I have wired a large portion of layout now and hooked it up to my MRC Prodigy. My engines seem to run fine using std setting one as it says they would - they are just very 'loud'. I have installed a simple 28 step MRC decoder in two of my engines. I used a test track and they worked find, just slow as they said it would.

When I put them on my non-test segments I get mixed results. One engine started fine, but now it does not seem to always get the msg for lights and direction and it moves very slow. The second engine was having similar intermitent problems - I increased the throttle and there was nothing - then all of a sudden after about 1 minute it took off at 3/4 throttle. It did respond once it was going.

I am still using the default setting 3 and have not programmed them further. One engine is a proto 2000, the other an Athearn S12.

Any help is appreciated.

-- Bo Wandschneider (bo@uoguelph.ca), November 25, 2003

Answers

Just a couple of thoughts off the top of my head (1) did you provide feeder wires to each section of track, if so how far apart are the feeders - with ns rail, feeders should probably be no further apart than 10 feet (assuming rail ends are soldered together) or (2) is the track and wheels on the locos clean - if they are working fine on the test segment I would check the rails on the non-test segment.

Aren't intermittant problems great? ;) Good luck.

Charles

-- Charles Lewis (cslewis1@comcast.net), November 25, 2003.