One of the cool things with the Central Station is the ability to program the digital decoders of the locomotives. The central stations has a extensive menu for programming MFX and Märklin Motorola decoders.
When adding a locomotive manually using the the "New Locomotive / Enter manually" menu one is able to choose between "Märklin Motorola" and "Function Decoder". No MFX choice ofcause as a MFX locomotive selfregisters

Anybody know what the "Function decoder" is

The fun starts when one tries to re-program the decoder using the "Edit Locomotive". Then one is able to set the address. But, the interesting part is on the "Advanced" tab button "left-hand" last choice with the "hammer and wrench", where the "Special Options" are found

Let me look at three cases:
1. Märklin 39340 - With FX decoder according to the catalogue
2. Märklin 36821 - With FX decoder according to the catalogue
3. Roco 63063 - With ESU LokSound
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Case 1: Märklin 39340 - With FX decoder according to the catalogue</u>
Cool locomotive, but very boring when trying to program ;-) Address, max speed, and acceleration/braking delay are all set by hardware switches/dials [:(] Didn't spend much time on this one - does anybody know if it has any "hidden" options which are cool to play with

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Case 2: Märklin 36821 - With FX decoder according to the catalogue</u>
One would think that this is as boring as the 39340 locomotive, but with this one it is possible to access the "CV registers" directly - the following are documented:
CV 01 - address
CV 03 - Acceleration/braking delay
CV 05 - Max speed
CV 08 - Reset (enter the value 8)
So this one can actually be programmed! Cool, but no more features than the 39340 - but at least they can be programmed. Note that register numbers are skipped - does this mean that hidden registers can be accessed

Did anybody try this

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Case 3: Roco 63063 - With ESU LokSound</u>
Jubiii - this one is interesting! The ESU LokSound supports both DCC and Motorola format. According to the LokSound manual provided with the locomotive the following registers are programmable:
CV1 - Address
CV2 - Starting Voltage
CV3 - Acceleration time
CV4 - Braking time
CV5 - Max speed
CV6 - Average speed
CV8 - Reset (enter the value 8)
CV29 - Combined settings (direction, speed steps, and analogue)
CV49 - Combined settings 2 (load control, and ?)
CV50 - Analog mode (AC/DC analogue on/off)
Compare this to case 2 (36821) - the registers 1, 3, 5, and 8 are the same... Now, when I try to program the LokSound I can tell that nothing succeeds!! It seems like the decoder does not accept any reprogramming [xx(] Rumbling through the manuals for this locomotive I found a mapping table from DCC/NMRA CV register number to Motorola register number yielding the following table:
Code:
DCC/NMRA Motorola Description
CV1 CV01 Address
CV2 CV02 Starting Voltage
CV3 CV05 Acceleration time
CV4 CV06 Braking time
CV5 CV04 Max speed
CV6 CV03 Average speed
CV8 CV79 Reset (enter the value 8)
CV29 CV22 Combined settings (direction, speed steps, and analogue)
CV49 CV23 Combined settings 2 (load control, and ?)
CV50 CV15 Analog mode (AC/DC analogue on/off)
I only tried to program register CV29 (DCC), which is CV22 (Motorola) and it actually worked [:0] Can anybody explain to me why I need to map the register numbers to be able to re-program the registers on the Central Station

Furthermore, I would like to reprogram CV23 (DCC) - what is the mapped Motorola register number for this one
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Conclusions</u>
<ul>
<li> The Central station does register programming </li>
<li> What are the decoder differences between case 1 (39340) and case 2 (36821)??? Both marked as Märklin FX in catalogue, but they are clearly different? </li>
<li> Register programming ESU LokSound means that the CV register number must be mapped</li>
</ul>
Final question - does anybody know if Uhlenbrock or other decoders can be programmed through the Central Station using tricks similar to the ESU LokSound mapping trick
