John Geeee Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Hi I have added a Zimo sound decoder to a Bachmann 5MT. When I first installed it it operated ok on the rolling road on my test track, so I finished putting the loco back together and put it on my layout and the running was terrible sound would be ok on startup but as soon as it was asked to move it would stop every inch and the sound would stop and it would need a push to come back to life. I hadn't long changed my layout to DCC and had added some extra power feeds here and there and added extra feeds whenever a poor performing piece of track was found. The black 5 was struggling around my yard area so I added more feeds to each siding track and tested each track join to make sure I had a good electrical connectivity with a multi meter. I cleaned all the track but still the Black 5 stuttered. So I left it alone for a couple of weeks and today revisited it. I took all the underside of the loco apart and cleaned all the pickups and wheels and gave it a bit of oil to keep everything as smooth as possible. Put it on the rolling road and it ran perfect with sound for 30 minutes or more. So, put it back on the layout and its still rubbish, the sound comes on but when it moves every inch or so it stops dead. Clean the track and no improvement, try any other loco on the same layout areas and no problem even my only other sound loco which is LMS 10000 diesel. I am getting a bit fed up with it now so locked the shed up for the night. I know there is probably a lot of things I havn't said about the track etc but does anyone have any other tips. I don't understand how one loco can struggle when most of the others are fine. What can I do to make it better? If the loco runs ok on the rolling road then is the fault all in the layout? The loco ran ok when it had a non sound chip in it as far as I can remember. Can anyone offer any comments please? Cheers John Geeeee Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
FSB Posted February 9, 2015 Share Posted February 9, 2015 Sounds like you have pick-up problems with the loco. Ease all the fixing screws you may have altered and see if there is any twist or anything out of alignment with the chassis/pick-up arrangement. Have fitted a Loksound micro with SWD UDrive and Zimo sugar cube speaker in the smokebox of the Bachmann Standard 5MT and am very impressed with the result. FSB Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Geeee Posted May 11, 2015 Author Share Posted May 11, 2015 After a few months of picking it up, putting it down, shall I rip it out and get it reblown, shall I buy another Black 5, I gave it one last go this weekend. I bought a capacitor and a resister to try and see if stay alive addition would work but when I saw how small the sodering area was on the chip I thought sod that that is one easy way to mess up the decoder. I took the decoder out and ran it on piece of DC wird track and it ran perfectly. I put a normal non sound decoder in and it ran perfectly. I put the Zimo MX646R back in and it ran like a stuttering drunk . I took the bottom pick up plate off and gave all the wheels a damn good clean and it was still useless. I looked at the wheel pickups and they all seemed to be touching thewhaeel backs so I made one last attempt and I bent all the pickups out a bit more and refitted the pickup base and there was a bit more force in the pickup contact on the backs of the wheels. In the past I have been reluctant to bend the thin pickup metal becasue I have broken them before on other locos.So I put it back on the layout and it worked . It ran around my continuous loop with no stuttering and continuous sound. I Ran it into my shed area and it struggled over the insulfrog points to all the siding tracks but it was a lot betterthan previous efforts. So I have come to the conclusion that sound decoders are very sensitive to pick up. I have added more power feeds to the shed area and all the sidings and there seems to be good continuity between every piece of track but it does not seem good enough for sound although I have two other diesel locos with sound that work fine but I guess they just have a bigger area of pickup with two bogies to collect it from. So the next questions. Is it the loco only having a short over length of pickup over the six driving wheels that is the issue, or is the power feed not strong enough from the 50200 ECoS controller for my layout even though there was only the 5MT operating at the time. Would a booster help or are these only for creating sectional layouts in DCC and not for giving more power to the layout generally? One other query, is it normal for the layout to have a low humming noise when the DCC controller is turned on. I guess it is some of the locos buzzing even though they are not moving. There are about 20 locos on the layout all together and the humming can be a bit annoying when nothing is moving. Is it a bad sign of something wrong? