ok, Hunt,  got it.  Actually, that's what I thought.

Hunt, I'm grateful that you decided to take a look.  You have helped me a lot. Now I am seriously trying to get away from my attitude of, "forget the manual, let's see what this thing can do."  Now I am committed to reading the manual from the beginning, a little at a time, and learning to use what I am learning, just skipping parts that I know I will not use very soon, like accessories.

Thanks for that reset procedure.  I will print that and put it into the manual.

Thank you, Gearedenginefreak, for that information.  The title page of my manual says V 1.65 and Copyright 2012 and I think that means my Power Cab is not the b upgrade.

A year ago in May my son, who lives in San Jose, my grandson and his Dad, and I took a ride on the Roaring Camp Railroad near Santa Cruz.  Before and after our ride into the redwoods, I walked alongside the shay as it returned from the trip before ours and then as it left on the next trip.  I couldn't get enough of watching the drive system.

Oops — Copyright 2010.

Oops again — the online manual says 2010.  My manual says 2012.

No oops this time, just good news.  Just now I plugged in my cab and for the first time I watched the screen as it powered up.  The second screen displayed said V 1.65B.

Well, Hunt, I would be lost without you reading my posts and replying.  The Power Cab manual told me that I don't have to program anything to have 128 speed steps.  It just didn't tell me about that button at the bottom of the cab, the one that was right under my nose and the one that I might never have seen if you hadn't told me that there is one.  It will be fun tomorrow to see what difference that makes in operation.  I'm up too late to find out now.

My cab is version 1.65.

Edit:  And I should apologize to the decoder.  It wasn't its fault.

I also apologize to the Power Cab manual.  The button is explained on Page 18.

Thanks, Len -- I will try that.

I have been experimenting with the NCE Power Cab and my Bachmann new tooling 4-4-0 Jupiter.  The Jupiter now turns on the bell at startup (speed step 1) and it goes off at speed step 6 (step 5 gives about 7 scale mph). 

Some unexpected things have turned up while I have been experimenting.  The Power cab can't set a speed step higher than 28.  The Power Cab manual says that "128 speed mode is always enabled in decoders that support 128 speed step operation."  So I have learned something disappointing about the Sound Value decoder.  The other thing is that after some of my experimenting, turning on the headlight always brings out one short toot from the whistle.  Turning the headlight off goes quietly.

Overall, the Jupiter now can go about one scale mph at speed step one, it accelerates a litlle bit jerkily but steadily from slower speed to faster speed, and decelerates fairly nicely also.  The automatic whistle toots are always produced at the right time.  And I told you the good news about the bell.

When I get the 4-4-0 119 on the track I will look into the factory defaults for the CV values that Hunt helped me with.

For Hunt —

I went to my favorite hobby shop and bought a NCE Power Cab and I'm using that to read CV values.

In my Jupiter 4-4-0 I found CV 193 = 005, CV 194 = 010, CV 198 = 006.  I think that I put those values in.  When I get the 119 on the track I can read the factory values.

Now the Jupiter toots on startup at speed step 1 and also when it stops.  The bell turns on at speed step 2 and turns off at speed step 3.  I have not gone through the loco setup procedure yet.  I just got the cab out of the box a little while ago and read the CVs first thing.  I think that the cab may be set for 28 speed steps.

Hey Terry, I just read through this thread again and I think that in your post you got it right!  You supplied the perfect answer!

Hi Hunt,

When I tried to program CV 193-4, I kept CV 198 programmed to 2 for the start/stop whistle toots.

Oops -- I just read your instructions which said for both effects that I want I must put 198 at 6.  I'm sorry to make it hard for you to help me.  I will change 198 and let you know how it goes.

I agree that if I'm going to keep on with DCC I need a real DCC control.

Trainman203, I sympathize.

