No Lights on Heavy 4-8-2 with factory DCC and Sound

Started by JWhite, April 15, 2016, 03:59:56 PM

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JWhite

So I got my heavy 4-8-2 with DCC and sound out and put it on the track.  Selected address 03 on my Digitrax Zephyr and got great sound (thanks, Bachmann, now I've decided to put sound in all my locomotives  ;)) it runs great, but no lights.  No headlight and no flickering firebox like my other 4-8-2s. 

I hit 0 on the control panel, no lights came on.  Shouldn't I have a firebox light even if the headlight isn't turned on?

Any ideas?

bapguy

 Make sure the wire harnesses from the loco to the tender are both in tight. If they are you may need to remove the tender shell and check the wires to the decoder.  Joe

brokenrail

If cv 29 has been changed .This cold be the cause of the lack of lights.Do a decoder reset ad see if they come back .Cv 8 =8
Johnny

JWhite

Everything is connected. Reset the decoder.  Still no lights  ???.

bapguy

Make sure the 0 is on the Zypher display when you push the F0 button. Is F7 on? This is a dimming function for the lights. Look at the headlight with the direction set to forward. Any light? Then try reverse. Any light? If the headlight comes on in reverse, you need to change the value in CV29. Read CV29, if it's an even number subtract 1,if odd add 1 to the value. The other thing would be to remove the tender shell and find the board with the lights wires to it and check for voltage with the loco on the tracks and F0 on.   http://estore.bachmanntrains.com/index.php?main_page=popup_image&pID=1100
  Joe

JWhite

After 3 resets of the decoder, finding a solution to programming the Tsunami on the Digitrax website I've got the headlight functioning.  I still haven't been able to get the firebox lights to work though.


MarcF

Depends what decoder your engines have. 

If this is the 4-8-2 Heavy with Bachmann Tsunami,  it only has 2 outputs; head and tail light. More outputs are required to get your fire box flicker.

If this is a True Soundtraxx Tsunami, the additional ouputs are present.  Are they wired up ?  If they are, then it is a question of setting up the other output  to enable fire box flicker.

Simple way to find out, READ  CV7. if it returns a value of 80, it is the Bachmann variant TSU and you can forget the fire box flicker.

Other idea that comes to mind, burnt out incandescent bulb.  As I recall (from memory of disassembly) this is also used in the Shay (Tsu)  but driven off motor voltage.

Marc

JWhite

Thanks all. It's a factory Bachmann decoder so I will stop messing with CVs 51 and 52 to try to get it to work.

Jeff