Thanks to all who have contributed to this and the other thread regarding FEF / TCS issues, I am patiently waiting and learning before I order any decoder. I purchased the analog version of the FEF. As I understand it, KATO is placing TCS, non sound, decoders in the DCC version of the loco. I think that I read in an earlier post that TCS decoders do not play well with coreless motors, I may have dreamed that but it brings up a question. Did KATO or TCS test run any decoder equipped locos and if so what did they find. I guess I am curious about the QC by both entities. Not flaming, just wondering did they think the model community would except less than optimal DCC operation or did their employees not know what they surely witnessed during a test? ? ? Still a good looking loco and runs extremely well as analog. This thread has also helped solve some issues that I was having with a Challenger. It is a KEY brass unit that had a coreless motor and I even replaced the original with a brand new one from The Motorman. I tried an ESU Loksound Select Micro and it ran like crap, I then tried a Digitrax DZ 125 (or something like that) and it still ran like crap. I gave up fiddling with it, but may go back to it with the newly found facts about the decoders. John - that video shows a pretty nice slow, smooth start up. Thanks to all. Carl
Hi Carl. i suspect that no one tested the loco's slow speed performance with the TCS board at all. What probably happened is that Kato contracted with TCS to design and manufacture a drop-in replacement DCC board. They gave TCS the design specs for the board size and fit on the loco and maybe one of the analog boards for TCS to design the component layout. They did that, and by all accounts, the TCS board fits perfectly. But i doubt anyone tested "speed step 1" performance at the prototype design stage. In in a perfect world, such testing no would have been done. But the world isn't perfect; production schedules don't always match up, and probably no one thought "gee, this is a completely different motor from what Kato has used in the past, so maybe we should worry about that." Nah. They used their tried and true engineering with an altered physical layout. Why wouldn't it work? Works great with all of Kato's previous locos! There are lessons to be learned here by both Kato and TCS. Let's hope they learn them. In the meantime, it IS possible to get great DCC performance from the FEF; just perhaps not with the TCS board. John C.
Yes John, let's hope more than these mnfgr's learn from it because I can see the coreless motors being the future, if they have the longevity required. I checked on the Backshops web site and looked at the Zimo and CTE (I think).They both mention that their decoders work well with coreless motors because those types of motors have been used in Europe for some time now. I did order a Zimo and will check it out before I go to buying ESU sound. I still will have to check out the "new" FEF file from ESU. BTW, I see on You Tube a video (Top Hobby) with a TCS Wow sound unit in the FEF. It sounds good to me but the video, IMHO, shows the TCS problem quite well. This shall pass and all will be cool! Carl
For those of you thinking about going the hard-wire route, there is an excellent illustration of how to modify the stock circuit board and where to solder the decoder wires in this thread at The Railwire: http://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=34884.0 John C.
Hello everyone. I read the whole thread from the beginning although I am not in N scale, but I have experience with can, coreless, brushless, C-sinus motors since European models are made with those for quite some years. Don't have experience with most of American decoders like NCE, MRC, TCS. I do use some digitrax, soundtrax and mostly qsi. In Europe we are stuck only with German made decoders like ESU, Zimo, Uhlenbrock, Kuhn and others. Reading the whole thread I didn't see anyone mentioning the auto calibration feature of ESU lokpilot/loksound. This procedure in most cases gives very good to excellent results. It will auto-detect the parameters of the motors and will auto populate CV 51 52 53 54 55 with the best values. Basically decoder will detect the type of the motor , inertia generated by the flywheel if any, and will measure BEMF generated by the motor durring the calibration. NOTE: Auto calibration is not in the EN manual of some LokPilot decoders. It should be chapter 11.1.3 in the manual. I do have it in DE manual. Its kinda undocumented feature, because this feature practically depends on flywheel mass, worms, number of gears, gear ratio, size of wheels and even the mass of shafts. But it deserves a try. Anyway all you have to do is to set a straight piece of track approximately 2 metres max. Make sure all functions of the throttle are off, especially F1. Then you need to program CV54=0. With K parameter set to 0 the loco will not respond to any commands. Now press F1 to engage and the loco will launch at maximum speed. When the autodetection is done the bell will sound. Check the values of cv 51,52,53,54,55. If the result is not good you can play around with those values up and down. Hope that helps somehow with ESU, otherwise use Zimo as other forum member already mentioned.
