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Wednesday, February 26, 2025

MTH Engines And Their Common Negative

No, this is in no way meant to be a facetious title. It is about the LED wiring method MTH employed which the author just discovered. He is not upset about it just disappointed.

At the most recent estate sale that our club held there was an MTH Erie Lackawanna GP35 available for sale. The author has a soft spot for GP35s from his long ago home in West Virginia. The B&O main line went through the middle of town and he vividly remembers the thundering 5 engine GP35 105 car coal trains gunning for the "17 mile grade" up and over the Allegheny Front as they screamed through town gaining speed. 

The MTH engine did not run or do anything for that matter but the price was only $10.00 so he said "I can fix that". Yeah, sure!

He stripped down the engine to bare bones, tossed the burned out decoder (it was definitely burnt) and used a CR2032 3v battery to test the LEDs and determine which wires were what. After some time with the wiring he determined that all of them had a common negative voltage with the different colored wires as the positive for each LED. THIS IS EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE OF THE OTHER DECODERS THE AUTHOR HAS DEALT WITH mainly Soundtraxx and LokSound which have a positive common!!

What does this mean? It would be necessary to unsolder the LEDs, flip them 180 degrees and re-solder them.

Let's see...$10.00...wait!! he will have to buy a $100.00 decoder to get it to run at all (sound, etc...) OR he can throw it through the window. 

Hmmmm...window...decoder...window...decoder...?


So remember this the next time you're tempted to buy and fix an MTH engine. They are going to be more work involved than you bargained for.


If you have an idea for a blog post here, let me know. If I can comment on it, I will or I'll see if someone else can and post it

 

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Scale Trains Warranty If You Use a Non-Loksound Decoder (response from ScaleTrains)

In January, Jeff Mutter, on the MRH forum, posted this discussion with Scale Trains concerning using a non-ESU decoder in one of their engines. The following is his explanation and the responses from Scale trains to his concerns. This author considers the discussion to be important enough to re-publish it as it effects us all.

I just bought two of the new Scale Trains GP40s, in “DCC-Ready” format, because I prefer to use SoundTraxx decoders.  After opening one up to install an ST 21-pin decoder, I found that you must change  two dip switches in order to use a non-Loksound decoder.  According to the manual, this disables the provided keep-alive, and renders most of the auxiliary lighting features unusable.  When I emailed Scale Trains to ask about function mapping and resistor values so I can replace their proprietary motherboard with a Decoder Buddy, they told me they don’t have that information “yet from our China facilities”, and oh, by the way, because we don’t supply SoundTraxx decoders, if you install one you void the warranty.  Here’s their email (I added the emphasis):
 
While I understand your frustration, this information required research throughout different departments, including one of our four owners. The finding was this data is not yet available through our facility in China.
As a friendly reminder, it is your choice to upgrade your locomotives to aftermarket decoders, which I might add, voids your manufacturer warranty since we do not inventory SoundTraxx components. Please be aware of that. (emphasis by Jeff Mutter)
This a reply received from ScaleTrains owner:
"This is also an old complaint. With all that we are trying to do with our models in regard to sounds and lighting effects other brands of the decoders cannot keep up. In fact, in some instances, the ESU decoders do not keep up. This is the reason we have and extra IC on many of the our motherboards that the decoder communicates with to achieve the desired effects. Unfortunately, that comes with some proprietary software from ESU to do it. We have had many discussions with customers about this subject. You will see this as a standard response from Soundtraxx supporters.  My unpopular example is that, you purchase an automobile but do not like the factory stereo system and want to put in a aftermarket model. Is it the auto manufactures responsibility to build the car to accept any possible after market system? No, it is up to the aftermarket company to build a system that works with the car. "

I find this attitude extremely customer-unfriendly, and feel they are egregiously misrepresenting their product when they call it “DCC-Ready”.  If they won’t warrant their product with another manufacturer’s decoder installed, then it most certainly is not “DCC-Ready”.  Perhaps “Loksound Ready”, but definitely not DCC-Ready.
 
Although I have a bunch (6-8 or so) Scale Trains locomotives, I am now a former Scale Trains customer.

Jeff Mutter, Severna Park, MD


If you have an idea for a blog post here, let me know. If I can comment on it, I will or I'll see if someone else can and post it

Thursday, February 6, 2025

LokProgrammer Software 5.2.12 Released

The LokProgrammer software 5.2.12 is now available for download. This includes the firmware 5.12.177 for all LokSound 5 and LokPilot 5 decoders. 

Main changes are:

  • Addition of the "grade crossing" option for "Single Strobe Random" light effect 
  • New CFL signals for SignalPilot are available as well as additions to DB H/V and SBB L signals
  • In the virtual Driver's Cab, you can now select between 500mA and 1000mA maximum current 
    • This allows you to test locomotives with higher current draw such as (ESU) locomotives with smoke units.


