Bachmann Warships running slowly with Lenz Decoders

[Mutley]

Evening all,

 

I wonder if anybody can shed any light on a slightly baffling problem that I have?

 

I have a number of Bachmann Class 42 Warships of various vintages, some dating back to the original releases (running on Chassis from 'Glory' models) and others from the later DCC Ready versions including Champion and Zenith and I recently decided to get them all fitted-up with some spare Lenz decoders that I had knocking around (Standards, Silvers, Golds).  All ran as expected on DC.

 

After an initial test, I put them to one side and got on with the business of building my layout and now that I've finally got somewhere to run everything, thought I'd let the Warships out for a spin.

 

The problem I'm having is that they all consistently run with a very low top speed.  I've been a DCC user for 15 years and whilst no expert, I don't consider myself to be a total novice either.  I duly reset decoders, made sure that top speed wasn't being pegged back by values in CV5 etc, all with no effect.

 

I tried a different decoder - I had a spare Zimo MX623 (reset to factory defaults) and the difference was quite stark.  I timed the loco fitted with the Lenz decoder and it lapped my layout repeatedly at around 31 seconds.  Fitted with the Zimo, 25 Seconds.  I tried this with various locos and all consistently gave the same results.

 

I should say that I'm using an NCE Powercab and have noted comments before on slow top speeds due to the Power Supply and dealt with that a while ago.

 

The 'suspect' Lenz decoders were also tried in other locos, the Bachmann Class 43 Warship and Heljan Hymeks for example and all ran fine.

 

I'm not having this issue with any other combination and other than ditching the Lenz decoders and replacing with Zimo, I'm a bit stuck for a way forward at the moment.

 

I just wondered if anybody had any thoughts or suggestions?

 

Any help would be gratefully received.

 

Thanks in advance

Mike

[DCB]

I am wondering how big the layout is and so how serious the slow running is?

[Mutley]

I am wondering how big the layout is and so how serious the slow running is?

Hi David, thanks for your reply.

 

The layout is 13'6" x 9'6", so a decent size.  I think the problem I have with it is that the locos do look like they're crawling, which isn't quite the effect I was aiming for!

 

As I say, just by replacing the Lenz decoders with Zimo, I can get a 24% increase in top speed and that speed they do look acceptable, I'd just rather not have to fork out for new decoders unless I really have to.

 

All the best

Mike

Edited November 25, 2017 by Mutley

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I once saw this effect on a Bach 24 mechanism, ran well above scale speed on 12V DC, a complete slug when equipped with the ESU lokpilot Bach then used badged as their own 36-553 decoder: chopping the capacitors off the motor fixed it instantly. Can be a pain to get access, but it is only necessary to snip one lead per capacitor. (Never had to do it on any other Bachmann diesel with their usual big motor, and all either have the ESU/Bach decoder or Lenz standard.)

Edited November 25, 2017 by 34theletterbetweenB&D

[Mutley]

I once saw this effect on a Bach 24 mechanism, ran well above scale speed on 12V DC, a complete slug when equipped with the ESU lokpilot Bach then used badged as their own 36-553 decoder: chopping the capacitors off the motor fixed it instantly. Can be a pain to get access, but it is only necessary to snip one lead per capacitor. (Never had to do it on any other Bachmann diesel with their usual big motor, and all either have the ESU/Bach decoder or Lenz standard.)

Thanks for that.

 

I had a glimmer of hope there for a sec but a nagging feeling that I might already have dealt with the caps.  Opened up a couple of the offenders and confirmed that I had done.  Alas!

 

Thanks again, grateful for the suggestion.

 

All the best

Mike

[WIMorrison]

One thing I find makes a difference with the Lens silver and gold I use is setting the back EMF and motor type - no rhyme or reason but ‘identical’ locos from Roco run differently but playing with these setting got them running the same.

 

I find that playing with them on each loco using POM can make the locos run much more smoothly.

 

Might be work trying?

Edited November 25, 2017 by WIMorrison

[NIK]

 

Evening all,

 

I wonder if anybody can shed any light on a slightly baffling problem that I have?

 

I have a number of Bachmann Class 42 Warships of various vintages, some dating back to the original releases (running on Chassis from 'Glory' models) and others from the later DCC Ready versions including Champion and Zenith and I recently decided to get them all fitted-up with some spare Lenz decoders that I had knocking around (Standards, Silvers, Golds).  All ran as expected on DC.

 

After an initial test, I put them to one side and got on with the business of building my layout and now that I've finally got somewhere to run everything, thought I'd let the Warships out for a spin.

 

The problem I'm having is that they all consistently run with a very low top speed.  I've been a DCC user for 15 years and whilst no expert, I don't consider myself to be a total novice either.  I duly reset decoders, made sure that top speed wasn't being pegged back by values in CV5 etc, all with no effect.

