Hi, all, I have a sound/DCC N scale PCM E7 with the factory LokSound 3.5 installed, which worked perfectly all last year 2008. Couple of days ago, I put the loco on the track (DCC with NCE PowerCab), and the sound didn't come on. ----------------------------------------- *edit note: see the last post in this thread for the problem resolution ----------------------------------------- Otherwise, the loco runs as it always have. Forward, reverse are fine, lighting functions including Mars light work as they should. Changing direction from forward to reverse while loco moving works as it always has.... loco slows to a stop then reverses, under control of the decoder. Just no sound. I have gone thru all the normal problem resolution steps, all without success, the sound is still off: a) Pressed F8 many times, trying to turn the volume up and make sure audio mute is off. No sound. b) Tried it on both DC and DCC. No sound. c) Reset CVs to factory settings by programming CV8 to 08. No sound. d) Removed shell, looking for loose wires or unseated connectors. No luck there. Carefully unscrewed circuit board and looking for loose wires. No luck. Still no sound. e) Used Decoder Pro to check the CVs. All appear to be OK, as far as I can tell (sound volume is up all the way). Any tips/hints on what else I might try? I will contact Precision Craft's service department otherwise. Thx, all for any help or any similar experiences that you may have had, with the N scale sound/DCC PCM E7.
John, I have had the same thing happen to me a couple of times. Try removing the body and pressing in all the little "modules" which are press fit into the frame. I don't know why it worked for me, but it did. Hope this helps John C.
All I can say is I wish you luck on getting it fixed. Sending it back to the manufacturer is always the right thing to do. I hope it all works out.
Try to reprogram CV 57 through CV 63 using the values for each of those CV's found in the ESU LokSound User manual.
Thx for the tips, guys, I'll try those and see what happens. I ended up reading all the CV's using Decoder Pro - everything seemed OK from that standpoint. Resetting the decoder didn't change anything. Will post back here with what happens.
Followup to tell everyone what happened. I was able to reach Larry in the PCM service department just before closing time on Fri 1/23/09. He believed that a speaker failed. He offered me two choices - send it in and they'd repair it, but he did say it would take several weeks due... he also offered to send me replacement speakers to see if that would fix the problem. I opted for this second choice. Mark at PCM Service also sent me an email, suggesting that I use my multimeter (volt-ohm meter) to read the impedance across the speaker, being sure to unplug the speaker wires from the decoder first. Bingo. When I did that, it showed that one of the two speakers had an open circuit. As the two speakers are wired in series, when the one speaker failed, no more sound. --------------------------- The replacement speaker set arrived from Precision Craft on Friday 2/6/09, I installed them, and the N scale PCM E7 is back to working normally. The technician that I reached on PCM's phone line (Larry I think his name is?) was right - he had thought it was a bad speaker and that's what it was. Replacing the speaker set was easy to do.... I've been inside of N scale locomotives a fair amount so just working carefully, it was straightforward to unscrew the printed circuit board, carefully unseat the front light mounts and thus gently allow prying the old speakers out, and allowing the wiring to come away easily so that I could access the plugs where the speakers connect to the circuit board. Here's some photos: Thx, PCM, for the warranty support, the emails, and the replacing of the broken speakers. I appreciate it very much!!
Should put a warning in here for the PCM diesels. You can create problems with the sound by trying to put a derailed loco back on the track with the power on (even if the throttle for that address is 0). When placing these on a track or re railing a truck, I'd kill the track first. Thing is, you can go against this advice many times with no problems and then all of a sudden you hit that one time . . . .
Hi, swdw, Are you saying that there when rerailing the PCM E7 loco, that the process of rerailing causes a voltage spike or something that causes problems with the Loksound decoder's sound programing? Or causes problem with the speaker? Does this happen only with the PCM E7s, or are you saying this might happen with any Loksound-equipped loco (the PCM E7s use Loksound 3.5, I believe). Thx, I'd like to hear more information and cause / effect on your suggestion above. First I've heard of this problem. Thx again.
Shutting down the system is a good practice to follow when re-railing any locomotive with a decoder or any DC locomotive because of a derailment. I've followed this practice for nine years while working with DCC...
Yes, this happened to my E7 and talking to the N scale repair guy at Caboose Hobbies, this is one of the biggest reasons for blown sound decoders. He's replaced a number of them form different mfgs. According to his experience the Tsunami are the most sensitive to this, Loksound 2nd, and QSI is the most durable.
Thx for the input, PowerSteamGuy1790 and SWDW, thx for sharing your experience on that. So, this leads to these followup questions (I know we're wandering off topic here a little): Question 1: What is the suggestion for minimize this 'power spike damages decoder/speaker' effect, if I'm running on a big club layout or in an active operating session, or running in a big N-Trak show, etc, etc. ..... i.e. any situation where shutting off DCC power to the track is going to cause the whole power district and multiple operators / trains to shut down.... Question2 : Is the circumvention to use good wiring and good PSX-style circuit breakers all around? Appreciate your comments. I'm all up for learning something new. -------- (The reason I'm asking is: during my time operating on big layouts here in the Bay Area (some have up to 20 or more throttles concurrently active (albeit across multiple power districts), in event of short or derailment / re-rail, I've never experienced a layout owner standard procedure that involves explicitly shutting off power to the power district, prior to rerailing the loco. I'm wondering if the modern DCC/sound-capable circuit breakers is the necessary circumvention that the big operations guys successfully do, to avoid the need to shut off power to the track). Or is it just a risk we have to take, when we are operating on these big layouts? --------
John: My Lenz 100 system has a built in circuit breaker that automatically shuts down the power to the track if a short occurs. I don't know how many command stations have this feature. Over the years (nine plus to be exact) it's probably saved a few decoders along the way. I had two power districts on the "original" JJJ&E and the power district where the short circuit occurred would shut down temporarily until the derailment could be re-railed. I don't know how it works on your NCE system John. As for the wiring, good wiring is most important. As you know on the JJJJ&E, each track section had a pair of feeders which resulted in almost no electrical problems with track in that nine year period. The "new" JJJ&E, a much larger layout will be wired in the same manner. I'll still be using Unitrack for this new layout. With layouts that don't have circuit breakers built into the DCC command station, the it would be necessary to add PSX style circuit breakers in each power district. Running your trains on large club layouts puts you at the mercy of the operators running the layout. With your home layout you can control the environment that your trains operate in.
