Model Railroading > Athearn CN SD70M-2 with Tsunami Problem

Although we are in the process of packing everything up downstairs, Kylie had the opportunity to purchase a Tsunami Sound equipped Athearn Genesis CN SD70M-2 from an estate sale. The locomotive was produced in 2011.  Excited she was, yes! Received it today and put it on the layout and the sound came on, but nothing would respond, so she put it on the program track, and her NCE PowerPro system could not read CV, and the system went to PAG mode which did not respond.

She was able to reset the decoder through the NCE system restore (NCE program track item 7), still not able to read CV. Then when placed on the main no sound or response.

She eventually was able to reset the decoder with CV 8 to 8 and CV 30 to 2 on the main, turned system off and back on the units lights flashed and sound came back on, even though reset the locomotive did not rspond to commands for movement or anything else. She then tried to program address to unit and pressed enter and the sound quit and again no response to reset or anything else.

All she is trying to do is set the long address to the four digit unit number and short address to a three digit number. This is her first Athearn unit with factory Tsunami sound. With the Intermountain sound units she is only able to program the address on the main, she had sound units from BLI and was never able to get them to even turn on let alone program them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/16 17:02 by eminence_grise.

Will the locomotive run in DC mode if it is set up that way? You may have to look under the hood to apply DC directly to the motor leads.

Posted from iPhone

I'm thinking out loud here, 1. maybe it came from a Digitrax layout, or was in a consist
                                           2. when mine says cannot read CV, I hit enter 1 more time
                                           I have 2 of those engines and to input the short address I had to enter 0104 as the long and short address
                                            Try swapping decoders, Good Luck !
 

Ed Stewart
Jacksonville, FL

It sounds like you may need a programming track booster.

When I got my first Tsunami and tried programming it everything got all messed up. I had a locomotive that would not respond to any address and I could not program it. Even resetting the decoder did nothing, it just seemed to mess things up more. Also I couldn't read any CVs.

I bought and installed a Soundtraxx PTB-100 programming track booster and all the problems went away instantly. A decoder reset worked properly, I could program the address and other CVs properly, and I could read back CVs. Not a single problem with programming a Tsunami since then.

http://www.soundtraxx.com/access/ptb100.php

Andrew C

I have never heard of any locomotive programmed with a short AND a long address. All I know of is a short OR a long address.

I have no programming experience with NCE other than NCE decoders under Digitrax system commands.

Posted from iPhone

The short address and long address are set in different CVs and the value in CV29 tells the decoder which address to respond to. If you take a new decoder, set the long address to the four-digit loco number and set CV29 to activate the long address the short address is still set to the default of 03, the decoder just doesn't respond to this due to the value in CV29 telling it not to.

Andrew C

fbe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have never heard of any locomotive programmed
> with a short AND a long address. All I know of is
> a short OR a long address.
>
> I have no programming experience with NCE other
> than NCE decoders under Digitrax system commands.
>
> Posted from iPhone

So you are saying if I program a long address into a Tsunami or any other decoder meeting the NMRA standards a short address of 03 will be retained in the decoder. Since CV12 is set to look for the long address when that is programmed that is what the decoder will respond to.

Now if I go back to CV29 and change it back to it's factory setting of a default to a short address then the address of the loco hoes back to 03? I could then change the short address to anything between 01-178?

Thanks.

Posted from iPhone

I always have done that using the engine number, three digit, and works fine somehow I dont get along too good with instructions and mostly with dcc fiddle until it works. All my locos are soundtraxx  equiped.
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have never heard of any locomotive programmed
> with a short AND a long address. All I know of is
> a short OR a long address.
>
> I have no programming experience with NCE other
> than NCE decoders under Digitrax system commands.
>
> Posted from iPhone

Just a suggestion, what I always do after resetting an engine to CV8 is just lifting one side of the engine off the rails to kill the power to it. For some reason if I turn the power off my NCE system and back on within a couple minutes all my trains will run full power backwards. That's how two of my engines ended up in the turn table pit. Good luck!
Matt

CV 1 holds the short address which are values 1-127. CV 1 always holds a value in this range no matter what. Since any CV can only hold values between 0-255, it takes two CVs to make up a long address. CV 17 and CV 18 are used together to make up the long address which is anything from 1-9999 (1-9983 for Digitrax). CV 29 in most decoders defaults to 6 which enables the short address or tells the decoder to respond to whatever is in CV 1. Bit 5 in CV 29 (value of 32) enabled will tell the decoder to read the combination values in CV 17 and CV 18 that make up the long address and to ignore CV 1.

Therefore...you could program a value into CV 1, say the last two digits of your locomotive's road number. Then program the long address of all 4 digits of your road number. Then set CV 29 to 38 (or 34 to disable DC operation) and the locomotive will respond to the 4-digit road number address. Set CV 29 back to 6 (or 2 to disable DC operation) and the locomotive will respond to the last two digits of your locomotive's road number. 

As for the wayward Tsunami...I would give SoundTraxx a call. You've done everything correct as far as trying to get it to respond. CV 30 to 2 in ops mode on the mainline is the easiest. Then interrupt track power, 16 headlight flashes confirms the reset. The locomotive address should then be 3 with no leading zeros. NCE treats 3 and 03 as two different addresses so be sure to only press Select Loco - 3 - Enter. If you do any programming on the program track you will need a PTB-100 program track booster unless you use the NCE PowerCab system. In that case you do not need the booster.

Lee Ryan - Rio Grande Fan
Denver, CO




fbe Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So you are saying if I program a long address into
> a Tsunami or any other decoder meeting the NMRA
> standards a short address of 03 will be retained
> in the decoder. Since CV12 is set to look for the
> long address when that is programmed that is what
> the decoder will respond to.
>
> Now if I go back to CV29 and change it back to
> it's factory setting of a default to a short
> address then the address of the loco hoes back to
> 03? I could then change the short address to
> anything between 01-178?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Posted from iPhone