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tractor_37260 Posted May 11, 2015 Share Posted May 11, 2015 Strange that the loco runs perfectly OK on DC, was that with the decoder still fitted ? or replaced with a DC blanking plug, and also when a non sound decoder was fitted. I have a few Zimo 645R decoders, although fitted in diesels, provided the wheels/pick-ups and track are kept clean, they give truly "outstanding" running control, especially at slow speeds, although the decoders came pre-fitted with small standard capacitors. Have you tried putting the "stuttering drunk" sound decoder in a different loco to see how it runs then ? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Geeee Posted May 11, 2015 Author Share Posted May 11, 2015 It ran on DC with a blanking plate fitted. I didn't try the decoder in another loco once I got it working on the main part of the layout as I didnt want to mess around getting the speaker out of the tender which would have meant unsoldering the wires to get them out. I also noticed that running on DC it seemed to run at a faster speed. WIth the zimo fitted the speed seems limited, is that to match the maximum sound beat that is possible from the decoder, not that I mind? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest G567281 Posted May 11, 2015 Share Posted May 11, 2015 It ran on DC with a blanking plate fitted. I didn't try the decoder in another loco once I got it working on the main part of the layout as I didnt want to mess around getting the speaker out of the tender which would have meant unsoldering the wires to get them out. I also noticed that running on DC it seemed to run at a faster speed. WIth the zimo fitted the speed seems limited, is that to match the maximum sound beat that is possible from the decoder, not that I mind? Unless I've missed it, have you done Cv8 = 8 reset. You may have to do it a few times due to the built in intelligence within the decoder. The address will revert back to its original setting of 3 if this is how it was supplied to you by the original seller. Good luck. Alan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunmar Posted May 12, 2015 Share Posted May 12, 2015 I had a similar problem with a Black five fitted with a V4 Loksound - after fitting tbe speaker in the tender - there were spells when it would stop for no apparent reason. Finally tracked it down to the fact that I had to remove the weight to fit the speaker and every time the tender lifted ever so slightly the connection between that and the loco it would stop ie, over points. Would also have a look at checking the current with a tester at the point in the track where it stops. Bill. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady_Ava_Hay Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 All track as supplied seems to have film coating on it which may or may not be oil based. If you go to some lengths to remove that coating with something like IPA or GooGone, the running of sound locos is dramatically and near permanently improved. Sandpaper or other purely mechanical means don't work as they merely damage the rail/wheel and spread the film. I have found brass brushes to be particularly prone to spreading this film as the brass seems to exude a film anyway. I think it might have something to do with DC current having extra 'zoom' to overcome this microscopic film whereas DCC lacks that and trades it for higher voltage and a different waveform plus adding the tiny packets of data which control the decoder. As to speed, it was quickly realised that running on DC very often resulted in 100mph running sometimes before the end of the platform. DCC is capable of very much finer control and most decoders are set at lower levels of speed to be more realistic. There was an ocean of praise and much discussion on here about it at the time I vividly recall. Sound decoders in general require more time to play sound files realistically and gentle movement of the throttle is rewarding as to the sounds played and the realism of movement. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Geeee Posted May 18, 2015 Author Share Posted May 18, 2015 Hi All Thanks for the comments, As I get more into DCC and particularly sound I get worried about doing a decoder reset because some of the instructions I have from the people I buy the decoders from say don't do the reset as it may wreck all the sound files?? I am learning all the time about the finnicky little traits of DCC. I spent a couple of hours the other day trying to get a Class 55 working with a new sound chip and could not get any sound out of it. My ECoS recognised the chip but when it came to changing and uploading any configuration they had no effect. It wasn't until I gave the wheels another good going over with track cleaner fluid that everything suddenly started to work yet the loco had been running ok 2 hours earlier with a non-sound decoder in it! So the lesson from now on is clean the bloody wheels before fitting sound chips even if the loco seems to be working before changing the decoder. Now I am trying to work out how to set the cab lighting up in the diesel loco as they now seem to have a mind of their own as to which end wants to come on? Tried seetting up the 55 and cab lights didnt work. Found the function button to turn them on and both ends lit up, Fiddled about abit in the configs and now only the same one cab lights whether it moves forwards or backwards! DOH! