BEMO Abe 4/4 III Triebwagen Problem

[MichaelE]

This started a month or more ago and I thought twice I had fixed it.

My locomotive started stuttering within a certain slow speed range and I fiddled with a couple of motor control CV's and it took care of the problem. A couple of weeks later it was doing the same thing again.

This time I did further research into the motor control CV's and made a few more changes after resetting to factory spec.

This really seemed to work better than the first changes I made and it was running well until yesterday.

Yesterday it would barely run at all and it would not complete a circuit without stopping a minimum of four times at random spots on the RhB line. If I pressed a bit or rattled the locomotive between the rails it would sometimes start up again. Other times I had to push it down the track before the motor would start rotating again.

I pulled the wheels and cleaned and polished them along with the pickups. I cleaned the track though the cotton pad wiped very little dirt or oxidation from the rails.
I went as far as soldering in new drop locations in two spots with no better results. At this point the stuttering was the worst it has ever been.

After removing the locomotive from the track for a couple of hours and replacing it back on the track, it is running semi-normally again. The stutter is still there at slow speed, but it was not stalling on the track any longer and will complete circuit after circuit.

 

Last night I did a complete reset of the decoder after trying to use the automatic calibration in CV 54. After using that I couldn't get any speed out of the locomotive. At a speed step of 126, it was barely moving at a scale speed of 30 KPH. Automatic calibration seems to have wrecked all of the motor control CV's. After the reset, normal speeds returned but the stutter is still there. It also jerks slightly upon stopping and to a lesser degree, when starting.

 

If anyone here on the Swiss forum has this BEMO Triebwagen, would they be so kind as to go through their CV's 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 116, 117, 118, and 119 and tell me what their CV values are for Loksound 5 so I can fix this thing. I know it's a lot of trouble to do this, but I have no other recourse.

 

I do not know if when the decoders are installed in BEMO products if they are tailored to the specific locomotive or whether they just pop them in and call it good. This is my last resort before this locomotive goes back to either BEMO or ModellbahnShop-Lippe for service or replacement.

 

Thanks fellows.

[MichaelE]

After writing down the factory default values of the decoder I started with CV56 as this seemed to be more related to the problem than the other CV's. 

 

It was set at a default of 255 and it was recommended to reduce this to smooth operation. It did not specify a speed range where this would be most effective, but after working it down to 100 in 20 unit increments, this seems to have taken care of most of the stuttering.

 

I also adjusted CV117 and reduced it from 150 to 120 and this has taken care of the rest of the problem between speed step 39 and 42. It appears to be running as good as new...for now. I wrote down these settings so when it happens again I can re-enter them.

 

I did not change any of the other CV's related to motor control and fortunately did not have to. It is running at a scale speed of 12 to 20 MPH without any stuttering for now.