 

I tried a different decoder - I had a spare Zimo MX623 (reset to factory defaults) and the difference was quite stark.  I timed the loco fitted with the Lenz decoder and it lapped my layout repeatedly at around 31 seconds.  Fitted with the Zimo, 25 Seconds.  I tried this with various locos and all consistently gave the same results.

 

I should say that I'm using an NCE Powercab and have noted comments before on slow top speeds due to the Power Supply and dealt with that a while ago.

 

The 'suspect' Lenz decoders were also tried in other locos, the Bachmann Class 43 Warship and Heljan Hymeks for example and all ran fine.

 

I'm not having this issue with any other combination and other than ditching the Lenz decoders and replacing with Zimo, I'm a bit stuck for a way forward at the moment.

 

I just wondered if anybody had any thoughts or suggestions?

 

Any help would be gratefully received.

 

Thanks in advance

Mike

 

 

Hi,

 

It might be worth cleaning the wheels and giving the locos a good run round.

 

Some designs of decoders when faced with power interruptions that are so small that they cant be seen by eye might have trouble deciding whether the voltage waveform received from the track is DC or DCC resulting in the decoder sending shorter pulses to the motor (the motor speed is controlled by a microcontroller changing the Pulse Width Modulation of the rectified and smoothed DCC waveform). 

 

Its a bit like a modern car that gets a bit of water in its fuel system - the engine management system (microcontroller controlled) tries to cope with the odd fuel supply but goes into limp-back mode: performance is reduced near the top end and at tick over.

 

However unlike a modern car DCC doesn't have an engine warning light or a diagnostic interface.

 

Also model trains have such powerful motors relative to their loads that acceleration is not noticeably affected by the above malfunction - only the speed vs controller position can be detected by mere humans.

 

If your decoders have the option of turning off the DC mode you can consider doing this (it has upsides but also downsides).

 

 

Regards

 

Nick

[RFS]

I would suggest having a look at the values you can specify for EMF and motor types in CV 50.  The manual for the Standard+ says the following:

 

"The decoder also has what we refer to as a EMF switch which makes it
possible to further adjust the decoder to different motor types. Depending
on the motor type used, it is possible that a digitally controlled locomotive
cannot reach an adequate maximum speed compared to a locomotive in
conventional operation. If this is the case, activate your EMF switch by
setting Bit 6 in CV 50. The locomotive will then reach a higher maximum
speed while the minimum speed is also slightly increased."

 

Are your decoders the latest + versions as these replaced the older versions about 7-8 years ago.

[Mutley]

One thing I find makes a difference with the Lens silver and gold I use is setting the back EMF and motor type - no rhyme or reason but ‘identical’ locos from Roco run differently but playing with these setting got them running the same.

 

I find that playing with them on each loco using POM can make the locos run much more smoothly.

 

Might be work trying?

 

 

Hi,

 

It might be worth cleaning the wheels and giving the locos a good run round.

 

Some designs of decoders when faced with power interruptions that are so small that they cant be seen by eye might have trouble deciding whether the voltage waveform received from the track is DC or DCC resulting in the decoder sending shorter pulses to the motor (the motor speed is controlled by a microcontroller changing the Pulse Width Modulation of the rectified and smoothed DCC waveform). 

 

Its a bit like a modern car that gets a bit of water in its fuel system - the engine management system (microcontroller controlled) tries to cope with the odd fuel supply but goes into limp-back mode: performance is reduced near the top end and at tick over.

 

However unlike a modern car DCC doesn't have an engine warning light or a diagnostic interface.

 

Also model trains have such powerful motors relative to their loads that acceleration is not noticeably affected by the above malfunction - only the speed vs controller position can be detected by mere humans.

 

If your decoders have the option of turning off the DC mode you can consider doing this (it has upsides but also downsides).

 

 

Regards

 

Nick

 

 

I would suggest having a look at the values you can specify for EMF and motor types in CV 50.  The manual for the Standard+ says the following:

 

"The decoder also has what we refer to as a EMF switch which makes it

possible to further adjust the decoder to different motor types. Depending

on the motor type used, it is possible that a digitally controlled locomotive

cannot reach an adequate maximum speed compared to a locomotive in

conventional operation. If this is the case, activate your EMF switch by

setting Bit 6 in CV 50. The locomotive will then reach a higher maximum

speed while the minimum speed is also slightly increased."

 

Are your decoders the latest + versions as these replaced the older versions about 7-8 years ago.

 

Thanks all.

 

I've had a bit of success today using some of the above.

 

My decoders are almost certainly of the older variety as I haven't bought any new Lenz in a very long time.

 

First thing I tried was to give everything a good clean (excellent advice) ... unfortunately, no discernible improvement. 

 

Next, adjusted CV29 to switch-off DC, again no discernible improvement but that does eliminate another possible cause.

