Loco...chipped or not chipped

lgbmad

lgbmad

Model trains....G scale mainly, but enjoy all othe
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Hi all
some advice please regarding if a loco has a MTS/digital chip or not. I have just acquired a couple of loco,s and I am unsure if they are fitted with chips. Is there any way I can find this out with out causing damage to the motors? I cant ask the previous owner as I got the loco,s from an auction house. As you can tell I am a total novice regarding digital operation, but I do have a LGB MTS system that is yet to be put into full use, so it would be nice to start the right way.....and not see smoke rising from a burnt out motor :-[
Thank you
Kev
 
The simple question first - if they are LGB locos, what stickers (if any) are on the underside?

Jon.
 
What Z says is of course entirely correct. LGB locs have a sticker below that identifies whether a Loco is Chipped, ready to be chipped or Chipped with Sound Fitted.,however it may be that the Sticker has fallen off or been removed. Plus none of this will never tell you if a Loco has been retrofitted with a chip. However all is not lost, if you have a simple controller that does not have any fancy Electoric way of trying to make speed mire realistic then you will cause no damage. Chipped Locomotives will work fine on straight DC. Providing of course that the Chip has been set to accept DC. If your Locomotive fails to run on DC this could be the reason.

Perhaps you could find a local Central guy that is close to where you live, has DCC and can check things out for you.
JonD
 
Shouldn't cause any damage if you place it on the track and try to program the address and try it. If it's DC it will buzz and not move, (just don't leave it buzzing as it can overheat the motor if left doing it for a long period), the MTS system allowed for running one DC loco alongside those on digital.
See page 10 here http://www.champex-linden.de/lgb_produktdatenbank_d-e/medien.nsf/medien/FDD7BB7DE590D4BD05256B640067519F/$FILE/55005.PDF
 
Hi again
first off........thank you for the replies, second.....I am a numpty.......so excited to get the loco,s out of the boxes and never thought to check the actual boxes the sets came in :D :D
I have uploaded the pictures of the boxes to show what has been added by a company called 'Hobbybahn'. I knew the Rhatische Bahn set was fitted with a factory decoder before I bid on the set, but the other two sets I believe would of been originally analogue, and going by the labels have been upgraded with chips. The Mallet from the express set has been fitted with a Massoth emotion XL chip (found the massoth booklet laying under one of the coaches). So at least I can be safe in believing all the loco,s have chips, but will the LGB MTS system run all the loco,s. I ask this because while I was at Stafford for the G scale show last week I got speaking to a helpful member of one of the area G scale groups who explained that the Massoth system was better than the LGB MTs system in that, the MTS was restricted to how many loco addresses it could store. As you can see from the pictures, one loco address is '205' and the other '685'. If I understand right, this would mean the MTS system would not recognise the addresses......or have I got that wrong (would not surprize me !!)
There is no doubt in my mind now that DCC is the way to go, which is great as I have a few other digital loco's collected.....just got to get the first piece of track down this summer ;D ;D
Thank you again for any help
Kev
 
Blimey I am getting worse.....pictures here now.DSC02359.JPGDSC02360.JPGDSC02361.JPG
 
I've got a mts2 and it happily drives 5 sound locos at a time with three of them twin motors.
The MTS only does 1-22 so the locos will need reprogramming into that range.
Reprogram to the value in the range and if it doesn't respond you'll need to check cv29 has a value of 4 so the short address is active. You'll need access to a programmer for that or the alternate push button handset to do it with the MTS base station.
 
Thank you for the info, when you say a programmer, do you mean one of the MTS handsets?
Kev
 
lgbmad said:
Thank you for the info, when you say a programmer, do you mean one of the MTS handsets?
Kev
Click to expand...
Yes but it has to be the LGB 55015 Universal Remote handset for programming Kev.

The 55016 Loco Remote cannot be used to do this.

The other method is with a 55045 MTS PC Interface, or a sprog device or similar....
 
Thank you, I am with you. I only have the 55016 hand set, so best I take look on ebay. Had I not spent on these sets I would look to possible get a Massoth set up, but I think that might be £1000+.......pocket money does not spread that far :(
Thank you again for the info
 
Ian_S said:
May I respectfully suggest you purchase a SPROG then? http://www.sprog-dcc.co.uk/about_sprogII.shtml

£45 for the Mk2 and £60 for the Mk 3 version

Can read and program virtually ANY decoder

Worth it IMHO
Click to expand...
BUT you would still need to use a Massoth PC module for loading sound-files.. Unless you find a supplier (like Mark, Muns on here, of Garden Rail Outlet) who will pre-program the decoder for you.
 
All you need to do (as has already been said) is to reprogram your engine decoders so that they have an address in the range 1-22. That is a one time only operation. Take them to a mate who has a DCC system that can change CVs (virtually all of them). A dealer may do it for you, some for free, and some charge a small fee.
 
Which version of MTS do you have (model no of the central station) ?
 
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