DCC Newb - Lights But No Action


R

roberto.lozano.37

Member
So I've made the switch to DCC recently. I purchased a Zephyr DCS-51 and a few TCS decoders for my loco's. The first install was on a Kato SD45 which went pretty smoothly and I was able reprogram the address and run it no problem. Next I moved onto my kato RS2 which was a little more involved. After some Kapton tape and flexing the board a little to slide it into the chasis I placed the loco on the track and it barely wanted to move. At some parts of the layout it would just stop and sit there for few seconds then sluggishly move along again. I took the loco back to my desk and took the shell off again to inspect it. As for as these newb eyes were concerned everything looked on the up and up.

After putting it back on the track the loco now doesn’t move at all. I have light control and I am able to read the address on the program track but that’s it. I then took it back to my desk and reinstalled the original light board and confirmed that I did not fry the loco.

Did I break the thing while wrestling it into the chasis of the loco? Some research is suggesting that it could be a motor tab not making good enough contact
 
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Looks pretty much like a straight forward install.

Remove the board and reinstall it.
Making sure you motor tabs are where they should be and touching the copper on the board.

Mine were HO scale installs.
 
Just make sure you have the motor contacts where they're supposed to be and that you don't have anything in a bind. Also, running without the shell is always a very good idea as stated already. If it runs fine without the body shell then you'll need to check that carefully as you've probably got something that's slipped out of place or alignment just a bit.

A couple more things: Sometimes the contacts that slide into the frame don't fit tightly enough to keep a good contact. It'll make the locomotive act like it's working on dirty wheels or rails, but what's actually happening is that the contact points with the frame aren't contacting as well as they should. I've had enough problem there that I've taken to just adding solder to the contacts every time I install a replacement board. In fact, I had a Kato SD90 that had been working fine for a while and suddenly started having that problem. After cleaning & puzzling for a while, I finally removed the board, added the solder, and problem fixed. It takes only a TINY amount and it needs to be spread out evenly. The board should fit in VERY tightly and be a little difficult to slide into place, but if you get too much on there it just won't slide in at all. In fact, it takes such a thin layer that I almost always end up filing it back down to what looks to the naked eye like almost nothing, but that tiny sliver of solder makes it thicken just enough to be really wedged in there and get a good connection. While you do want it to be very tight, you don't want to force it to the point that you break the board. Just play around with it and you'll figure it out.

The second point seems so obvious that I hesitate to even mention it, but since I once did it myself here we go. The Kato motor contacts can and will move (turn), and one of them points upward rather than downward. I've had one case where the downward-facing prong got turned out of place enough not to contact, and another time I missed that the upward-facing one had slipped out from behind the decoder's motor contact prong.

Other than that, just make very sure that the motor contacts on both the motor itself and the decoder can in no way contact the frame. I have no idea why they're telling you to put kapton tape on the front part, honestly, but having it wrapped around that top of the frame where the motor prongs and the decoder's motor contact blades are is very critical. Make sure you wrap it all the way around and underneath that top bar on the brakeman's side if the motor prong is at all close to the frame and you think it might ever have a chance to contact.

So check those things, check that it'll run sans body, and just go from there. Hope this helps.
 
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Thank you everyone for your helpful responses I'm embarrassed to say that the issue was dirty wheels the engine was purchased from eBay so I had no idea that the wheels were that dirty also how sensitive DCC is too dirty wheels and track


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
In DC you're just adjusting voltage to the track and dirty track/wheels is bad enough there, but with DCC you're also transmitting the signals the decoder needs to read to operate the engine.
 
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