Digitrax Decoder-Related Question

[BradKT]

Hello Everyone:

It's been a little while since I have posted, but I have been busy working on my DCC layout...with considerable success.  The wiring is completed and the kinks in the track have all been worked out.  I can now run 3 different trains on my DCC layout.  I use several different Atlas, Bachmann and Athearn engines.  The railroads that I am running are Union Pacific, Santa Fe (and BNSF), Southern Pacific and Denver and Rio Grande.

I am beginning to install Digitrax decoders into a few of my Atlas engines. 
I have run into one problem that I am not quite sure how to resolve.  It involves the use of Digitrax DCC decoders.  Here it is:

As per the Digitrax Decoder Selection Chart, I determined that the DH163AO was the right decoder circuit board to order and install in my Atlas GP-38 and GP-40.  Keep in mind that I use the Bachman EZ Command System.  The DH163AO has been replaced by the DH165AO.  No problem there, so that's what I ordered and installed.  Now, these engines run on "3" (this is the default DCC decoder setting for the EZ Command System) as they should when a decoder circuit board has successfully been installed BUT I CAN'T PROGRAM THEM!  They will only work on "3".  I want to be able to program them so they will work on other than the decoder default setting.

The original circuit boards each had a multi-pin plug (8 pins, I believe), but the instructions for the Digitrax decoder said nothing about re-installing the plug into the installed decoder.  The decoder circuit boards have the holes for the multi-pin plug that came with each of the original circuit boards, but I didn't reinstall the plugs because the instructions said nothing about them.

Question: Am I supposed to re-install the plugs into the newly-installed Digitrax decoders?  Or am I missing something else?

I hope that I gave you enough information and that someone has encountered and resolved this problem before.

Thank you all again for all of the great advice you have given me in the past.

[BradKT]

I talked to the experts at Tony's Trains (where I purchased the decoders and they told me the following: (1) if the decoders are working on the default address ("3"), then they were successfully installed...otherwise, they wouldn't be working at all; (2) the 8-pin plugs that came with the original circuit boards are not supposed to be re-inserted (unless it's a sound decoder, which these are not); and (3) they are supposed to work with the Bachmann EZ-Command system.

I am going back to try to re-program them again and see if I was doing something wrong there.

[BradKT]

I had made a mistake in the programming sequence.  The decoders now work just fine.  Hopefully, my experience will benefit someone else.

[0n30nutz]

Brad,

  Glad you got it worked out...I have found most issues with DCC tend to be "Operator Error", just like in the real world...

Howard

[Jim Banner]

Brad, it is just as well that you didn't plug the dummy plug into the decoder circuit board.  The socket on the board is for installing a "sound bug" which is a tiny sound system that plugs directly into the decoder.  Although I haven't heard of any problems from people trying to put the dummy plug into the decoder, I suspect that the shorted pins on the dummy plug might well cause some permanent failures in the decoder.  In any event, I am not about to try it just to see what happens.