Did anyone try setting the BEMF cutout (CV10) to a (1) with a TCS decoder to see if that takes care of the no slow speed problem?
BaHkaTa, BaHkaTa, I did do the auto BEMF set up when I first installed the decoder into the FEF. Set CV54 to 0 and then hit F1. Make sure you have lots of track in front of locomotive before you do this. It will take off like a rocket and go for about 5 feet or more. I still had problems and then tried setting the CV's one by one.
Man am I glad I found this thread. I've been putzing around for days trying to figure this speed issue out and was just about resigned to sending it off for professional sound decoder installation. I just bought my second FEF and was wondering about the wisdom of the purchase. I finally got decent slow speed by turning off BEMF, and setting 57 to 1 and 56 to 300. I also set CV5 to 80 and CV6 to 40. I looked over the Wowsound from Top Hobby and got the warm and fuzzy for trying one of their sound decoders.
It was probably a typo Rick. The limit on CV's for most decoders is 255 as you stated above. Turning off the BEMF and working with different values of CV 57 and CV 57 is the key to getting a very slow speed. It can be done if you work with different CV value combinations. Shades
I just checked CV 56 and it defaulted to 250. I punched in 300 but did not try a readback to check the actual value that was recorded. You are correct Rick. It's still not perfect as far as creep and linear performance but it's considerably better than stock settings.
Here is a short video of my LokSound install into the FEF 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwaJQrqnbws
I didn't see any difference with dither on or off (unless the CV 56 & 57 settings were giving it more of "kick"). Did you check the with it off, as well, or just adjust the dither?
In case this hasn't been brought up yet here is the reply I recieved from TCS tech support: "Hello Steve, We are aware of the issue and are very close to a solution. Unfortunately it will require the decoder be sent in to us for reprogramming. Our motor control has always been known for our slow speed control with almost any DC motor including coreless motors but the tinny size of the coreless motor in the FEF has found a chink in the armor. We apologize for this inconvenience. This will be covered under our TCS Goof Proof Warranty. Please go to the Warranty Page of our website at:http://www.tcsdcc.com/Customer_Content/Customer_Info/Warranty/warranty.html and fill out the online Warranty registration. Then send the decoder to us. Filling out this online registration will help us to expedite the return of your Warranty replacement. "
The page doesn't have a choice for the K6D4 decoder, nor are any of the selections for warranty return relevant. Do we send back to them even for Kobo (Kato) installed?
Rick, TCS stands by their decoders. It dies not matter who installs them. They go by the date code in the rom in most cases, if it less than 1 year they take it no question asked.
I have a new one in relation to the K6D4. Got my FEF-3 and K6D4 several weeks ago. Tested the loco on my one piece of DC track and it ran perfectly. Installed the K6D4 and it shorted the entire layout. Explored many options. The only one that looked like it would work was Kapton-taping over all the contacts on the bottom of the K6D4 except for the motor clips. Got it working kinda sorta. Achieved a scale speed of 4.6, not great, not terrible. Then everything fell apart again. Had a couple of surging problems, then, without warning, the FEF took off at full speed and ignored any throttle input. Had to power down the layout. Back and forth between the Kato board and the K6D4 with no improvement. In fact, loco reverted to shorting the layout. So, wrote up a warranty claim and sent the K6D4 back to TCS, where it resides now. Also emailed Kato, then decided to call Kato. Talked to someone there who said it sounded like the motor was not properly isolated. At that point, I studied the exploded diagram and discovered that my loco was missing two insulators. The motor saddle was in place, but the clip that goes over the saddle is nonexistent. Also the insulator that goes over the worm gear and bushings is missing. Both insulators are under one part number (I think I remember it being X02-2048). Called Kato back and they are shipping the part. Bottom line, missing parts was the LAST thing I would have suspected. I've received damaged Kato products before (and I AM and remain a KATO fan, BTW) that I returned for warranty service but this is a first. Anyway, another thing to be conscious of if you get the squarely behavior I did.
NSGeorge - I have a new FEF-3 that came with the TCS decoder installed that exhibits similar behavior to what you described. I have seen the variable speed performance at low speeds but have also witnessed the surging behavior you described where the FEF goes full speed and is unresponsive unless throttle is cut. Should I contact TCS or Kato?? I'm quite bummed as this is my first N-scale loco..
