Hello. I’m in the process of trying to figure out why a friend of mine is having problems with his QSI MAGNUM sound unit that he had another person install for him.
This is a tender mount situation. I opened the tender, set the chassis on a test track, fired it up in the forward direction and heard nothing. I then reversed the direction for back up. The back up light lit, and at 8 volts the background sound kicked in. I began slowly to increase the throttle waiting to hear a chuff. It finally began chuffing at 14.5 volts, very slowly (20chuffs/minute). I increased the power up to 22volts with no increase in chuff.
After looking at the soldering job on the small aristo pcb in the tender I came to realize the 2 track power wires going to #1 and #12 on the Magnum board were soldered onto the “reverse light” tabs on the aristo pcb, thereby allowing power only when in reverse.
I then located in my scrap box a 2-pin plug with long pigtails from a past project and replaced those 2 wires in #1 and #12 and plugged it in to the “power” receptacle on the small aristo pcb. Viola! Power in both directions. Now, while I have sound in the forward mode, (7.0volts for background and no chuff at all), The reverse sound hasn’t changed either.
I’ve downloaded several “manuals” from the QSI site, and I can’t make head nor tails
of what’s going on. Question: because this is a “decoder” for DCC as well as a sound unit, does the decoder need to be programmed for the rate of chuff?
Also, concerning the whistle. I read in one of the “manuals” that to blow the whistle you must reverse the direction and back again quickly. Is there no pre-programmed “crossing signal”?
My friend may have purchased this unit in error, as he plans on running analog, track power, with Aristo TE trackside. Any enlightenment would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Mike.
I have no experience with this board, but here’s a guess. Are you running the TE in PWC mode? That could explain the board not understanding the voltage increases, especially with no motor load on the track.
Also, try connecting directly to the track power - not using the pcb. There might be something in the board filtering the power or causing other issues.
Hi Jon,
I’m actually using an MRC Trainmaster 20 for power during the test/install. I will try using direct track pickup through the tender wheels to see what happens. Thanks for you suggestions.
Mike.
Jon, I took your suggestion and drew power directly from the transformer, bypassing the pcb in the aristo tender. Nothing changed. Keeping in mind that I’m testing this tender unit w/o the actual steam engine hooked up. Tonight I will put the locomotive on the test rollers and hook it up to the tender to see if having the motor running makes any difference at all. I’m finding this project to be most frustrating, due to the fact that all the downloaded “manuals” I’ve printed keep referring to the practice of “programming the decoder with a computer”. I’m of the belief that without purchasing the programming kit, and implementing a computer with the proper software and firmware, getting this “universal g-scale decoder” to work is near impossible. Anyone out there ever use this?
Thanks,
Mike.