ZIMO?? Digital Help Needed

GWhizz

GWhizz

Offering Garden Railway Holidays in SW France
<p><font size="3">Yet again tempted by "buy it now" on German Ebay I've acquired an LGB Feuriger Elias and a Kleine Dicke.

Whilst they were reasonably priced anyway, a temptation was that they were fitted with ZIMO digital decoders. On checking the Zimo website I see that they should be LGB compatable so I went ahead.

On arrival they work fine on analog and accept CV commands but simply zoom off at full speed when put anywhere near an LGB MTS track. I've contacted Zimo but so far without success.

The German Vendor has already given me a substantial refund so I'm happy to keep them even as analog or to fit new LGB decoders, but before I rip out the offending electronics I wondered if any of the DCC buffs on here might recognise the electronics and offer advice.

I've tried setting CV8 to 9 which is the ZIMO command for a hard reset for LGB compatability. The chip acknowledges the command, but still performs in the same way!

HELP <img title="bounce" border="0" alt="bounce" src="http://illiweb.com/fa/i/smiles/icon_bounce.gif" />

Here are the Kleine Dicke boards ....</font></p><font size="3"><img border="0" src="http://i88.servimg.com/u/f88/13/38/27/28/zimo110.jpg" />

</font><font size="3"><p><img border="0" src="http://i88.servimg.com/u/f88/13/38/27/28/zimo210.jpg" /></p></font>
 
Try setting CV29 bit 1 to 1 , the hard reset CV8=9 will set CV29 to 0, which is 14 speed steps, change to 1 to get 28 speed steps, thats assuming that your System is set to 28.

2p ta
 
<p>I bought a new LGB digital 'baby krokodil' that (out of the box) set off at full speed on my Massoth 1200Z system. The problem so far as I can remember was with the central system which was set to go back to the previous settings when powered up. Presumably the krok had been run at full speed on test in the factory before being boxed and that is what the central system tried to do. I switched to program mode and changed the decoder address etc then reset the central system and all was well.
</p><p>
Back to your problem. CV 8 is read only (NMRA practice P-9.2.2. gives 145 for Zimo Elektronik). However a quick glance at a Zimo manual suggests that writing 8 to CV 8 will reset the decoder to default values. They call this 'psuedo programing' because the CV is not changed but remains at 145. The manual states that writing 9 to CV 8 will set the decoder to 14 speed steps for (claimed) compatibility with the LGB MZS but I'm not sure if it also carries out a reset of the other values, though it does say it is HARD RESET. The NMRA standards do not cover resetting decoders and each manufacturer seems to do things differently. Its different for an LGB chip (manufactured by Massoth, CV8=123, not 159 = LGB) and a chip direct from Massoth (CV8 also 123)!</p><p>
You might first want to check your central system to make sure that it is not set to resume previous settings. Then write 8 to CV 8 and see what happens before writing a 9 to CV8.</p><p> </p><p>Also its always worth checking the obvious, but what decoder address are they set to, and is your controller set to match? I have had some unexplained self resets of decoder address that were most confusing until I realized that the controller was not communicating with the decoder!</p><p> </p><p>Best of luck!</p><p> </p><p>Don
</p>
 
If there is a Zimo decoder in that picture it must be ancient.

Never seen one of those. Some ebay's say there is a Zimo decoder in a locomotive, but then its not.

My father bought a Spreewald that should be with Zimo but when it arrived there was a decoder
in there but it was not Zimo.

Maybe its one of the first but then its more then 10-15 years old.

I use only zimo on my layout.

Hard reset CV8 = 8

When you are controlling your layout with LGB MTS you need to put the speedsteps to 14 as mentioned.

If your german writing is oke contact Arnold Huebsch ( http://atw.huebsch.at/ ) or Oliver Zoffi ( http://zoffi.net/MOBAZI/index.html ). They are Zimo specialists.
 
<p>This is the setup for the mx69 series chips</p><p><a href="http://www.zimo.at/web2007/pdf/MX69MX690E.pdf">http://www.zimo.at/web2007/pdf/MX69MX690E.pdf</a></p><p>I installed one in a mallet which I sold on GSM, in reprogramming the loco address before sending it using the MTS unit I somehow switched off this mts setup and it performed in a similar way. Once Mike reprogrammed it for Les it worked perfectly. Funnily enough we had a similar problem with an ESU chip when we tried to reprogam the address with an MTS unit except it refused to do anything at all until the settings were downloaded again using the ESU unit. I suspect the MTS programming might be upsetting the chips in some way. I know only use the MTS unit for LGB chips.</p>
 
Thanks for all the help guys. I've tried all the various combinations and I'm now of the opinion that these are, as suggested, either very early Zimo or not Zimo at all.

With the refund I got from the vendor I have a couple of Massoth Emotion XL's on the way - decoders I'm very familiar and happy with!

I shan't have sound, but then I didn't buy them as "sound" in any case!

If anyone has use for the discarded electronics let me know, and for the cost of postage they are yours!

Thanks again for the suggestions.
 
Finally a response from Zimo ....
__________________________________________________________
This is a very old decoder, not DCC protocol … so it cannot work.

Peter W. Ziegler
ZIMO ELEKTRONIK
www.zimo.at
_____________________________

So that's that then!
 
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