We have all done our share of dumb things in life, well i did a biggie tonight. I had a tought at work so i figured i would do a mindless task in the train room. I planned on installing a decoder in my new Kato CP SD90mac. I removed the light board and put the krypton tape in place and installed the decoder. I put it on the programing track, but it would not read the loco (using decoder pro). I tried to program it but it would not program either. No problemo, been there before i can fix it. Iremove and reinstall the decoder making sure everything is perfectly in place. All set now and ready to program.. still no dice. now i am getting ticked. I spent 1.5 hours trying to get this thing to program and i am about ready blow a gasket. Well i will sent it back to Digitrax, but wait what is that on the little piece of styrafoam? By golly it is the decoder! Then what am i trying to program? I pull the shell off and what do i see... the light board. I have been trying to program the blasted lightboard. I install the real decoder and i am up and running in 5 minutes. Boy do i feel like a dufuss...
Yup, dem lightboards have a whole nuther set of CV's to program in :zip: I can say that because I did it too once mg:
hehehe...... been there done that. once i installed 96 decoders in one afternoon. most went into ac-4400 , some went into sd40-2. guess how many shells i removed just to find out the loco already has a decoder. or, as you did, i re-installed the lightboard.
You shared an important lesson for all of us. So, you can't program a light board...who'd of thought? I've been there as far as intstalling something only to find the part sitting on the workbench...ouch~!
Unfortunately, That's 1.5 hours you will never get back again.....but makes a great story all the same.
I'm kinda thankful for this thread...I haven't started with DCC yet, but I plan to, and so hopefully when I do I will have this in the back of my mind. First time I'm saying to myself "Why the !@#$ isn't this working?" I will pull off the shell and take a close look.
Yea done that, quite frustrating especially when you post to the board for help :embarassed: , only to find that the light board is still installedmg: . I now look thinks over first, set up a plan of attack, remove the light board and immediately put it in the light board container and seal it shut. Only then I open the decoder package and that way I will hopefully not do that again.
I spent 45 minutes yesterday trying to find out what was wrong with my wiring. My DCC just wasn't working. I found out that it helps if the controller isn't plugged into the booster socket. If you ask me the darn thing is just to picky. I mean it's not like I plugged it into the phone jack or anything. It was in the right box.
Whoa! In my continuing series of Stupid Mistakes, now up to 75, I have granted only two others a number. That means I have written 73 times about my own stupid mistakes. I hereby grant you Stupid Mistake No. 76. You may decline the honor (or is it the disgrace?) of being honest, humorous, and contributing to a growing database of stupid mistakes. If you accept, the next Stupid Mistake will be No. 77.
Go on Paul, accept. It will put you in very honourable company - Owen, Sandro, Mike.... if Pete had been running DCC he would have already granted himself yet another number. .
Wait a sec! I am running DCC! I just haven't tried programming a lightboard yet. This is truly a Stupid Mistake.
i will be honored It will be a pleasure to join the ranks... I can now hold my head high, but not to high. I do not want to bang my head on my upper level.
I was cleaning something and got distracted by a sudden thought about the GandG that I had to test right _then_. After taking care of that I couldn't find the spray cleanner I was using. Looked all over, finaly gave up and went back to the trains. Later I got hungry. Yep, wanna guess where the bottle of spray cleaner was?
I don't have dcc yet but.... How about trying to start a dead computer. Take it apart and reinstal everything etc etc. Coming back from a break I noticed it. The plug was out. duh LOL
Here is a another example of mistaken identity. Got a call yesterday from a co-worker setting up for the local train show. He was setting up a test loop to run a PCM E-7 and called to ask my suggestions as to why it wouldn't run. His quote, "I checked the wiring, we have power, I can change the functions on the Zephyr, the loco won't run though." After thinking about it for a few minutes, I asked him which loco he was trying to run. He told me the B&O and then it clicked, we took an A/A set with one powered and one dummy. He had struggled for 15 minutes to get the dummy loco to run.
