Ok, I’ve been an analog only LGB enthusiast for decades and even though some locos have some decoders, I never had the opportunity to try them digitally until last week. So I purchased a Mobile Station II, had the dealer upgrade the firmware to V 3.112. I hooked up the 66367 power pack and 60114 digital connector box to a small circle of track and placed my first dcc loco on the track. I left all the protocols in place. I have only one recent loco with a factory mfx decoder while the other locos have older decoders from either late LGB lineage or early Marklin.

The locos all registered via “find” and allowed me to change the icon, address, etc. Then for the heck of it after adding all 5, I placed the first one back on the track and changed the loco selected to the last one, which it should not have been controllable as I had change the address but its motor functions work just fine… any loco will run on any of the 5 locos defined into the Mobile Station II.

1. What am I missing? Are they using the same short address perhaps from the factory? If so should I change the short address via CV to match the address that I changed via the mobile station UI? Clearly during the “add” it recognizes that the unique decoder has various unique functions that it presents but why does they all respond with motor (throttle functions)?


2. The loco with the MFX decoder which is new, acts rather odd….. All of the functions seem to work, motor, exterior lights,interior lights, announcements, other sounds, etc ….. however, it makes a very loud whining noise which almost masks the other sounds. If I mute the sound completely its tolerable but them I lose all the other sounds. The loco is a lgb 20384 San Francisco Streetcar. It worked without the whining on analog but since running it on digital it’s now making the noise on analog. I have reset the decoder, removed the loco and re-added it like 10 times… to no difference. Does it sound like the decoder has gone bad?

Thanks in advance for weighing in.

Noël

Alan,

I did change each address with the menu selection to Change Loco, scrolled down from Name to Address and made each unique. Is there another address that must be changed directly via the CVx like at CV1 that I need to change? I apologize in advance for my ignorance and appreciate your reply.

Thanks Goofy for your reply. I actually did read the manual as well as watch a few YouTube videos before I attempted anything. I did make sure to remove each loco before I placed the next one on the small circle of track and “find” the next one loco.

I even double checked that I had actually changed each loco’s address and sure enough the Mobile Station II thinks I did. Even after I reset the Mobile Station II and re - found each loco the addresses and loco names were all as I had left them with changed addresses and names.

Maybe I should reset the locos decoders to factory and try again?

Thanks again… any new ideas?

Noël

The only additional information I can add is in reference to a CS3 and mfx. My understanding is that at some recent update the mfx system changed so that each locomotive performs a unique "handshake" with the CS3. That is why every mfx locomotive needed to re-register after the update. And if you reset the CS3 it will all have to be redone. If you investigate the cv you will find that there are two controlling addresses. One for the unique handshake and a second if your controller does not have mfx. But don't hold me to any of this.

Don't know if it's been mentioned but don't use the "find" method when adding a locomotive that only uses dcc addresses.

First of all let me thank everyone that has comment one or more times. It has been very helpful.
Based on all of your advice, I :

1. Placed each loco on the track and reset each loco. Then removed the loco and went to the next.

2. After all locos were reset, I reset the MS2, then turned off all protocols except DCC.

3. Then I placed each loco on the track and did a manual add with address of 3 and this is where it got a little interesting. The motor function would not work. When taking stop off, I would get sound but the throttle wouldn’t do anything. So I changed the address in the MS2 back to what I had changed the loco to before step 1 above. Then everything worked.

My conclusion:

The reset loco on the MS2 menu, doesn’t work. Perhaps I will try changing the appropriate CV to force a loco reset.

The new mfx loco with the annoying whining noise is still at the lower volume I had set which is further proof that the reset loco on the MS2 menu didnt work. The volume didnt reset to factory default and neither did the address.

So each loco now has a unique address, and they are all running under DCC only.

I have read about plenty of frustrations on this forum, and now I am sharing in the nest! Thank you all for your help. I will update this thread as I learn more. Hopefully, my experience will improve someone else’s experience.

Best regards

Noël