If you have an idea for a blog post here, let me know. If I can comment on it, I will or I'll see if someone else can and post i

Monday, January 20, 2025

The Importance of Pre-Ordering

Model Railroad Manufacturers use pre-orders to determine how may of an item to make for sale with a few extras thrown in, very few. This allows them to limit losses due to over production and thereby getting stuck with excess inventory which has additional costs for storage (inventory takes up space and space costs money). So if an item doesn't generate enough pre-sales it will linger on in pre-order status for a while and may eventually just get dropped from production schedules. That doesn't happen very often but it does happen.

In September of 2023 Athearn announced pre-order availability of 3 different 5 car sets of Cuberland Mine Ortner 5 bay rapid discharge coal hoppers. They were due the first quarter of this year (now!). This author just checked with one of his retailers and these cars still remain in pre-order status, from 2 years ago, with no production date. See figure 1.


Figure 1 Athearn's pre-order announcement

It's really not that surprising due to this road being private (no connection to any other railroad) and having only about 17 miles of track that runs from the mine to the Monongahela River to load barges for further distribution. It is located 1 hour due south of Pittsburgh, PA. This is close to what once was the author's home in West Virginia and he runs this road on his layout. 

KATO made the SD38-2s that pull the hoppers. The railroad only has 2 SD38-2s and a single SD40-2. Thay have videos on YouTube under @ccrx 6700. You'll learn a lot about railroading. Dave is the narrator, works for the railroad and is a really good guy.

So, if you didn't know these were available for order, you didn't know these even existed or you're just waiting for them to come out. They won't! They'll never make them and will drop them from pre-order.  So if you're interested just do it and order them.


If you have an idea for a blog post here, let me know. If I can comment on it, I will or I'll see if someone else can and post it 


Sunday, January 12, 2025

Alternate Automatic Horn Signals Design for ESU v5 Decoders

Automatic horn signals with ESU v5 decoders was first covered in this discussion. Recently, another option was presented to this author on the groups.io forum that is a different way of looking at the design of the sound slot file. It has its pros and cons as does everything but it is still an intriguing design. One of the differences between the two designs is that the new one depends on the Share1 variable value generated in the prime mover sound slot instead of  the Requested Speed value (req) generated by a throttle. Compare figure 1 and figure 2.


Figure 1 New auto horn design


Figure 2 Original auto horn design

Another difference is that the new design has the sound files in States not Containers as the original design does. Refer to the original discussion for the difference. Comparing the States to the Containers leads us to a discussion of the Pros and Cons of the new design.

Pros
The new design takes only one sound slot since the forward, reverse and stop signals are all contained in the one sound slot file. The original design requires two sound slots since the stop signal is separate from the others.

Due to this, mapping the sound slot file to function keys is simplified. 

Cons
There are a couple of issues with the new design. 

First, the dependence on the Share1 variable causes a dependency out of your control. If the ESU engineers ever change that value in the prime mover sound slot,  adjustments and reloading will have to be done. However, the likelihood of this ever happening is very, very low. So this is a low value con.

Second, the new design calls the sound States one time for both the forward double blast and the reverse triple blast. That means you will have to create a new .wav file for each using an application such as Audacity that manipulates sound files in order to have two blasts for the forward signal and three for the reverse (it would be possible to add additional States for the additional blasts rather than create new .wav files but that is up to the individual). 
The original design already has multiple calls to States in the Containers. So no changes there.

Third, as a consequence of creating new .wav files there is a problem introduced. If you didn't notice when you imported the new design into your sound file you probably have a memory problem now. Look at the upper left corner of the LokProgrammer software. See figure 3.


Figure 3 Error indication

Hmmm... an error indication. Where did that come from? Now take a look at the lower right window of the sound pane where the included .wav files are displayed. See figure 4.


Figure 4 The memory issue

When the new sound slot file was imported it brought the new State .wav files with it. Which is exactly what it should do. Due to the size of these new .wav files more memory is required than is available. The only way to fix this is to delete other .wav file from the sound file that are not in use until you get the Current Capacity less than the Maximum Capacity

Here's the real problem. You will probably have to do this to every sound file you add the new horn design to! While this is not a huge problem, it can be a pain. It should be mentioned that if you do as suggested above and add additional States in lieu of creating the new .wav files then this should not be a problem.

As you can see, while this is an efficient design from the sound slot and function mapping perspective there are a couple of issues you will have to deal with. 

Your call!

The file is available for download here.


If you have an idea for a blog post here, let me know. If I can comment on it, I will or I'll see if someone else can and post it