many on here who know a lot more about the electronics side than I do.... but, I simply cannot see how just trying to rewrite a CV on a decoder can possibly cause it any permanent harm....?

Jon.
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If your loco is partially on a programming track and partially on live track then you can blow a decoder when you try and program it. I know from bitter experience. That's why if you have a siding that doubles as a programming track it's a good idea to have a dead section in between, as long as your longest loco.
 
Zerogee said:
Obviously there are many on here who know a lot more about the electronics side than I do.... but, I simply cannot see how just trying to rewrite a CV on a decoder can possibly cause it any permanent harm....?

Jon.
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I tend to agree. Has the Sprog 3 been working correctly in the past or is it a new set up?
Have you tried to read the CVs out.
 
stockers said:
I tend to agree. Has the Sprog 3 been working correctly in the past or is it a new set up?
Have you tried to read the CVs out.
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The sprog 3 has also become a vegetable on these engines. I'm not willing to sacrifice other engines to it for test it as they still work on the main track with LGB MTS3. At this time it looks like I have created a slight previously unnoticed burned epoxy smell in one engine and just an early demise in the other. Time to quit while I still have some head, and know where my wife's wallet is.
 
Wish I could find such loco's (even 'dead' ones) at such prices..

If you link the pins (as above) you should be able to run them on analogue.. - You can just stuff DC on the motor pins to check if they run, and most analogue supplies are robust enough to not be damaged even if it turns out the motor is a dead short.

If you have a 'burnt smell' then it appears 'something' has let-go somewhere.. Commiserations! :eek::oops:
 
To reset the LGB decoder, write cv 55 to 55.
For Zimo, rewrite cv 8 to 8.

But this may not work if you have a speed step mismatch. LGB of old had 14 speed steps, Zimo had 128 and most other manufacturers were like Zimo but there are exceptions.
 
Well, if it is still working on MTS I dont think much is wrong - sounds like its your Sprog.
 
Greg Elmassian said:
No, the other engines still work, he's not willing to sacrifice them (the working ones) to the Sprog that is now dead too...

Greg
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Thank you Greg.

My vernacular American English just doesn't translate well to other languages, like English.

<GRIN>
 
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