Blown decoder or slot?

[AndrueC]

So earlier this year (like March or April) I was backing my class 43 and I backed her against a turnout. Something started buzzing. I was new to this lark back then and thought it was the motor but now I think it was my NCE PowerCab fuse. Anyway after that the train wouldn't respond to commands. I'd had the problem before when the loco derailed and I had to reprogram the Imperium decoder. This time even that didn't work - apparently I'd fried the decoder.

 

Luckily I had another decoder in the unpowered rear engine where all it was doing was flipping the lights according to the train direction so I put that in the power car and all was fine. She's run happily ever since.

 

Anyway today as I was doing some scenery work on the yard I had to remove the train from the tracks so decided that now was the time to install a decoder I'd bought to replace the blown one. So plugged the new decoder into the unpowered car and put it on the programming track. 'Cannot read CV'. I had a second spare decoder so tried that 'Cannot read CV'. Now when I took the body off the unpowered loco there was already a decoder in there. I think it was a blank decoder but I'm not sure. What I can see is that with this third decoder inserted I do at least have lights at the rear (two red and one white).

 

So it looks to me like when I backed the train against a turnout two things happened:

1. The decoder in the powered unit blew.
2. The decoder slot in the unpowered loco blew.

 

Does any of this seem reasonable? I always felt it was strange that backing a train against a turnout could blow the decoder at the other end. I'm now also surprised that there is anything much in the slot PCB that can blow, especially since with what I think is a blanking decoder inserted the lights do at least work.

 

The train is now back running again so all is good there - I just don't have correct lighting a the rear.

 

But I'm a bit puzzled.

[WIMorrison]

Have to say that this doesn't seem reasonable to me - never had a decoder 'blow' for any reason in more than 20 years of using DCC, and I can assure you that I have caused shorts with locos over-running turnouts many, many times.

 

I even managed to get a decoder smoking one time, but it still worked - though it took a while for the burns on my fingers to heal!

[Dagworth]

You won't be able to program decoders or read CVs in an unpowered car.

 

Program BOTH cars together, powered and unpowered at the same time, then reprogram the powered car afterwards.

 

Andi

[malc60015]

Try putting the new decoder in the power car to program it, they invariably need to "sense" a motor to enable programing.

cheers malc

[AndrueC]

Ah! Thank you! Yes, I suppose that makes sense re putting the decoder into the powered car.

 

As for the 'blown' decoder I think I still have it somewhere so maybe will find it one day to investigate. Having to reprogram it on every derail (something the class 43 used to do a lot) always seemed a bit weird. Sometimes I could reset it by just removing it from the track then putting it back down. I actually still have the loco (I call her Miss Behaviour, lol) at address 3 because I got fed up of having to reprogram it all the time.