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My Atlas N scale 8-40BW diesel has developed a strange sound from the motor, I believe. A while back I was running DC and it was quiet. I have changed to DCC with a Digitrax decoder and now there is a sound, kinda hard for me to describe, that wasn't there before. I cleaned and lubed all the gears and the noise persists. I realize it would be difficult for anyone to guess w/o hearing it, but any ideas? Thanks.
You may need to adjust the pulse width (wave?) modulation. NCE lets you do this from the handset, and the acronym is PWM. Increase the value until the motor quiets down. It usually sounds like a buzzing or growling sound from the motor. I had a Bachmann Spectrum 4-6-0 do this when I installed a soundtraxx LC decoder.
I haven't had a problem with digitrax decoders, but I installed a Lenz decoder in an Atlas S-2 before (this is HO scale). The S-2 ran fine on DC, but made an awful noise when running on DCC. Turned out to be the decoder not having silent (pulse) drive
Sounds like the decoder may not have Back EMF function enabled. Check your users manual to make sure it's enabled and how to adjust it for the best operation and least interference with the sound chip.
That's odd. Almost none of my non-sound decoders have Back EMF and with the ones that do, I don't turn it on.
Thanks all. I will check the manual to see if there is an adjustment on this decoder that i can make.
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