# SOLVED - Soundtraxx Lights don't come back on after leaving REV.



## Ron045 (Feb 11, 2016)

I have a TSU 4400 I just set up in an F7.

Headlight, number board lights, cab light and ditch lights. All works great in FWD.

In REV, all the lights in the front go out as expected. There is no rear backup light.

But when I hit FWD again only the headlight comes on. I have to manually turn on the number board lights and ditch lights.

Seems like it could be an easy CV fix, but I'm sort of clueless.

Is there a way to leave the number board lights on regardless of the direction?

Any thoughts?
Thanks
Ron


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## Conductorkev (Nov 5, 2021)

Ron045 said:


> I have a TSU 4400 I just set up in an F7.
> 
> Headlight, number board lights, cab light and ditch lights. All works great in FWD.
> 
> ...


You have the instructions still? If not go look it up. It sounds like there is a setting wrong or bad decoder. If you have jmri u can use that.


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## Ron045 (Feb 11, 2016)

So I spent about 45 minutes messing with this. I really just don't understand why DCC has not evolved as computers have evolved. There is so much confusion when adding stuff from FX's, F's and CV's.

According to the manual CV58 controls Reverse Direction Enable. I can have any set of lights stay on in reverse simply by adding a number to the default number of 62 for CV58.









The goal is to have the number board lights stay ON while in reverse. My first problem is I can't remember if I put the wire for the number board lights in port F5 or F6 on the board. So I actually tried all both separately and got zero results.

Default for CV58 is 62. I added 16 (FX5) = 78. I set CV58 to 78. All the lights still go off in reverse.
I did the same for FX6 and added 32 to 62 = 94. I set CV58 to 94. All the lights still go off in reverse.

Are there any DCC gurus out there who can tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks!
Ron


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## SF Gal (11 mo ago)

I am no guru but I see the word "enable" I thing you do NOT want to enable anything.
So I would do a test and set cv 57 and 58 to zero to NOT enable forward or reverse enables.
The cv you programmed might be canceling each other out. Try to control one or the other and leave one set to zero...maybe, just throwing that out there.


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## Ron045 (Feb 11, 2016)

SF Gal said:


> I am no guru but I see the word "enable" I thing you do NOT want to enable anything.
> So I would do a test and set cv 57 and 58 to zero to NOT enable forward or reverse enables.
> The cv you programmed might be canceling each other out. Try to control one or the other and leave one set to zero...maybe, just throwing that out there.


No love with ZERO. It actually disables the lights all together and will not even let me manually turn them on.


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## Ron045 (Feb 11, 2016)

SOLVED... I think. Just what kind of kabuki math is this?

The first thing I did is disable a function in the Blunami app labeled "Use F28 for REV light" my model does not have a REV light.

Then I programmed CV58 to a value of 94. Default 62 plus 32 for F6 (I determined the number board light was plugged into F6.

The number board lights stayed on in FWD and REV. But the ditch lights (F3 and F4) were also staying on in REV. I messed around with various numbers for a while. Not sure what made me do this, but I subtracted 4 (F3) and 8 (F4) from 32 (F6) for a value of 20. I added 20 to the default 62 for a total of 82.

Now only the number board lights stay on in REV which is what I want.

Golly, my next task is to figure out how to have the cab light come on in neutral. I might need a PHD in mathematics for that.


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

OK the "default" for CV 57 is 61. This means that FX6 is 1 (on) so that's 32 then add in FX5 (16), FX4 (8) and finally FX 3 (4) you get 60 (32+16+8+4=60). adding in the Headlight (1) you get 61, that's the default setting - FX3 to FX 6 are all on while FX7 and FX8 are off. You don't start with the default and add, you start at 0 and add what FX's you want on. As an example how not to do this consider CV 57 and starting with the default value of 61 and you want the headlight on so you add one and get 62 - that happens to be the default for backup light on plus FX3 to 6, which would cause going forward to turn off the headlight and FX7 and FX8 and turn on the backup light along with FX3 to FX6 - probably not what you were expecting. So always start at 0 and add what you want to turn on. Find what FX your number boards are turned on with then for forward (CV57) add 1 for the headlight, 32 if the number boards are on FX6 which gives you 1+32 = 33 and put that in CV57. Stop here if the term binary is confusing, and just do the + stuff. There are CV calculators or digital calculators that can help. think of the CV57 as 8 things that can be done with the headlight being the right most "thing" and FX8 the left most thing then you would get a binary number in the example of 00100001 that's Headlight and FX 6 on. and converting the base 2 number 00100001 to base 10 you get 33. The binary number 00100001
can also be converter to base 10 by thinking of the right most digit as 2 raised to the power of 0 (anything raised to 0 is one) while the left most thing would 2 raised to the 7 power the binary digits are numbered as 0 the right most and 7 the left most and represent the power of 2 so in the example you add 2^0 + 2^5 = 1 + 32 = 33.


