Ok here i am again with this dang SD70ACE kato .. this thing has give me more problems than its worth.. Its like my flippin night mare....from day one nothing but problems. ok now for the problem....... it has a TCS K1D4 dcc board in it. I had it parked under my pc monitor for about three weeks now. Now i can not control it or program it at all. I put it on the main line and the thing just took off running. What i can do with it is turn on the lights and turn them off ,Thats it. i hooked it up to DCC++EX and JMRI to program the thing , GRRRR nope no can do. So now what do i do. I can not set it back to factory , I can not program it , ... I can see cv's ect but can not access them ....I read someplace that some people were having problems with there decoders when parked off the rails they dont work any more . Is this one of those decoders thats just garbage. I had thought TCS was a good decoder. MIND you this has never been shorted out on the track ever... Any body got some kinda idea before i smash this decoder and go buy a digitrax...
I also tried my NCE power cab to program it as well NO GO...could not even throttle it up or down O control except the lights..
Sounds like you possibly just got a bad decoder, maybe? Don't have another locomotive to try it in do you? I bought 2 of these when I got my two Kato ES44DC's brand new in January 2022 and no problem at all. They have been stored in the jewel cases at times, just set on the layout OFF the tracks at times for month's and no issue so far for over a year. I'm sure someone has had issues with Digitrax, TCS, NCE, etc... I'm sure you have checked those tiny springy contacts and such, many times? Mine has the Clips installed from TCS? I think the SD70 version does too? If your gonna throw it away, send it to me J/K, or am I? Good luck!
haha well i finally got in to reset to factory settings. all day long messing with this. I could not get JMRI to do any thing with it. so i went back to NCE power cab and i still could not get in...grrrrr at this point i pretty well peeed off....any who , woke up this am an got my cup of java went back to the decoder problem . i finally got it working . I had went to the web and found the manual started reading and rereading that thing 3 or 4 times and finally found the solution. i had to go through a sequence of cvs starting with the lock code. dont remember exactly what all there was but the bottom line is i got it working and reprogrammed. BUT WHY DID IT LOSE ITS PROGRAMMING IN THE FIRST PLACE???????? Thats what i want to know.. it worked good when i parked it then put it back on the track to use the thing and it took off like somebody else was driving it... In the manual it said to go to there cv calculator for programming the loco # into cv 17 and cv 18 once i was able to get in there.....what a pain....
Just spitballing here as I am no expert but I am willing to bet there was a short which caused a voltage spike and it tossed the cv settings.
MAYBE static electricity from sitting.......cause it did not have its shell on when parked......... thing is it was running when i parked it under my monitors for future cleaning and reprogramming . it never was shorted out on track. it was just sitting on its case on my desk. I dont know what happened. But i know it was a pain in the rear to get reprogrammed . i have ordered new decoder for this one and one more loco i have that has a lenz in it , that one too just died for some reason and i just got it in the mail. So far the kato sd70ace is still running after i finally got it programed only took all day to figger it out even then i didnt get till the next morning after i had my coffee..... (i think the fix is grab a hot cup of coffee then work on trains )
Was it installed, with insulating kapton tape, etc., as shown on TCS' install page for your loco on their website? They provide close-up photos. It looks like there are a couple of different places you have to watch closely. One of those "not-quite-drop-in" drop-in encoder installs. Your decoder may be toast, but if it was due to being miss-installed, at least the problem is not with the decoder (or at least not a new TCS one).
Andy its working again . it was fine until i parked it then when i put it on the rails it work just take off. its taped in the right places but it really dont need it. nothing touches anything..... it just lost all its memory for some reason...ive ordered a new board for spare part.... OH and that was a new decoder only had about hr on it. this darn thing has been my night mare loco. I may repaint it and call it NIGHT MARE on the rails
We all have one of these at some point, I would imagine. I have for sure! It's that one locomotive that drives us crazy.
in2tech Ya for sure this Kato SD70ACE is my night mare .. But when that thing dose run it runs great and pulls like mules. i would just get rid of that darn thing . But i do like it......... I think the rail gods are testing me for sure, to see just how far they can push that button and how many times they can push it...
Sometimes the motor pickup pads on the Kato decoders do not make good contact with the motor leads, especially with the SD70ACE. I could not even get an ESU decoder to make a solid connection until I bent the motor leads outward just a little to make better contact. After that they seem to be a lot more reliable. What makes things worse is the non-soldered motor contacts, relying on the quality of the clip in motor contacts is about as unreliable as the button connection on the E-Units. Never trust a physical connection always make sure the connections are soldered and you will not have issues.
