Well good and bad news. The decoders will arrive today, but my plan for implementation will not work. So here is a cautionary tale to remember: Had 2 ABBA E8/9 sets aside. I was going to have the A units use the ESU sound decoders and the B units use just regular ESU LokPilot decoders for the B units. I was following the what's up front, counts principle. It turns out that plan has a flaw, if you consist the Sound decoder with the LokPilot, you lose functionality on both. Primarily, you lose the Drive Hold capability and possibly a few more things. The motion parts should be the same from the same manufacturer. In this case they are not. Just a bit of information if you were planning on saving a little money and mix Sound and non sound decoders in a consist, there could be issues. As a professional Electrical Engineer, this makes no sense to me. But that is fair, what I work on for a living makes no sense to most as well. The difference is, I am not in any commercial market business. I am in research. But poor design is still poor design.
LokPilots now have the ability to support Drive Hold. I believe this capability started with version 4.0. What version do you have?
The lokpilot 5 series should support drive hold. I just set one up to do exactly that and it works per my tests which I consist via the cab control. If you use a separate address for consisting that you setup through the lokprogrammer make sure to enable the function that corresponds to the drive hold you set in the function mapping.
The algorithms for running are too different and Drive Hold does not work when consisting a Loksound and a Lokpilot decoder, the base software is different. I was informed of this when I asked a question about this on the ESU site. Drive Hold only works with the same decoders in all members of the consist. It makes no sense to me, but it is what it is.
After thinking about this like a good Electrical Engineer (which I am) the Loksound has a different timing for execution than the LokPilot. The LokPilot does not have to weave in the sound in its timing routine while the LokSound has to time all the sound effects and interrupts for thing like the horn or bell. This could mean the LokSound may have a faster clock rate then the LoKPilot that just controls speed and the lights. And that may be why DriveHold does not work in a mixed consist. This is my intuition, I have asked ESU for an explanation.
I don't know what to say, except that I have multiple locos with both LokSound and LokPilot decoders and they all run flawlessly together. No issues whatsoever, even with Drive Hold and sound start delay. Again, LokPilots need to be V4.0 or later.
I've heard (only, no first hand experience) on other forums that's the case. Mix up of terminology, etc.?
Well it seems the folks at ESU are wrong then. I have not tried it, I asked because I did not want to have sound on every locomotive in a fixed consist. All my decoders are V5
Some new rolling stock from Scale Trains Includes rolls and decals to give them texture. I got 6 NS and 6 CSX Very cool rolling stock! I must add that they come with low profile metal wheels! Way to go!
It works for me as well both consisting via throttle and then advanced consisting. I just tested again on a loksound 58941 and lokpilot 59826 combo to make sure my memory wasn't faulty and it wasn't... this time
Well, found a couple of Kato steam locomotives last night for a bargain price [even with shipping]. So a C50 and a C58 are on the way here.
This has almost been as frustrating for me as it has been for you. I'll say this one last time. Drive Hold and sound start delay work great in V4.0 and later LokPilot decoders when consisting with locos with LokSoound decoders. There is absolutely no question about this. Also, if you are talking about having posted a question on the ESU discussion boards, a lot (most?) of the people responding there are just end users as far as I can tell. You may not have heard from an actual ESU rep. ...the only thing that I can think of that might be going on here is, could these features have been accidentally omitted/deleted on a more recent software update or something? BTW, do you have a LokProgrammer?
^^ The above conversation is not exactly an incentive for me to get more sound equipped locomotives... (I have two, both of which were the result of "happy accidents.")
Another blast from the Micro-Trains past arrived today as part of a lot of four different boxcars from that Very Humorous Internet Auction Community. (The other three were Intermountain WIF boxcars.) Not to brag (OK, to brag ) but if you have a hard copy "Collector Price Guide" around, check Kadee Micro-Trains Catalog Number 20370, Original Release, April 1983... let's just say that that is NOT what I paid. (Trovestar's valuation is a little more realistic, but still not near what I paid.) (And you let the Factory Air out of the box, George?!? And egad, put it on a track?!?!?)
I have one of those, I would have given it to you for all of your efforts publishing the information on the MT releases. I think mine still has the factory air inside.
That's unfortunate! I have a pretty sizable fleet of ESU sound-equipped locos and some Zimo ones and love them all! Virtually all of them are my own installs and I've had VERY few problems with any of them (I could count on one hand the number of times I had any sort of an issue and still have several fingers left over). I also routinely use Drive Hold with ESU sound and non-sound decoders together in a consist.
Got 4 ESU LokPilot Micros to replace dead Digitrax DZ 143 decoders in my first generation Kato SD-40's.