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## SF Gal (11 mo ago)

10101011011010110101101011010101101010101011010101010.....!!!!!!
You sure know binary Lemonhawk! Here is a CV Calculator link.
So glad you altimately figured it out on your own Ron, you are smarter than you think! 
I knew you were going to figure it....cool beans!


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## Ron045 (Feb 11, 2016)

@Lemonhawk . I'll have to try your values and see what happens. But right now CV58=82. (62 default)+(32 F6)-(8 F4)-(4 F3).

In REV the number board lights F6 stay on. All the others go off.

You explanation leads me to believe the default of 62 would leave all the lights on in REV. That was not the case. All of the lights were going OFF in REV.


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## EBrown (5 mo ago)

Ron045 said:


> @Lemonhawk . I'll have to try your values and see what happens. But right now CV58=82. (62 default)+(32 F6)-(8 F4)-(4 F3).
> 
> In REV the number board lights F6 stay on. All the others go off.
> 
> You explanation leads me to believe the default of 62 would leave all the lights on in REV. That was not the case. All of the lights were going OFF in REV.


If it's 82, then the values set, according to the manual, are: FX7, FX5, Reverse Light. I wonder if there's a numbering issue between the board and CV values? I.e. FX7 on the CV might be what you're seeing as "F6" on the board?

With 62, FX6, FX5, FX4, FX3, and Reverse Light should all be on. But, you said the number board lights, plugged into F6, went out. But then they turned on when you added 32, you were setting it to 94, which according to the manual was: FX7, FX5, FX4, FX3, Reverse Light.

What I find curious is that even though you would initially switch from Rev -> Fwd, the lights weren't coming back on, even though the CV for FWD (CV57) was set properly.

Looking at the manual for the Tsunami2 series, it looks like CV's 49-56 control various "hyperlight" effects, can you post what those happen to be? It's mostly a morbid curiosity, but I wonder if something there is affecting it.

According to the manual, the CV values for 57/58 (and a few others) are basic boolean math. Without going in depth, you could setup an Excel spreadsheet to calculate it for you:


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

it's easier to use one of the online calculators available to do the 'figgerin', just sayin


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## Ron045 (Feb 11, 2016)

wvgca said:


> it's easier to use one of the online calculators available to do the 'figgerin', just sayin


Simplicity is one of the reasons I prefer RailPro over anything DCC.


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

94 is 01011110 which would mean backup light F3,F4,F5,F7 would all be on. With the number in CV 57 it would do this when going forward and if in CV58 it would do this when going backwards. but only you know what FX3 thru FX8 are wired to and whether you have a backup light at all.


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## Ron045 (Feb 11, 2016)

Thank you @Lemonhawk . I set the CV58 to 50. Now it works as I want. Just the number board lights stay on in Rev.


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

I started working with computer in 1962. Still if you do this with paper a pencil a few time the light turns on and it becomes easier and easier.


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## Steve Rothstein (Jan 1, 2021)

Lemonhawk said:


> I started working with computer in 1962. Still if you do this with paper a pencil a few time the light turns on and it becomes easier and easier.


Back in the mid-80's, when I got my first IT job, I had this as a sign on my cubicle: 

There are 10 kinds of people int he world; those who understand binary and those who don't.


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## OilValleyRy (Oct 3, 2021)

Rule 17 is what you want to implement, Ron. That negates the directional on/off for specific functions. So your number boards & ditch lights will remain on regardless, unless you turn them off with the F buttons. The headlight will dim only in Reverse if you set it up to use Rule 17.

Check your DCC system and/or decoder documentation on how to program specific functions to use that. It may vary?


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