First time with NCE PowerCab - loco sound not staying on?

[MikuMatt81]

Hi everyone,

 

   So I’ve been using my trusty old Hornby Select for the last couple of years, and today I “upgraded “ to my new NCE powercab starter set.

Now with the Hornby Select, as soon as I powered on at the wall, all four of my loco’s sat on the track would spring to life and the sound would automatically initiate - great.

To my surprise when I turned on the PowerCab for the first time, sound did not automatically come on for any of my locos.

 

I thought well that’s ok, I will turn the sound on my first loco using the function 1 key, but as soon as I select another loco, the sound on the first loco cuts out!! 
 

Then If I set the sound to on for the second Loco, that too cuts out as soon as I go back to the first etc

 

What gives here please? Why is the sound not persisting between loco selection? Please don’t tell me this is a limitation of the NCE unit?

 

Because for all it’s faults the budget Hornby controller even manages to retain sound settings after you turn it off.

 

 

 

any help much appreciated!

 

 

[Nigelcliffe]

You need to use the Recall Stack in the PowerCab.   That allows you to resume control of an existing locomotive. 

 

If you select a loco manually, then the PowerCab assumes it should be controlled with all functions initially to off. 

 

Whether this behaviour is sensible or not is another question, but its what they do.   

[mcowgill]

Once you've got sound active on multiple locos how are you selecting a different loco, are you keying in the address or cycling through the recall stack using the recall button to select an 'active' loco?    IIRC selecting a loco by number it resets the status, selecting the loco from the recall stack retains the settings.

 

My Powercab is tucked away somewhere at the moment so I can't check

 

Martin

[AndrueC]

Also worth noting that by default the PowerCab only supports two locos on the stack. You can configure this up to six locos however. You also need to be aware that the PowerCab doesn't initialise all locos on the Recall stack when powered on. Nor indeed does it initialise the last loco used. It remembers the state of the last loco though so if the first thing you do is increase the throttle it should also set the lights and sound to be as you last requested as well.

 

However at power on locos and accessories will be at whatever their default is. Some decoders will remember how they were last set and act accordingly, others don't.

 

Eg; I have a Class 43 and when powered on the lights will be off even though they were on when powered off. All my other locos remember how their lights were last set and display accordingly. It's worth noting however that if I Select a loco that has its lights on at power on and then increase the throttle the lights will go out because the PowerCab starts off with 'no lights' as its default.

 

My sound enabled Class 68 never remembers that it last ran with sound either. So whether I get sound initially depends on how the PowerCab is set when I send the first command.

Edited April 19 by AndrueC

[Danemouth]

Look on page 57 of the manual Loco Refresh needs to be set to 0 otherwise when the loco is selected all functions are set off

 

Page 58 shows how to set the recall stack to 6

 

Also using the momentum button on sound chipped locos can cause problems - there is more info on here somewhere.

 

Finally the option key needs to be remapped to address function numbers above 9 - see page 19 - the value needs to be reset to 122

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

[mcowgill]

I remember that Function Refresh was a big deal when the firmware was updated to include this years back!   There's a good video here explaining what it does and how to check the status/turn it on 

 

[Danemouth]

11 minutes ago, Danemouth said:

Look on page 57 of the manual Loco Refresh needs to be set to 0 otherwise when the loco is selected all functions are set off

 

Page 58 shows how to set the recall stack to 6

 

Also using the momentum button on sound chipped locos can cause problems - there is more info on here somewhere.

 

Finally the option key needs to be remapped to address function numbers above 9 - see page 19 - the value needs to be reset to 122

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

 

Momentum Button - Have a look here

 

I knew I had written about it in the past 😁

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

 

[MikuMatt81]

2 hours ago, Danemouth said:

Look on page 57 of the manual Loco Refresh needs to be set to 0 otherwise when the loco is selected all functions are set off

 

Page 58 shows how to set the recall stack to 6

 

Also using the momentum button on sound chipped locos can cause problems - there is more info on here somewhere.

 

Finally the option key needs to be remapped to address function numbers above 9 - see page 19 - the value needs to be reset to 122

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

Hi Dave,

 

  Thanks for the tips, I will have a go at setting all these in the morning, and let everyone know how I got on 😁

 

Also thankyou to each and everyone of you who replied, everyone’s been so helpful it is much appreciated. 

[Nigelcliffe]

2 hours ago, Danemouth said:

 

Also using the momentum button on sound chipped locos can cause problems - there is more info on here somewhere.

 

 

Yes, some people resort to disabling it (bit of paper inside blocking the button making a connection on the PCB), or building a little wall around it (couple of layers of thick plasticard) so the button can't be used or not used by mistake. 

 

The Momentum button reprograms CV3 and CV4 to new values.   There isn't a "go back to what they were" capability, except for a decoder reset (so you can get back, but its a bit drastic, back to the settings when you got it, including address and any other changes).  

Sound decoders can have CV3 and CV4 set to values by the sound creator to allow sounds to play out correctly.    So, changing them can cause sounds to not play correctly.