Ok, Tried with voltages upto 18v. I get the same, albeit bigger jerks from the loco when reading the values. I put a load resistor on the operational output and see the current sensing change on the dcc++ current sensing screen, that is my high point Now I am a bit stuck..
Evening all, So tried with voltages upto 18v No change, still get no acknowledge from loco (308) I do get current sensing if I apply a load resistor to the main track so that is a plus. What I did try was to write to the Zimo it came up no acknowledge and now the jerking has stopped when trying to read from the decoder. At the time of writing 15.5v to motor shield On ac range 9.5v output on b+and b-. Current sensing showing as operational on main track when load resistor apples.. All in all now a bit stumped..
With my current 12 volt supply I see 12.33 volts dc on the input to the motor shield and 12.31 volts ac on the program track and 11.86 volts ac on the main. I'm wondering why your ac is so low? I also wonder why there is a difference in the two ac voltages on mine? I finally got the GE 44 ton Bachmann to run on the main but not good yet. I'm sure the problem is dirty wheels. The more I cleaned them the better it gets but still stalls a lot. I'm thinking the dirty wheel problem might be the problem on the program track as I still can't program it. I have a wheel cleaner coming, maybe tomorrow along with the higher voltage power supply. Hopefully both will help the problem. I'm wondering if putting a resister across is helping or not? It will draw more current but it is voltage that pushes across poor connections. Take a spark plug for instance. They receive a very large voltage so that it will jump the gap on the plug. The resistor is drawing current through itself but I can't see where it is drawing it through the engine and might also be lowering the voltage seen by the engine. I'm still new to this and not an electrical engineer so I might be all wrong about the above. Sumner
I think the voltage that many DVMs show when measuring a DCC track is somewhat inaccurate, because the DCC signal is not the sinusoidal 50/60Hz waveform that the average DVM expects. Some posters on this forum have generally found that the DVM shows an ac reading of around 80% of the DC input voltage. My layout for example has a DC feed of about 10V (n-gauge) and my DVM shows about 7.8V ac on the track. I have found that reversing the polarity of the leads on one of my DVM's actually gives a slightly different reading(!) presumably because the DCC waveform may not be symmetrical, depending on the data it is carrying at the time.
Have you applied the following "https://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?threads/dcc-issues-with-d-h-10c-resolved.106064/"? Then you can also try JMRI 4.15.1. Some users have experienced problems with the newer updates. Power shields also give 1 to 2 v less than what is put in.
Thanks all. I tried with the files from the link but still no read 308 and also no jerking from the loco. I have voltage to the dcc unit on the loco (I even tried connecting direct to red and black with the same result). Thinking I have killed something. Tomorrow I will get a backman DCC chip, I will fit that and see what happens.
OK, Bachman chip arrived this morning. Fitted this in after removing the Zimo and still nothing. At that point really scratching my head, I went back to basics.. ut the blank chip in and tried running it with DC, no movement.. I found the motor connections were not made. Remade these and got it running on DC. then fitted Bachmann chip, did a read and SUCCESS.. Not to try and use a throttle.. Thanks guys, I will do a summary later
Ok, With the higher voltage I think I fried the original 600R Zimo chip. I am running the software from the link https://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?threads/dcc-issues-with-d-h-10c-resolved.106064/ in the Arduino mega. The Zimo still will not read but if the engine starts to jerk as mine was it’s communicating. Then just tried a write to the chip and it worked,, I am running it from the 12v supply and it is a little slow so I will up to 14 v.. Have since converted another engine with another Zimo and apart from not reading it works a dream.. Now time to read about servos controlling the points, any tips? Thanks all
I installed the new 14 volt power supply to the Arduino Motor Shield and was finally able to program the GE 44 Ton's road address and it seems to run better now but still stalls sometimes at very slow speeds. I think more wheel cleaning will help that. Sumner
I thought I'd put in a last followup just in case someone else is having a problem with a Bachmann GE 44 Ton or possibly another loco while using an Arduino--DCC++ setup (and maybe other controllers also). I mentioned in my last post that using the 14 volt power supply helped things but still the loco didn't really want to run at slow speeds and/or program well with DecoderPro. I thought it was dirty wheels but found out that it was really the electrical pickup contacts that rub on the sides of the trucks and the point where they then transfer the current to the sides of the main frame on the engine. So as to not clutter up this thread I created a new one on how I fixed the electrical pickup problem. The loco now runs at very slow speeds and starts and stops without me having to physically touch it and I can now read and write all the CV's with no problem using DecoderPro. Hope this might help someone else .... https://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?threads/fixing-electrical-pickup-on-ge-44-ton.125719/ I have a feeling that the other older loco (SD40-2) that I'm also having problems programming and running is facing the same difficulties. There was nothing wrong all this time with the Arduino--DCC++ setup at all and the change to a 14 volt power supply was probably just trying to overcome the electrical pickup problems with more voltage to push the current past them. Sumner
