0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.
Seems to be problem solving day.Got an Kato F3 locomotive with an ESU LokSound decoder installed (73800).Loco quit running for client ,sent back to me, showed short. Pressing down on the decoder the sound would try to start but I noted the finger pressing down was feeling heat. So I removed the decoder and found a burned spot right over a small component .This is the second decoder to fail in this loco. No signs of wiring problems, shorts(other than the decoder it self) or anything strange seen?Trying to I.D. The burned component to see if it was the audio amp that failed.
I experienced a couple failures with this decoder that I believe was possibly attributed to the default master volume being set too high for the speaker. The default master volume was I think 180 out of 192 and, at the time, I believe I was using .5W (7W max) speakers. With my (still-admittedly-limited) understanding of how this stuff works and with those particular speakers, I believe the volume would actually need to be set closer to around 90 or 100 to stay safer and not blow the amp (although I've heard the decoders may deliver 1W to as much as 3W to the speakers but, again, my knowledge is admittedly limited on this). In my case, both failures were preceded by increasing sound distortion and crackling. Now, whenever I do an install, I turn the master volume way down prior to first firing up the sound and then I'll slowly increase the volume some until it sounds about right and doesn't show signs of distortion. I also usually turn all independent volumes way down on top of that, except for the horn.
While I bought the long-board Selects (the ones I did the writeups on), I have never bought the wire-in version. On those I only own the full-featured V4 micros (56899), and I think the components are laid out differently on those (going by the photos I found online).
The Select Micro and the V4 Micro use the exact same board and layout. Microcode is the only difference (well, and normally, the Selects have a yellow “S” while the V4 have a blue “4” written on the shrink wrap). I can snap some hi-res macro photos of them, if it will help with Jerry’s issue. (I have one V4 and 8 Select decoders not installed, yet; I’ve been procrastinating).
….Or, if the speaker (even if it has the correct impedance) is rated for lower power than the amp can supply, then if it is driven by the amp with power above its rating, the speaker might be damaged (the voice coil will burn up). Or the speaker cone suspension might get damaged from being deflected beyond its working limit.
I kind of suspect this is what happened and then that speaker failure then caused something to fail on the decoder...which I guess I assumed was the amp but maybe not. also, I've only ever used 8 Ohm speakers.It seems to me that wattage ratings of speakers is not covered very well in various literature and it always seems to be somewhat unclear what wattage a sound decoder is putting out. You can find plenty of references as to what the Ohm rating the speaker needs to be but not the wattage. I've since found some 9X16mm speakers rated at .8W (1W max) that I typically use, which seem to hold up well.