 

I then set about CV50, which is something that I must confess I'd forgotten about.  Using Programming on the main, I set one of the locos to run around at top speed and found that by setting CV50 to motor type 3 (whatever that is!) and CV9 to 1, I got a definite increase in speed.

 

I did this to three of the cuplrits and their 'lap times' reduced from 31 seconds to 26/27 seconds, so much closer to the Zimo.  I thought I'd check the Zimo's settings for completeness and found that CV5 was set to 220 ... I increased it to 255 and the gap between the Zimo and Lenz top speeds opened-up again although I didn't have a chance to time it as 'dad duties' called.

 

I also noticed something else a bit odd today in that the Lenz decoders didn't seem to respond to commands to change speed in one part of the layout.  As far as I can tell, there isn't an issue with the BUS, or anything in the wiring in that area and literally none of my other locos powered by Zimo, TCS, ESU etc are affected in the same way.  Is there potentially something in the older Lenz decoders that is less resilient to some oddity with the Powercab maybe?

 

I must say that I experienced problems with top speed on all locos some time ago and after reading peoples' experiences, found that I had a 12v transformer and swapped this out for something higher and that made a difference.  Although I do love the PowerCab and its interface, I've been thinking for a while that I might switch it for something else ...

 

Thanks again for all your help

Mike

[Nigelcliffe]

 

 

I also noticed something else a bit odd today in that the Lenz decoders didn't seem to respond to commands to change speed in one part of the layout.  As far as I can tell, there isn't an issue with the BUS, or anything in the wiring in that area and literally none of my other locos powered by Zimo, TCS, ESU etc are affected in the same way.  Is there potentially something in the older Lenz decoders that is less resilient to some oddity with the Powercab maybe?

 

The lack of response to commands DOES indicate a wiring issue.  The DCC signal isn't getting through quite as clearly to that part of the layout as elsewhere.      As to why certain decoders notice, and some don't:  different makers use different methods to detect the pulses in the DCC signal, so you can get situations where one maker can see through a somewhat noisy signal and other makers can't decipher anything from the noise.  

[Mutley]

The lack of response to commands DOES indicate a wiring issue.  The DCC signal isn't getting through quite as clearly to that part of the layout as elsewhere.      As to why certain decoders notice, and some don't:  different makers use different methods to detect the pulses in the DCC signal, so you can get situations where one maker can see through a somewhat noisy signal and other makers can't decipher anything from the noise.  

 

Thanks Nigel, all noted.

 

I've got some time off of work this week to work on the layout so best to make sure that I've got a firm electrical foundation I guess before proceeding any further.  I've got enough spare BUS cable to deal with the whole layout, so will replace the lot.

 

All the best

Mike

[RFS]

Although the majority of my locos have Lenz decoders, I have had a couple of problems with them.

 

Firstly, the Bachmann EMUs: 2-EPB especially and 4-CEPs to a lesser extent. There seemed to be interference causing them not to properly recognize the DCC signal at times, especially with 2-EPBs running as a pair.  After much investigation the conclusion was the interference was coming from the units themselves, probably the lighting circuitry.  All units now have Zimo decoders and run perfectly. 

 

Secondly, some Hornby locos caused interference in others whilst running perfectly themselves.  For example, a pair of 2-BILs would work perfectly individually, but once in a consist one unit performed abysmally (very jerky).  Fortunately a simple answer - remove the capacitors. But it was the unit running perfectly that needed its capacitor removing to fix the problem with the other.  I now take capacitors out wherever possible.  However, some locos (Bachmann EMUs as above) require complete dismantling to get their 3 caps out and I've only done it on a couple, as having done so there was no perceived benefit. 

 

All remaining locos with Lenz decoders work extremely well with no problems. 

[10000]

Search the web on how to measure scale speed. A lot are for H0 but there are some for 00.

 

My Bachmann 42's top out at 70mph on DCC and they do look slow when compared to something doing 90/100 mph.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

On finding that some OO RTR locos had reduction gearing that prevented them achieving scale maximum speed on 12V DC (Bach stds 5MT and 9F the principal culprits at the time). I couldn't get these two to achieve the scale 90mph+ capability of the prototypes, using every adjustment available on Lenz or Zimo decoders. (I have a main line layout, and the intent is that when on fast services they belt along the way I remember the steam worked ECML). After some information here I reset my Lenz system output to equivalent 19V - '38' as opposed to the '32' =16V that is the default setting, and all was well. No cost - as compared to the alternative proven by Tim Easter, of fitting a Mash 1426 to the Std 5MT -  which always goes down well with me.

 

The Lenz coyness about clearly describing what the decoder motor type settings do is something of an annoyance, in what is otherwise a well documented product; so you just have to 'go fishing' when using this feature. I keep meaning to dig into German user sites, someone over there must be equally annoyed and have worked it out...