SNFF 2/13/09
Hi, all,
I recently had problem with my Precision Craft E7's sound.
This week, I thought I'd just post a few photos of repairing a broken
speaker on this loco with the help of some on this forum and
PCM's service department. Thought it might be of help, save
someone some time should you have same problem to some.
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In mid-Jan 2009, my N scale Precision Craft Models E7 with the factory
LokSound 3.5 installed, which worked perfectly all last year 2008....
I put the loco on the track (DCC with NCE PowerCab), and the sound didn't come on.
Otherwise, the loco runs as it always did. Forward, reverse are fine,
lighting functions including Mars light work as they should. Changing
direction from forward to reverse while loco moving works as it always
has.... loco slows to a stop then reverses, under control of the decoder.
Just no sound.
So, here's the normal problem resolution steps, all without success, the sound is still off:
a) Pressed F8 many times, trying to turn the volume up and make sure audio mute is off. No sound.
b) Tried it on both DC and DCC. No sound.
c) Reset CVs to factory settings by programming CV8 to 08. No sound.
d) Removed shell, looking for loose wires or unseated connectors. No luck there.
Carefully unscrewed circuit board and looking for loose wires. No luck. Still no sound.
e) Used Decoder Pro to check the CVs. All appear to be OK, as far as I can tell (sound volume is up all the way).
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After several emails to PCM that probably got lost in an over-flowing in-basket,
I managed to get thru to their Service Department (Larry I think his name is?),
just before closing time on Fri 1/23/09. He believed that a speaker failed.
He offered me two choices - send it in and they'd repair it, but he did say it
would take several weeks due to workload ... he also offered to send me replacement
speakers to see if that would fix the problem. I opted for this second choice.
Mark at PCM Service also sent me an email, suggesting that I use my multimeter
(volt-ohm meter) to read the impedance across the speaker to see if the speaker
had an open circuit or not, being sure to unplug the speaker wires from the decoder first.
Bingo. When I did that, it showed that one of the two speakers had an open circuit.
As the two speakers are wired in series, when the one speaker failed, no more sound.
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The replacement speaker set arrived from Precision
Craft on Friday 2/6/09, I installed them and the N scale PCM
E7 is back to working normally.
Replacing the speaker set was easy to do.... I've been inside
of N scale locomotives a fair amount so just working carefully,
it was straightforward to unscrew the printed circuit board,
carefully unseat the front light mounts and thus gently allow prying the
old speakers out, and allowing the wiring to come away easily
so that I could access the plugs where the speakers connect to the
circuit board.
Here's some photos:
Thx, PCM, for the warranty support and the replacing of the broken
speakers. I appreciate it very much.
Thx, all, for the several other generous offers of help that I received and
tried, they helped me arrive at the above sooner.
I hope the above is useful and saves someone
some time, some day, in some way.
