Of Piko motors, Uhlenbrock decoders, and other such things....

Zerogee

Zerogee

Clencher's Bogleman
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Hi all,
I was going to PM Cliff directly about this, but then thought I'd ask it on the forum at large in case anyone else has any useful input too.
Those of you who find DCC stuff makes your head hurt, stop reading now - in fact, why are you reading the DCC bit in the first place? ;)

OK, here goes....
On my recent thread about CV9 ("motor frequency") on Massoth decoders, one of the many useful bits of advice I received was that the 5-pole motors used by Piko work best on a frequency setting of just 250 Hz (CV9 set to "2" on a Massoth decoder).

Now, I've recently acquired a Piko loco (a Harzkamel) that was chipped up professionally by a German supplier using an Uhlenbrock Intellidrive 77500 large decoder, with an Uhlenbrock/Dietz sound module connected via SUSI cable. It runs very nicely, and the sound is excellent, BUT there is a bit of a whine from the motors that you can hear when the sound is turned off (not loud enough to notice with the sound volume at a reasonable setting). Checking the specs for the Uhlenbrock 77500, I noticed that it lists a motor frequency of 18.75 KHz, which is higher than even the top setting on a Massoth decoder (16 KHz). Unlike the Massoth, which has four selectable frequency settings, the Uhlenbrock appears to be fixed at that very high frequency - in fact CV9 isn't even listed in the manual for it, which suggest to me that it's not supposed to be a CV that ordinary users should fiddle with.

So, does anyone here have experience of Piko motors and Uhlenbrock decoders (or any other brand that has a high motor frequency)? Is this the most likely source of the whine, and if so, any thoughts on what to do? As I mentioned, it's been professionally set up and installed by someone who certainly sounds like they know what they are doing, so I will most likely just leave it alone, but in light of the comments made on the earlier thread I mentioned I wanted to see if anyone had any useful thoughts?

Thanks! ;)

Jon.
 
As with all things, there are compromises. A high frequency, normally well above 20KHz has the advantage of being inaudible, has excellent slow speed characteristics but is not as efficient due to the losses during the switching of the signal. These are usually a fixed figure of say so many micro-seconds of transients per switch pulse and the shorter the pulse the greater the loss. There are of course many other factors. Your guess that this is beyond what most would want to do, unless there were some Olympic or formula one inspired reason, is hence correct. If you're keen to learn more then refer to the Olympic sport of robot wars as a good source of additional reading.

Richard
 
I wouldn't worry about it John.

I think you will find that the Uhlenbrock 77500 IS the same decoder Piko sell as their own 36120 Multi-protocol decoder.

They should know if the 18.75 kHz motor frequency is doing any damage to their motors.

http://www.ekmpowershop2.com/ekmps/...lidrive-deluxe-large-scale-decoder-9067-p.asp

http://piko.de/36190-anleitungen/36120-90-7001.pdf

I am actually quite surprised that you can observe any whine from the motor. Usually the higher the frequency the less the noise the motor makes.

I couldn't find anywhere that says Piko motors work best on 250Hz (apart from the other thread on here). So now is the time for someone to pop up and show me where!! I've got no Piko stuff myself.
 
Thanks, Richard and Cliff!

I'll bring the Kamel along for your open day, Cliff, it will be nice for it to stretch its legs on a good length of line. :bigsmile:

Jon.
 
As far as I understand it, you do not have to adjust CV9 for Piko motors if used with Massoth, Uhlenbrock, ESU or Lenz decoders. You do have to adjust CV9 for Zimo decoders.

According to Gartenbahn Profi 2/2011, the recommended settings for Piko motors are:

For Massoth:

CV2: 3
CV60: 2
CV61: 150
CV62: 255
CV63: 63

All other CVs as per the default settings.

For Uhlenbrock:

CV5: 63
CV53: 150
CV54: 200
CV55: 40

All other CVs as per the default settings.

For Lenz:

Set CV50 to Motortype 2 or 3

All other CVs as per the default settings.

For Zimo:

CV9: 99
CV56: 66
CV57: 0
CV58: 160
CV112: 32

All other CVs as per the default settings.

For ESU:

(note: the new ESU LokPilot/LokSound XL 4.0 has a function to optimise the motor settings automatically, so no manual adjustment should be necessary)

CV2: 2
CV53: 50
CV54: 32
CV55: 25

All other CVs as per the default settings.

I hope this helps.

Marc
 
Well, strictly speaking the above recommendations were for both Piko and Kiss locos (the latter use Bühler motors, so should be comparable to LGB).

The modifications are particularly recommended for Massoth decoders, as they are quite challenged when it comes to (very) slow running - from my experience, this applies to both LGB and Piko locos, but more so to Piko locos because of the 5-Pole motor.
 
thanks marc, helps alot that:thumbup:
 
Thanks for the info, Marc - I've got that issue of GBP, I think, I'll have to dig it out from the pile (I have a load of issues I bought from a fellow forumite a while back, plus another lot that I ordered from GBP themselves - very helpful people - and some of them I haven't even looked through yet!). The Kamel is my only Piko loco at the moment, but I have that OBB blue/cream railbus on the way that I posted about the other day, and that will need chipping ASAP.

Jon.
 
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