I'm in the middle of doing a DC to DCC conversion using the TSU-750 Light Steam decoder http://www.soundtraxx.com/dsd/tsunami/750.php The instructions that came with this thing are very minimal (it's a double-sided 4x11 card), but so far I have done this: Red and black wires are connected to the rail power pickups. Orange and gray wires are connected to the motor. Both purple wires are connected to the speaker. I'm yet to connect the headlight (white and blue) or the capacitor (green/yellow and blue) - these wires are not yet stripped. The brown wire is unused. Both halves of the chassis (rail power) are insulated from each other and the motor. The speaker is located elsewhere so it has made no contact with the chassis or motor. The motor and speaker worked the other night with no problems detected. As of last night, neither of them work, but I am still getting the red led to light up on the decoder. Does this sound like a potential short circuit has fried the decoder? Also, the instructions only mention that a short circuit from the motor will fry the decoder -- is this true? I'm worried that perhaps one of the speaker wires made contact with the track rails at some point.
Need more information. What system (DCC) are you using to operate this ? What does, or does not work. Can you run the motor? No sound? For more instructions you might want to visit the SoundTraxx web pages for the manual on the Tsunami's. http://www.soundtraxx.com/manuals.php
I'm using the Digitrax Zephyr Xtra set. The only thing that works is the LED on the decoder lighting up. The motor will not spin up and the speaker no longer plays sounds. I detached the motor and hooked it up to a DC pack and it does spin up on that, so I know the motor isn't broken. I'm really disappointed in how Soundtraxx prepared the instructions that came with the decoder. The front side of the card implies that there is no need to read any other set of instructions for installing the decoder and the back side only has one warning about damaging the decoder (don't short the motor circuit). There's a handful of steps and warnings that need to be in the instructions that come with the decoder that aren't there, but are located only in the online manual. They shouldn't even bother providing physical instructions if they're incomplete.
Well I am not too well versed in the Zephyr Extra set up. Can you read back CV's with that unit? If so, try doing a factory reset. Set CV 8 to 8 and then remove the power. If all else fails send the decoder back to SoundTraxx and see what they can do for you. I would really read up on the information their web site has for the manuals. When you invest over $100.00 in a sound decoder you should know everything you can about it.
I have used the 750. All the instructions you need for an installation are right there. If the motor does not run and you have done a decoder reset, the fuse on the decoder for the motor signal is blown. Send the decoder back to SoundTraxx for repair. I have belonged to the Yahoo SoundTraxx DCC forum for a few years and see this every so often if a wire came in contact with a rail. It takes very little to blow out a decoder. You need the CV list, right at the SoundTraxx site. This is the digital age. Rich