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold pheaton Posted May 19, 2015 RMweb Gold Share Posted May 19, 2015 Its worth noting, and you will notice this on your ECoS, with the built in ammeter that loco's with sound running are far more prone to electrical continuity problems than a loco without. case in point, i have a Bachmann factory fiited class 47, no sound loco runs like a dream, sound running loco runs like a dream, if i try and play a sound like the horn with the sound running, the loco starts to stutter!, this is primarily due to a poor voltage getting to the decoder, and mostly due to dirt on the wheels, but since a sound fitted loco will hapilly pull a couple of hunderd milliamps more than a non sound fitted loco this is sometimes enough to push the voltage below the threshold for reliable operation. A quick look at the wheels of my aforementioned spoon and sure enough they are covered in muck and dirt. Also, have you set your ECoS power supply to the reccomended 16-18v as out of the box it only supplies 14v On very old decoder configs like the very first from SWD and i think some howes a CV8 reset would cause the decoder to lose all of its speed tables, the sounds would all be there but they would be out of sync, but as far as im aware (happy to be corrected) all the sound profiles availiable nowadays can survive a CV8 reset. Good luck Simon Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
34theletterbetweenB&D Posted May 19, 2015 Share Posted May 19, 2015 ...So I have come to the conclusion that sound decoders are very sensitive to pick up. I have added more power feeds to the shed area and all the sidings and there seems to be good continuity between every piece of track but it does not seem good enough for sound although I have two other diesel locos with sound that work fine but I guess they just have a bigger area of pickup with two bogies to collect it from. So the next questions. Is it the loco only having a short over length of pickup over the six driving wheels that is the issue... Six wheels are enough to pick up over - they have to be or no one would ever get tank locos to operate reliably - but a steam model starts at a disadvantage compared to the all-wheel pick up of a twin bogie drive diesel, wth two independent chassis and more driveen whels and weight on them aiding current collection. Bach's std 5MT is quite an early design in their Blue Riband range and has an inbuilt problem: as supplied it is not optimally balanced. The front three wheelsets are all sprung. The bogie is oversprung, needs about a quarter the length of spring that it has to avoid lifting the leading driver off the track, which basically leaves only the rear driver optimally picking up. The leading driver is sprung, but far too weakly, and the movement is constrained. Cut very shallow rebates in the keeper plate sides to allow the axle to drop slightly, put a stiffer spring on the plunger, and ensure the plunger is free to move. Making these two alterations means that the loco now runs with most of the weight on the fixed rear drivers and the sprung front drivers. That's more like the condition it was in on your rolling road, where all the weight is on the drivers, the bogie is playing no part. (Just one reason I believe rolling roads aren't really worth having: they test few of the many aspects required for a model to run well on track.) You have already attended to bending out the wipers for optimum contact; factory setting is often far too slack in this respect. The motor has ample powwe to directly overcome the little extra drag that good contact requires. ...One other query, is it normal for the layout to have a low humming noise when the DCC controller is turned on. I guess it is some of the locos buzzing even though they are not moving. There are about 20 locos on the layout all together and the humming can be a bit annoying when nothing is moving. Is it a bad sign of something wrong? I'd not be happy with that; do a search to isolate the source(s) and eliminate it. I have over seventy decoder fitted locos live on the layout, and with nothing moving there is silence. First thing to try is to disconnect the live DCC system from the layout. Does that kill the hum? If so, it's on the layout or between the layout and the ECoS Can you separate the ECoS from its power supply, does that kill the hum? And so on... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
FSB Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 This all sounds like bad pick-up in one way or another. Different people have their favourite ways of modifying locos etc. but providing extra pick-ups and appropriate weight is really the only way. Have a look at David Townend's videos on the McKinley railway and see how he has modified his WD 2-8-0s as an example. There is currently a leaning towards fitting capacitors of one sort or another but this is sometimes not easy and not the real answer. FSB Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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