Loksound Jittery

[12bridge]

I am a bit at a loss here,

I just installed Loksound in an engine (Atlas SD24) and it seems to have the jitters.   I hardwired the trucks, I triple checked ALL of the connections and I see no problems, shorts, etc.  It seems like your classic dirty track issue, but I assure you it is not.  

Wheels are clean, track is clean, in gauge, I checked everything, proper feeders.  It only seems to do it about mid throttle as well. 

Anyone have any thoughts?  I have yet to mess with any programming yet either. 

Thanks.  

[NS4122]

I had the same problem with my sound equipped Atlas 8-40CW's. The point where they lost contact was where the axles meet the contact strip in the trucks. While taking the trucks apart and cleaning might give you temporary relief, the only real cure is to do what Atlas does, apply conductive lubrication to the axle ends. The Atlas brand is called Conducta-Lube and it is pricey (15.50). I used Aristo Craft conductive grease instead (also pricey)because I thought it would last longer.

[grabbem88]

Try cv 54 value 0. Make sure track is clear go back to as if you was running your engine and press f1/bell function..

This will do an automatic bemf adjustment

You might have to take cv2 to a value of 4 or 6

I have an rsd 4/5 actually several that the trucks and there wipers were in need of of extra feelers as well to me the contact doesn't travel well since the 3rd set of wheels make no contact..

Also since you havnt made any adjustments but I did I noticed jitter when I tried to bring foe/rev trim down to give it a better scale top speed so I'm probably not the best advisor here

[Mark R.]

Before you start making any adjustments, try turning off the BEMF first and see if the problem goes away. If it does, and you prefer to have the BEMF turned on, you will have to make some adjustments to its parameters. The first step would be the auto-adjust feature of the BEMF as was mentioned above.

Program a value of 0 into CV54. Now place your engine on your layout and press F1. The engine will take off at full speed for about four feet. During this run, the decoder is reading the motor characteristics and setting the BEMF. Usually, this step is enough to get things running properly.

Mark.

[Mark R.]

Oct 25, 2014 10:03:57 GMT -8 grabbem88 said:

Try cv 54 value 0. Make sure track is clear go back to as if you was running your engine and press f1/bell function..

This will do an automatic bemf adjustment

You might have to take cv2 to a value of 4 or 6

I have an rsd 4/5 actually several that the trucks and there wipers were in need of of extra feelers as well to me the contact doesn't travel well since the 3rd set of wheels make no contact..

Also since you havnt made any adjustments but I did I noticed jitter when I tried to bring foe/rev trim down to give it a better scale top speed so I'm probably not the best advisor here

The forward and reverse trim are only to be used to match the speed in both directions, not the top speed. Large amounts of adjusting in the trim settings can cause some adverse effects. A lot of engines will run slightly faster in one direction than the other. The trim settings are used to match this - otherwise, when mu'ing, it may work fine going forward, but won't match well when reversed.

If you want to set the top speed, you would use CV5.

Mark.

[grabbem88]

You know what I think I did both lol I did reset my mess "after" talking with Matt on some of my other goofs.

Back to the op does your engine ever so slightly break up and shut the sound off?

Or jitter like a seizer real sporadic movement

[Mark R.]

Checking and cleaning all the contact points is always a good idea before any installation. I had some Atlas six-axle u-boats that exhibited similar running qualities. I completely tore down the trucks and cleaned out all the lube. I also noted that the axle tips were damp with lube as well. I cleaned out the axle bushings in the brass contact strip which were black ! After everything was really clean and polished, I re-assembled the trucks and soldered ALL wire connections including the truck wires.

Problem was gone ....

Mark.

[grabbem88]

That's right Atlas's truck wires to the trucks themselves have those wire holders which are not very consistent in transferring current