Model Railroading > Bowser Red Barn DCC Question

Happy Saturday all,

So I splurged and bought a non DCC Bowser SD40-2F. My question is that I had a 21 pin Econami decoder so I installed it and a speaker last night. Put it on my Sprog programming track and everything worked. The only exception is I cannot seem to figure out the class lights.....................is it a case of only a Esu Decoder will do the job? Just thought someone has run into the same issue. Thanks in advance.

Regards, Dave Dane

You'll need the ECO-21PNEM version, (the original ECO-21P version won't work with the loco mother board for FX4 & FX5).

My SD40-2F is still in the mail, but my Bowser SD40-2, which probably uses same setup, has the class lights connected to FX5 (aux3 on the MTC21 spec) and FX6 (aux4) and aux5 (no connection on ECO-21PNEM decoder), so if a ECO-21PNEM then you should have two the colors (probably white & green) on FX5 & FX6. IF the original ECO-21P, then no class lights.

The single function button to cycle thru the colors of the class lights is a ESU special feature, the ECO will have separate function buttons of each color.

Michael Mosher
Millville, NJ

Dave,

I think if you look at the Economi decoder it is only built with 9 pins connections the rest have no copper inserts in the sockets to connect with the mother board. ESU 54615 is the decoder Scale Trains recommends for nonsound DCC.

Alan

Thanks for the feedback guys..................I think i will get the ESU Non sound decoder. I had the Econami in my stash so hopefully will find a home for it.

Regards, Dave Dane

Dave,

Best guess is the Economi will work fine in any locomotive built pre 2016 and quite a few after that date if they don't have a lot of lighting functions. TCS 21 pin decoders are another case where there are only 9 hot pins on the decoder.

Alan

Michael,

That Economi 21PNEM decoder may not work either. Note in the product photo only 9 of the 21 pin holes have a shiny gold rim indicating an electrical connection. The rest of the pins are blank. This decoder has the equivalent of a nine pin plug with the same connections for wires colored red, black,grey, orange, blue, white, yellow, green and violet. So you have headlights front and rear and two auxiliary light functions. That may not be enough for number lights and multicolored class/marker lights.

http://www.soundtraxx.com/dsd/econami/eco21p.php

Go with the Tusanami2 TSU-PNP with 21 Pins, it should have all you need.

http://www.soundtraxx.com/dsd/tsunami2/products/tsu21pnem.php


Alan



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/17 12:00 by fbe.

Dave,

Here is a link to ESU which Scale Trains sent.

http://projects.esu.eu/projectoverviews/6

It shows you will want to upgrade the decoder with a 97636 file for the multiple class light function. I am not sure that might be done on a Sprog with LMRI or not.

Why you ask? Two of the aux connections are logic functions not lights. These are part of the class/marker light operations. When you cycle through F5 your lights go dark, white, green, red. ESU and Scale Train figured that out and set their SD40-2 units and V 4.0 decoders to work that way. Time will tell if the other decoders builders will work something operationally functional with the ST SD40-2s or not. The US decoder people who build hardware compatible with the 9 pin NMRA standard but beyond that there no recognized standards. It is the wild, wild west with everyone shooting from the hip.

Keep us up to date on all this as you wade through yet another swamp of high tech. Some nights I miss my blue box locomotives.

Alan



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/22/17 14:41 by fbe.

Those 9 gold holes are just plated thru vias to connect signals between layers on multi layer PCBs, the contacts to the mother board pins are contained in a connector of other side of PCB. They are much larger than typical vias since they have allow a pin to pass thru.

Michael Mosher
Millville, NJ

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