According to a YouTube video

Hi All.   Browsing online the other day, I came across an interesting claim. According to the reviewer the decoder/chip arrangement in the Loco meant that you could apply the brake and the Loco would come to a halt. Was he “pulling my chain” or can this actually be done?  Best wishes Kevin

Kevin with NCE. the Option button is as a default, be programmed as a brake so touching that reduces speed steps to Zero, I have my controllers all with a label called Brake, over the Option button label.
I guess one could programme one of function buttons accordingly to be a brake on any brand of  DCC controller.

Hi Ron. Thank you for your reply. That could be a bit much for me, one day maybe I could try it. Best wishes Kevin 

A bit late with a reply, but with Zimo decoders v37.1 and up you can close the throttle and use (Usually) F key 2 to slow or bring a loco to a stop. I don't know about other makes. This is usually done with F 2  but can be mapped to other keys. The main reason, besides convenience that F2 is used is because NCE uses it as default, as Ron says. With my Lenz controller, I can set any key to be lockable (stays on when pressed and released) or not.

Hi Peterm  Thank you for your reply. I don’t know what decoders I have in any of my “important Locos “ but I will investigate, and see where I get. Best wishes Kevin 

I was about to say so but Pete beat me to it.

Yes the latest Zimo decoders have this function built in and very authentic it is - the longer you press F2, the harder the braking.  Tapping it gives intermittent braking as one might use just to slow the loco.

Yes I set CV 4 very high and if I want the loco to slow down after reducing the speed on the controller, I use F2, otherwise they'll do a good lap of my layout before finally stopping.

Hi Peterm.  Thank you again for your reply. My trouble is “Lack of room “, which means that I have an end to end.There is nothing wrong with that, it is just an Inglenook plus.   Best wishes Kevin

[user=1120]peterm[/user] wrote:

A bit late with a reply, but with Zimo decoders v37.1 and up you can close the throttle and use (Usually) F key 2 to slow or bring a loco to a stop. I don't know about other makes. This is usually done with F 2  but can be mapped to other keys. The main reason, besides convenience that F2 is used is because NCE uses it as default, as Ron says. With my Lenz controller, I can set any key to be lockable (stays on when pressed and released) or not.

I ran into this limitation yesterday when blowing a new sound project from YouChoos onto one of my Heljan class 33 locomotives. The project went on to the Zimo MX645 with no errors, but the brake on F2 didn't work, and neither did any of the functions above F19. On checking the decoder, it showed it was version 30. Corresponding with John Guymer of YouChoos (who is always extremely helpful), we worked out that I needed to update the decoder software. I downloaded the necessary files from Zimo's website and duly updated the decoder this morning, and all of the functions now work as they should, including F20 - 24 and F27 and F28 (F25 and F26 are not used on this project).

I have seen a few other projects that use other function keys for the braking (one uses F5), but these things are all remappable anyway. Using and NCE cab would require frequent double presses of F5 (or whichever key is required) to engage and release the brakes. Using the standard F2 means the horn/whistle button can be used because that is the only non-latching button on the NCE Power Cab/Pro Cab throttles.

This pulls together a number of issues raised here, as I applied them to setting up my NCE PowerCab and my first ZIMO chip configured with "Active Braking". This latter item is an option when you buy a ZIMO package from YouChoos (and no doubt elsewhere) but not appreciating its usefulness at the time I avoided for fear of additional complexity in my life!

Learning from seeing it in operation I set about getting my PowerCab and a ZIMO Chip set up and these notes are as much an aide memoire as anything but may be useful if others tread this path. Thanks to everyone here whose posts have helped me.

NCE PowerCab
This has all the functionality required, just a few tweaks to make various Keys more useful, some (*) are optional things I did for my convenience. Once I had these in place and working, the keys were relabelled (thx Sol) for ease of recall.

"OPTION"
by default this activates the NCE Brake in one press. I discovered that having this can be useful to take the Throttle immediately to "0" rather than multiple presses of the "Dec Fast" when using ACTIVE BRAKING. Just relabelled to "CONTROLLED STOP" to reflect its purpose.

Access to F10-F29^*
 I decided to use "Shift-Momentum" mainly as its handy up there and not used otherwise. It duplicates the tiny "Expn" button that I can never remember

"ACTIVE BRAKING"
As suggested here, the non-latching F2 whistle button is a good one to use for Active Braking. Changing the action of F2 is done via the CV settings on the DCC Chip - below.

"WHISTLE"^*
With this now removed from its dedicated button I decided to reassign "BELL" to F6 my primary Whistle, it is however latching. This is done via the Cab Parameters Setup (PROG 6)

As shown here:


Changes to ZIMO CVs

F2 Key - The Whistle function is removed from F2 by setting CV #516 at "0" (originally "048")
F2 Key - Assign the "BRAKE" Function here by setting CV #309 at "2" (originally "0")

Modifying Deceleration CVs
CV 4 (non-braking mode) is set to very slow decel. CV4 ="100"
CV 349 (braking mode) is set to high decel. CV349 ="10"

Operating in "Active Braking" mode.
At cruising speed use the throttle to dial back to the target speed required after braking (this is the critical bit I missed! - perhaps because it's assumed). Nothing much happens other than motion sounds back off. Then pressing ACTIVE BRAKING will shift deceleration to the CV 349 rate as long as the button is pressed.

From there braking can continue more slowly or driving resume as required. I appreciate that for some this write up might qualify me for the Sybil Fawlty Mastermind prize - for Subject "The Pleeding Obvious" but at minimum it'll help me work through my growing suite of ZIMO chips to upgrade them.

You're getting the hang of it now, Colin.

:pathead 

Well I found it useful Colin so it was well worth it.  :thumbs

Hi Colin. I do sincerely hope that I haven’t asked this question before. But, when the London Underground train that I was driving went over a “ Positive Rail Gap” , the one caused by the change from the right to the left or vice versa,  not only did it cause an arc , like an automatic electric kettle turning off at boiling point, it was accompanied by a certain noise, I am looking to replicate that noise on my plank, when the electric trains run by. A sound file would come in handy , not that I able to fit it myself.    Best wishes Kevin

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

Well I found it useful Colin so it was well worth it.  :thumbs

Thx Peter,

appreciated,

Hi Jeff. When Legomanbiffo did the sound on my Heljan class 33, I did something wrong? And it wouldn’t move, I got on the phone to him and explained the problem, because I had only just got the Loco, he realised what was wrong,I had pressed 8 on my Powercab, pressed it again and it was okay. Best wishes Kevin