Well , I'll be um , darned .  I never noticed that before . Maybe the brightness has to do with bulb position . I notice mine mostly shine out of the top part of the mask . OK , so it looks like the "mask" is painted on . I took a sharp Exacto knife and was able to scrape most of it off . Doesn't make it any brighter , but it is a bit more noticeable .

Good point Mark . Mine are the C&O versions with the single headlight . From the factory they are a bit dim , but not as dim as the stock 2-8-0 .

Without changing the decoder , no .  I swapped in an Soundtraxx Econami decoder and used 1000 ohm 1/4 watt resistors on both lights .  Got better sound , and motor control too .  The stock decoder does have a dimmer switch , make sure F7 isn't on on your controller , it changes the headlight output to full or dim . 

Could be the contacts between the decoder and the motor .  The best way to learn to fix a loco is to tear it apart and put it back together . As long as you don't break anything you'll be fine .  Most of these locos aren't too hard to take apart / put back together .

Quote from: James in FL on March 16, 2016, 11:24:23 PM
It appears the middle driver (#3) is blind.
Yes?

Quoteand I don't have an NMRA gauge for N scale yet.

Never mind an NMRA gauge , calipers will do.

Yes the middle driver is blind .  These are excellent running locos , I added sound to mine .

No , setting CV 8 is totally different . If some setting somehow got messed up , setting CV 8 to 8 will restore the decoder back to origional settings .  If you want to stick with DCC I would recommend getting a different DCC controller that will let you do more than change address #'s . The Bachmann starter set-up is fine for just running a couple trains , but something like a NCE PowerCab would be a good choice for EZ operation and EZ ability to change CV"s .

DCC can be confusing at the beginning . You could spend hours just reading through different beginner web sites .

If you didn't see any smoke coming out of the shell , the decoder is probably OK . Have you found someone at the club that can reset the decoder for you ? That's where I'd start .

Return it for replacement . The new one is supposed to be better .

Maybe the K4 tender board would work , but you would still need someplace to put the speaker . You may try swapping the whole tender , but I don't know if the wire harness is wired the same .

The 2-10-2 is fairly easy to do though . Just unsolder the stock decoder from the board and add the sound decoder and speaker . You will have to grind out the coal pile from the bottom to get a 1/2" round speaker and enclosure under it , but it's not too difficult . I used a TSU750 , but the Econami should fit as well as the Loksound decoder.

 I'll find out for sure in a couple weeks , and post pics if my drop in idea works out .

Does anyone know if the sound decoders from the K4 and the 2-8-4 are interchangeable ?

Another run of the Heavy 4-8-2's would be nice . They are hard to find , and the C & O ones are impossible to get .

 The supported CV list is here on the site , I just looked it up . Looks like CV 113 isn't supported on the sound value decoders . A lot of people do set up their roundhouse tracks so they can be turned off , so that is an option . Myself , I turn the sound down a few notches , if I can hear a loco from 3 feet away while it's sitting there , it's too loud . I'm also going to be replacing the sound value decoders with a full feature Econami decoder from Soundtraxx . These would support all functions and look like it's fairly easy to do . I don't use cv 113 , but there are a lot of cv's that are really useful like the sound equalizer , drifting mode , and the long list of different whistles , to name a few .  I do like the sound value decoders , but I just want more  .

If you press F8 on the throttle you can mute the sounds . You can also set cv 113 to any value between 1 and 255 . The higher the # value , the longer it takes to go quiet . setting CV113 to 120 will make the loco go quiet after 12 seconds .   The decoder that is used is a striped down version of the Soundtraxx decoder , so it's possible that the quiet mode won't work . F8 still works though .