Model Railway Forum

I have just got a S/H loco with factory fitted sound.
I am having and issue I haven't come across (but as I am still learning my way around DCC that's not uncommon) !

If the sound is turned on the loco will take about 8 seconds from when the speed is set until it will move at all.
once it is moving slowing and speeding up respond as expected.
If I turn the sound off, it will respond from stopped to moving instantly as expected.

It does appear the chuff rate is off, it gets quite fast at 1/4 throttle, but I am unsure if that a early version decoder thing ?

The decoder reads as an ESU v255.

I was thinking of doing a factory reset to(CV8 to 8 if I researched correctly? ) but am worried I may lose the sounds ?
I can of course return to the shop to sort, but I would like to ensure its not something I can fix first !

Having had a dig around, after a reset, I think it might be as its an older decoder, does that sound feasible ?

There is a start delay setting I found, that can be disabled by setting the appropriate CV to 0, this works,setting this makes instant throttle response from standstill, but the chuffs then take a while to start up.
So I have set it to default.

Also the 3 step speed settings will not allow vmax to go above 64, I was expecting to be able to set 255 as max.
Plus when my controller says speed step 64 that is max velocity, although the controller will go much higher the loco speed does not increase.
That leads me to think possibly its just a dated decoder and thats how it is supposed to be ? or the decoder has issues.

Its a pity, but unless anyone knows what the issue is, I may have to send back for a refund.

64 was the highest value that some older decoders could accept, I can't remember which decoders it was though.

Those decoders have a lag before start CV. You would have to refer to the blurb to see which one and what allowable values, etc.

Yep, i did find that RAF96, it cured the the delay but meant that the loco would start running straight away but the chuffing took 8 seconds or so to start, so that also looked odd. I have decided to return the loco and will be a bit more wary of buying older sound fitted Bachmann locos in future.