Hello all I need some help. I was running my new Bigboy yesterday on regular dc and decided it was a bit to loud. So I was programming it and lost all sound. It will not even do the idle sound and there is no program sound when there should be. Any one else have this problem or any ideas on how to get the sound back. I tried cutting power even removing it from the track. It still runs and the handheld still works for speed and direction and stop, just no sound. Jack
Did you accidentally put the mute on? I have no idea how that works with one of those DCC sound controllers, but on my PCM PRR E7 it is the F8 function key that toggles the mute.
I was programming in DC mode and it quit. Didn't think there was a mute. No mention of it from what I read. jack
I believe it has a reset to factory settings I'm not sure about the key sequence but I know I saw it in the manual. When I get home I'll take a look. Other people had this problem and I think that fixed it.
The instructions for resetting factory defaults for Athearn's Challenger may be the same as the Bigboy if they have a similar MRC decoder. The Challenger instructions say "Press the STP button five (5) times. Wait at least 2 seconds between presses. After each press the locomotive will say 'program.' After the fifth press, you will hear 'program' followed by steam hiss. This confirms that the reset process is completed." Once the sound for my Challenger died while it was running. Running it in reverse restored the sound. Ben
Hey all Ok got it working again by hooking it up to another power source and finnaly got it to talk to me. set it to factory settings made the changes I wanted and now working great. I thank you all for your suggestions. I really do love this engine. Its just fantastic and looks like I may be starting the conversion to all DCC. There goes the budget!! Again thanks for all your help. Jack
I have no idea what went wrong. I agree with Jack, Lownen and Ben and would give the suggestions they made a try. It sounds like you inadvertently shut off something and that's easy to do. Since I really have nothing to offer in the way of help...how about some nut's so comedic relief on a Sunday afternoon? If so read on. Take all the sound recording equipment you possess, a Pentrex or Charles Smiley Video tape or DVD and record the sound you desire from each tape. After hours and hours of recording you should have filled a 30 minute tape by now. Now, go down to your local computer nut and ask him to transfer the sounds over to a computer chip. Watch him he might take you for a sucker and try to hand you off a bag of potato chips. Now after recording all those sounds take a Dummy B Unit and place a player of some sort in it with speakers of course. Obviously you will need some sort of way to control or select the sounds so now it's off to the RC store to buy some radio control equipment. Place this equipment in a second Dummy B unit with wires extended from one dummy to another. I have no idea how or to what your are going to connect them and get the sound out. So, I think I will take my 30 minutes of tape and place it in my cassette player and turn my stereo on to hear the sounds. Humm, forgot to wire the recording side for stereo and where did all that static...hummmmmmming come from. Oh well...some days are like that. Seriously, I do hope you get your locomotive's sound back up and running. On the other hand silence can't be all bad. When I get done working on a friends layout...O scale, three track with noise and smoke I usually have to come home and nurse a sinus headache and ear drops to clean out the gunk...so I can hear again. Have fun.
