Large Scale Central

23182 sound board not working

Problem Solving
#41

Your experience parallels those that are common on GscaleCentral (in the UK for people that aren’t familiar) and one of the moderators is pretty much an expert on Massoth, and he is sold on using the tool and the “sheets” and fine tunes them until they work.

It appears to me that using the templates programs all the CVs specified.

I indeed did a basic reset, and it took a bit of playing to get CVs to write consistently. My Zimo unit was most successful as the programming current is programmable, although the NCE has more control and flexibility over the 3 different programming modes available in service mode.

Suffice it to say I’m not real impressed with the Massoth decoders and definitely not for people who do not want to become experts in programming.

Greg

#42

At long last the saga finally reaches the last chapter. I have received the decoder back from Tom White who programmed it to do what I expected it to do last July - and it now does exactly that! I have installed it in the tender of my mogul and I now am able to hear chuffs determined by reed sensor and magnets on a wheel rather than the “automatic chuff” as advertised by Massoth. This will likely be the only Massoth decoder I will ever own!

Roger Bush

#43

But now you know how to tame the beast. The hard part is over.

#44

Make sure you archive the complete list of CV settings, so if the decoder is ever reset, you can set it back.

Am I correct in assuming it is now using the Clock 1 input for the chuff trigger.

In any case, congratulations!

Greg

#45

Greg Elmassian said:

Make sure you archive the complete list of CV settings, so if the decoder is ever reset, you can set it back.

Am I correct in assuming it is now using the Clock 1 input for the chuff trigger.

In any case, congratulations!

Greg

+++++++++++++++

Greg - I’ll respond for Roger since I set the CVs for him. Yes, I found out from my Massoth Dealer in Germany that Clock#1 can work with a two wire reed sensor besides the Massoth three wire pulse generator/hall sensor. I used the first two connectors: Ground; Clock1. The Massoth unit also uses the third connector +6.5v. I provided Roger a Massoth three wire cable so he can solder his two wire chuff sensor to it and then just plug it into the decoder’s clock connector instead of having to solder the wires to the bottom of the decoder. I also provided him a print out copy of all the decoder’s CVs read out: Contains the current setting of each CV along with their default and the setting maximum and minimum range available…a nice feature of the Massoth Service Tool.

#46

That’s great Tom… so again my takeaway is you cannot use clock 2, even though nowhere in the documentation this is stated.

Also, I assume you got a copy of the printout of the CV’s as provided to Roger, and there were ones set to very strange values, did you notice this?

Greg

#47

Greg - Specifically, the Massoth S Decoder’s Installation Manual states on page 14: …“Clock2 is the connector for a second pulse generator, e.g., for cog wheel steam loco Ballenberg. A reed switch (illustr. #9) can be used as a generator input in this case.” So, the Manual is incorrect about using Clock2 for a reed switch…doesn’t work properly as Roger Bush had found. Roger did not send me a copy of the read out of all the decoder’s CVs that you prepared, instead I did my own using the Massoth Service Tool. I didn’t review all the CVs but focused on adjustments to the CVs I thought would make the simulation chuff work better. Roger complained that the simulation chuff started before his locomotive even started to move, so first testing an S Decoder I had in stock, I installed it on my test stand motor block, and the S Decoder’s Simulation chuff worked fine. Without having Roger’s locomotive to adjust the chuff rate to the locomotive’s movement, it would be hard to make the appropriate CV adjustments on Roger’s decoder…he did provide me with the voltage his loco would start to move, 6.5 volts. But his primarly interest was to use the Clock2 and a reed sensor for creating the chuff sound, so that’s what I then focused on and received guidance from my Massoth Dealer in Germany.

#48

Yep, the clock 2 thing is the major lesson learned here, agreed.

Also, many mystery CV’s although I asked you if you got the CV sheet from the Massoth dealer, and found many of the settings did not make sense… values out of range according to the documentation, etc.

Anyway, we all learned something, but my biggest takeaway, is I won’t go near a Massoth decoder, unless I get the service tool and rewrite everything, and it seems that many DCC systems have difficulty programming some Massoth units. With a Zimo and an NCE, if I cannot program it, then to me, I really look for an alternative. This experience and other of my Massoth experiences have not been good, and I will not purchase a Massoth system to make things work.

Greg