FACTORY INSTALLED DECODERS

Operating Your Athearn Sound-Equipped Locomotive Using a Traditional Power Pack

Your new locomotive can be controlled using an ordinary power pack, though its operation will be a bit different than when running locomotives that do not have a decoder installed.

1. With the power pack throttle set to 0 (no voltage on the track), Tsunami will be silent. The throttle must be turned up to about 5 volts before there is enough voltage to power up Tsunami’s internal circuitry. At this point, you will begin to hear the background sounds turn on. The first sounds you will hear from a steam locomotive will be the blower and airpump sounds. The prime mover for each diesel model will come to life and idle quietly.
   
   
2. Increase the throttle setting to roughly 7.5 volts. This will set the locomotive in motion, increasing the speed of the engine as the throttle is turned up. You should start to hear additional sounds from the engine at this point. The diesel prime mover will ‘notch up’ as additional voltage is applied. Steam engines will use the voltage to time the exhaust chuff automatically.

When operating in DC

When operating in DC (analog mode), be careful not to exceed the maximum input voltage of 27 volts. If your track voltage exceeds 21 volts, the sound decoder will shut down and the headlight, backup light, and board-mounted LEDs will flash 10 times to protect the decoder. When you see this condition, shut down the throttle immediately. While the Tsunami has a great many adjustments than can customize the sound and operation to your needs, you will need the use of a NMRA-compliant DCC Command Station for most of these changes. For more information, please see the Tsunami Steam or Diesel User’s Guides.

Operating your Athearn Sound-Equipped Locomotive with DCC

Changing the Address on your Athearn Tsunami-equipped locomotive

The Tsunami supports both short (CV 1) and long (CV 17,18) addresses. Short addresses have a range of 1-127 while long addresses have a range of 0001-9,999. The address on your decoder can be changed on either the programming track (in most cases you will need a PTB-100 programming track booster available from SoundTraxx) or on the mainline. Since the procedure for programming varies from command station to command station, you will need to refer to the owner’s manual for specific instructions.

Programming Track

When programming the address on the programming track simply change the corresponding CVs to the desired address.

Example: Changing the address from 3 to 50, set CV 1=50 and the locomotive will now respond to address 50 when placed on the mainline.

Mainline Programming (Ops Mode)

If you do not have a PTB-100, you can still change the address on the mainline. When programming the address on the mainline it is important to note that you must know the current address of the locomotive or else it will not program that locomotive since it only sends the programming packets (CV adjustments) to the selected locomotive. It is also important to notice what type of address you currently are using as the decoder will not allow you to change the type of address currently in use. For example, an Athearn Tsunami-equipped locomotive comes with a default value of short address 3. To change the address you must first change it to a long address.

Example: Changing the address from 3 to 50

Step 1: First, select address 3. Now change the address to a long address not being currently used that is easy to remember (such as 1000), by using either the long address option found on most command stations or manually via CVs 17,18, and 29.

*Note most command station will just ask the address you want and will change the CVs internally.

Step 2: Next, exit out of mainline programming and select locomotive 1000 and make sure the engine runs on its new address.

Step 3: Return to mainline programming (still with address 1000) and change CV 1 = 50, and change CV 29 = 6.

Step 4: Exit programming mode and select locomotive 50. The locomotive will now be on address 50.

Function Assignments

Athearn sound-equipped locomotives contain all of the sound features found on any aftermarket Tsunami, however the function mapping defaults have been customized for each locomotive. The differences between the decoders are listed below.