I have been learning how to program my American 4-4-0.  I have the loco on a 22 inch radius circle that I laid out a long time ago on a 4x4 piece of Homasote.  While I had the loco on that circle, I thought of calibrating the speed dial on my MRC Tech 6 control.  I got the loco going with the Tech 6 dial at 40 and timed one revolution and it took 26 seconds.  Using 87.1 for the scale factor, the speed came out at 26.3 scale mph.

Then I tried to translate that result into a simple calculation using just the time it takes to go around the circle, and I came up with 684 divided by the time around the circle in seconds is the scale speed in mph.

The next step was to realize that hardly anybody has a 22 inch diameter circle just lying around somewhere, so I went one step further and came up with this:

59.4 multiplied by any distance in feet divided by the time it takes to travel that distance in seconds is the scale speed in mph.  All my numbers used in arriving at that result were rounded off to only three digits, but the answer you get should be as accurate as your numbers for distance and time.

I think that lots of people have gone through this same process, and I would be really interested to know if anyone has seen this before.

Hi HUnt,

Well, for my last post I relied on my memory.  Bad move.  I think everything was normal when I tried to read the CV contents for 193, it just didn't work.  I will try programming 193-4 as you suggested, and if that works and the factory values are lost, I still have my other 4-4-0 and sometime may be able to read the factory values on that loco.

Later --

Well, I tried that.  For CV 193-4 I put in 5 and 10 and got no bell.  Then I put in 10 and 50 and got no bell.  Funny thing: at the end of each entry of a CV value, the loco always lurches forward, including the times that I did not enter a value to 193 or 194.  This time with 5-10 and 10-50. there was no lurch.  Also the loco did not tell me anything.

Hi Hunt -- thank you for all that information.

I'm using a Model Rectifier Corp Tech 6 DC/DCC control.  It does not have a screen for showing CV values.  When I program a CV the loco tells me what value I put in, and sometimes I can understand what it says, but that's all this system can do.  If I had the walk-around plugin control for the Tech 6, it has a screen that I think can show the current value in a CV, but I loaned mine to my son-in-law who is 250 miles away.

Just now I tried to get the value in 193 by going through the programming routine without putting in a value for CV 193 to see if the loco would tell me what is in there.  That did not work.  In programming with the Tech 6, after I press P and enter a CV number  one of the panel LEDs should stay on until I have entered a CV value but instead all LEDs flickered faintly, and I think that may mean that I can't program 193-4 with this loco.

Thank you to everyone who replied to my post.

To Hunt, my CP Jupiter now has automatic start/stop toots and my UP 119 will soon also.  Special thanks to you.

To Trainman203, I suppose the automatic toots are not needed usually -- I could do them manually each time -- but I just wanted them to be automatic so I could run the Jupiter and 119 in an operating diorama of the Golden Spike National Historic Park without having to remember to do it every time.

The diorama does not exist yet, but I do plan to get it built.

There are other things that would be nice to have for the diorama, like the low speed bell.  After reading Hunt's post, I searched Bachmann and Soundtraxx for a users' guide for the new 4-4-0 with no success.  I will keep trying.

Thanks again to everyone.

Does the Sound Value On Board decoder have a CV for automatically sounding the short whistle blasts when a loco begins to move and when it stops?  On the Bachmann list CV 198 might have something to do with that but the default value 0 does not do it.

Well, Len, way back when I bought the Tech 6 there were a lot of things that I didn't know.  There still are, but maybe not quite so many.  About the loco 6 question, though, the later addition to the Tech 6 was a walkaround controller that plugs into the Tech 6, and according to its instructions it can program locos as 1 through 6.  In the past I have sometimes run a loco as #6 with the walkaround, but at this time it's not possible with my walkaround.  Nowadays when I program a loco as loco 6 with the walkaround, the lights, bell, and horn/whistle all respond, but it will not move.  Doug at MRC customer service does not know why that is so.  He thinks that there is a CV that can solve the problem, but I am ignorant about CVs and not ready to dive into that subject at this time.  I'm happy with sound buttons 0, 1, 2,and 3 on locos that go as 1-5.  That's enough for me right now.

Thanks for your interest.