NCE ProCab - Horn Stuck, "Assign Horn to Function" Missing??

[mlehman]

OK, this will teach me about the dangers of late night ops sessions when I should be in the sack...

Was running a train last night, fumbled around in hitting emergency stop ( I can't recall if it was ofr a reason or accidentally). After getting system back online, found that the horn was stuck on and would not shut off. System is a NCE PowerPro, throttle is a ProCab.

I delved into Setting the Cab Parameters after finding that the problem was in the throttle. Whichever loco selected was Horn ON! I could even turn the horn off -- briefly -- as it then came right back on. Arrgh! Noted also that some times the 2 would appear on the display as it properly should with the horn enabled, but other times it would be on WITHOUT the 2 showing up. Weird.

I took the cab apart to be sure a piece of crud wasn't causing the button to stick on.

When the cab is powered up, the 2 always comes on, even when set to be off prior to shutdown.

When I try to Set Cab Parameters (Shortcut = PROG 6), when I page through the options, there is no "Assign Horn to Function" choice, which it just skips over going right to Assign Bell to Function???

I would reset the cab/throttle only but I can't find instructions to do so. Don't really want to do a command station reset, because I have a bunch of consists and macros I don't want to reset -- and if the throttle is the problem, not sure that would help anyway. All my other throttles are fine.

Any ideas here? The fact that I don't get an option to Assign the Horn button in setting the cab parameters is just weird, as that seems to be the only place to reassign button 2 -- and it's gone!??

[kentuckysouthernrwy]

Call Larry.

[mlehman]

Karl,
Yeah, good advice, but I did finally fumble through things and get that #%$@&^! whistle shut down.

I still have no idea what it was, but something to do with F button (that's a real good abbreviation for it right now... ) assignment is my guess, which I must've done when fumbling with the controller. I still do not have the "Assign Horn to Function" choice available in Cab Parameters, but things are back to making noise when it should and not when it's not.

[mlehman]

One more clue...

I thought to check my other throttles -- another ProCab and a PowerCab -- on the system. There is no "Assign Horn to Function" choice available in Cab Parameters on either of them. So that looks to me more like a command station problem...which leaves me even more confused, as I'm sure the throttle I was fumbling with when this happened was not in any of the programming menus, so I could not have changed it that way.

I didn't try either of those throttles before solving the problem, as it seemed isolated to the one throttle, so can't say for sure they weren't affected. My Cab 04r was fine, as it was what I used to turn the whistle off each time

Then there's the possibility that the documentation of the "Assign Horn to Function" choice being available in Cab Parameters is just wrong. Either it was never there or it was deleted in a system update. And it may be irrelevant to the horn stuck cause, but may have been useful in resetting the horn to silence it if it had been available.

[Mark R.]

Unlikely the "assign horn function" choice is missing as F2 is the only momentary function button, so the horn HAS to be on F2.

Mark.

[mlehman]

Mark,
Thanks for confirming it wasn't there in the first place. Never had need to look there before. It seems to eliminate this from the list of possibilities as relevant to the issue I had.

It did seem to relate to F@, becauise it was definitely latched on and F2 is the only button AFAIK that has that capability. And F2 was definitely acting up. Sometimes the 2 on the display was on, sometimes it wasn't, I could turn it off and it would go away for a few seconds then start up again, randomly displaying the 2 as was its whim.

[bnsf971]

Mike, I've had that problem before on a ProCab, and it was because I had bumped the F2 button, which then would stay on, no matter what I did with the horn button.

[mlehman]

Oct 13, 2014 3:26:30 GMT -8 bnsf971 said:

Mike, I've had that problem before on a ProCab, and it was because I had bumped the F2 button, which then would stay on, no matter what I did with the horn button.

Terry,
Interesting, makes me feel a little better about the fix I was in -- others had been there before. Kind of makes it more important to find a certain solution, other than guessing and button punching. Did you keep pushing buttons until it quit or did you just sell it and buy another (which I briefly contemplated as a solution, considering throwing it against the wall was unlikely to help)?

[bnsf971]

Oct 13, 2014 9:31:14 GMT -8 mlehman said:

Oct 13, 2014 3:26:30 GMT -8 bnsf971 said:

Mike, I've had that problem before on a ProCab, and it was because I had bumped the F2 button, which then would stay on, no matter what I did with the horn button.

Terry,
Interesting, makes me feel a little better about the fix I was in -- others had been there before. Kind of makes it more important to find a certain solution, other than guessing and button punching. Did you keep pushing buttons until it quit or did you just sell it and buy another (which I briefly contemplated as a solution, considering throwing it against the wall was unlikely to help)?

I saw it showed F2 on the handset being active. I kept pushing the horn button, then finally hit the F2 button, and the horn stopped blaring.

[mlehman]

I suspect mine was froze up even worse. Sometimes the 2 was showing, sometimes not, but the whistle was always blaring and no amount of tricky button pushing between the obvious ones worked. Still not sure exactly what I programmed or activated. i did notice that some of the analog playable horn parameters had values in them, when they should have all been zero. That did not help, so...one of the mysteries of the universe at this point.

[emd16645]

I've seen with NCE throttles that lights and functions get a little funny and usually need to be reset after an emergency stop. Example, train is running with headlights on, and the system is placed in emergency mode. When deactivated, the lights may still be on, but the "L" indicator on the throttle is absent. Since I'm border line OCD, I always reset the functions.

Note: When I refer to resetting functions, I am not talking about reprogramming the loco or throttle, I'm referring to toggling the function buttons on the throttle.

[mlehman]

Oct 14, 2014 3:47:20 GMT -8 emd16645 said:

I've seen with NCE throttles that lights and functions get a little funny and usually need to be reset after an emergency stop. Example, train is running with headlights on, and the system is placed in emergency mode. When deactivated, the lights may still be on, but the "L" indicator on the throttle is absent. Since I'm border line OCD, I always reset the functions.

Note: When I refer to resetting functions, I am not talking about reprogramming the loco or throttle, I'm referring to toggling the function buttons on the throttle.

Yeah, definitely associated with the emergency stop. I tried all the buttons several times thinking that maybe one of them got accidentally assigned to the whistle/horn function, but that didn't yield any results. I _think_ I somehow did finally reset something in the shifted buttons that fixed it, still not sure.