Model Railroading > Lok Pilot 21 pin CVs for U25C and C-636

Well, I am beginning to become comfortable with the ESU 53614 21 pin decoder. It seems like it has taken a long time and caused a pile of frustration. As one of the replies to an earlier thread stated, "You are making this way to hard." That was correct, I can see that now that I have solved the problem but it is a lot like going into a neighborhood in England or Ireland, we speak the same language but have a hard time understanding what we are saying.

So let's get started for those of you with Rivarossi U25C and Bowser C-636 diesels who want to set these new units up with non sound DCC. There are two factory decoders on the market now you can use. This thread is about the ESU Lok Pilot 53614 and the other is the TCS EU621. I have not been able to get my hand on the TCS decoder though I have had some on order from a few locations for over a month now. Perhaps next week I will have 1 in hand. All the information you need is found in the instruction manual packaged with the ESU decoder.

With the U25C installing the decoder is direct and easy, remove the dummy plug and install the decoder. You will find that F1 toggles on the number boards, F2 operates the oscillating light in the nose. Some other roads have two lights in the nose but I have no experience with these. What I want is for F5 to operate the number boards and F6 to toggle the nose light with an oscillating pattern. Let's turn off the F1 for the numberboards. Changing CV35=0 does that in the forward direction, CV47=0 does that in the reverse direction. CV39=4 and CV136=4 allows F5 to toggle on the numberboards in both directions. The 4 value on these CVs connect the F5 button to the AUX1 pad. Now we turn off the F2 button by setting CV36=0. CV40=8 gives the oscillating light forward and CV137=8 allows this to stay on in reverse. The 8 value connects the F6 button to AUX2 where the led is soldered. This turns the light on but I want some action. That is from CV116 for AUX2 now controlled by F6. The function starts with a brightness of 15, the max and 128 gives the mars light effect so add those together to get 143. Program that into CV116=143. We are done with the U25C as far as lighting is concerned. Other things like BEMF, consisting and other refinements are covered on the last page of the enclosed manual.

The Bowser C-636 comes with the number lights as part of the headlight assembly and do not operate independently. If the headlight is on the numberboards are as well. So I decided to put the beacon on F5. Here are the numbers I used, if you follow the U25C instructions you will be able to walk these numbers back to how I got there using the enclosed manual. CV35=0, CV39=4,CV47=0, CV136=4, CV115=159 You remember from before the 4 value in these CVs connect F5 to AUX1 as shown in the Fig 5 table.

I used my Digitrax Zephyr and Digitrax DT402D controller to make these changes without issue.

Thanks go to Matthew Hermann at ESU who really opened up the CVs I could use to get the lights to work the way I wanted and Lee Ryan from Intermountain Models for his help and encouragement along the way here on TO. By next week I should be able to try it again with the TCS 21 pin decoders and learn another DCC dialect all over again.

Since these 21 plug ins are in short supply there are a couple of other options using the normal Digitrax, NCE and TCS 9 pin decoders. None of the motherboards have a 9 pin plug but so far there is a way to use the 8 pin NMRA plug in a harness. You will only get motor and headlight control through this plug. To use the green and violet function wires you will have to unsolder the led - connection and wire it to the decoder wire. You MUST wire an appropriate resistor in series in this connection or those leds will smoke out. The second option is the gender bender harness from TCS which has a 9 pin socket on one end and a 21 pin socket on the other. This means you do not have to solder any wires or add any resistors in the lighting circuits. You have to sort of guess which AUX connection your light is hooked to. I found AUX1 and AUX2 are a good place to start. I finally have three of the 9-21 pin wiring harnesses after having these on order for over a month but they will allow modelers to use the tried and true decoders they are comfortable with.

If you want to add an additional light for ground lights, a cab light or split the front and rear number boards the mother boards on either model have no provisions for that. These will have to be hard wired from a plug in decoder such as a Digitrax 163/166 using the NMRA harness or better yet the TCS 9-21 pin harness. The addition will involve hard wiring with resistors. I have found no way to add any more lights when using a 21 pin Lok Pilot decoder which may be in the decoder but are not accessible via the mother board nor decoder solder points. Let me know if there are questions and we can work through that process.

Next week I will have both a Rapido locomotive and a TCS EU621 decoder to work with, expect a short post about that set up as well.

So with the long holiday weekend upon us it is a good time to get those two new locomotives sitting on the shelf down to the layout earning a living and sparkling, flashing and oscillating they way Rivarossi and Bowser intended. I do not own any of the new Intermountain or Atlas diesels with the 21 pin decoder set up but the information you need is in the enclosed ESU manual. Go for it and let us know what you have found.



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/14 09:06 by fbe.

Ol' FBE writes...
<<As one of the replies to an earlier thread stated, "You are making this way to hard." That was correct....>>

Oh gawd, I know how true that is. I've seen you with a switch list trying to pound the lead.
DAF

Oh, now let's be careful with the Santa Fe weigh there fella. Someone we both know may be looking for DCC programming secrets in the layout room one of these days....... Now is that CV36 or CV39 he is talking about....

Yes, I now have a TCS EU621 decoder in hand. I will be out of town through the weekend so I will take this with me and go through the enclosed worksheet to set up the lighting I need for the GMD1s locos arriving on Monday. The CV choices and values will be different from the ESU decoders I have been working with.

Happy Thanksgiving, every one.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7

monaddave Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ol' FBE writes...
> <>
>
> Oh gawd, I know how true that is. I've seen you
> with a switch list trying to pound the lead.
> DAF

ROFLMAO! !

Thanks for the tutorial, I may have to go DCC in the future. My three 636s are too cool not too.
Have you done a thread on making blue box Athearn DCC capable?

Posted from Android

I haven't formally written a Blue Box conversion but generally if there is no motherboard or a limited one I will use a drop in like a Digitrax DH 165 or NCE DA SR. If there is a recent mother board with a 9 pin socket I go with a plug in from Digitrax, NCE or TCS. Now if you want one of the ESU or TCS decoders with a 21 pin connectors there is a way to do that as well.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7