Zimo Self-optimisation

[WIMorrison]

I was asked a question whether Zimo decoders have the same, or similar, 'self optimisation' that ESU advertises and to my knowledge they dont however whilst searching Google I found this statement

 

Quote

...

The Self-Optimization feature of the decoder automatically tunes the motor control parameters of the decoder to the locomotive.

...

 

Zimo mx660

 

I wonder if anyone is aware of this, or whether it is simply a typo on the website?

 

I wonder if it is simply suggesting that the default values are optimised for general uses or whether it means something like ESU? 

 

 

Any ideas?

[Kaput]

According to the manual a couple of the Zimo motor control CV's have an automatic option, its not really anything like the ESU autotune and only seems to be for CV9 and 57. For CV9 its just an automatic sampling rate for the BEMF and for CV57 its just trying to determine the track voltage automatically.

[Michael Hodgson]

So what does the ESU one do ?

WHat does this optimisation achieve?

[Izzy]

I think that these default auto settings have arrived with recent firmware updates and are in response to the number of locos now using coreless motors so they run well without adjustment. Having said that I have still found that setting cv’s 9 & 56 to fixed values with coreless is better.

[Pete the Elaner]

9 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

So what does the ESU one do ?

WHat does this optimisation achieve?

 

It is supposed to make the loco run a little more smoothly, but I tried it on my HST & it crawled along with the top speed of an 08. 😕

[Ray H]

Talking of optimisation . . . .

 

Is it possible to activate/de-activate the stay alive on a Zimo decoder?

 

Alternately we have a loco with a (big) old motor that draws around 0.6amp (well within the maximum of the fitted Zimo decoder). The loco has been fitted with a Zimo 6800uF SuperCap but doesn't seem able to avoid stuttering over points from time to time.

 

We've tried numerous values for CV153 to no apparent avail - CV153 sets how long the loco will run on when it loses the DCC signal.

 

Apologies for drifting slightly off topic.

[WIMorrison]

Thanks for the replies 

 

It would appear that the auto-calibration on the Zimo decoders is limited, but as reported by @Pete the Elaner the performance of the ESU option can be rather variable (I have heard this from several people).

 

What the thread did make me do, was have a good read of the Zimo Manual (rather than just the CV list) and I discovered that there are a number of Zimo presets that can be called by using CV8 and a value other than 8 to reset the decoder.  As I have a number of Roco locos I have been trying CV8=17 and have found a significant improvement in running on several of them with the only change (other than CV2,3,4,5,6) needing to made is CV112=32 (40kHz - rather than 66 - whatever that is).

 

Might be worth looking at these different reset modes.