# ESU Loksound help



## riderdan (Jan 2, 2014)

Hi all,

I bought a handful of ESU loksound decoders (they were about $20 each, so hard to pass up) but am having some trouble getting them hooked up.

These have the 21-pin MTC connector, which is a little finicky to work with, as the pin spacing is less than that of the "normal" computer/electronics pins I'm used to. I've soldered up some leads to a pin header that fits the 21-MTC socket on the decoder, but I can't get it to work according to the pinout that is provided with the decoders... I've hooked the decoder directly to my Sprog and a spare LGB motor, but JMRI can't read the decoder. The Sprog will read other decoders, so it's not the JMRI setup... I think.

I've tried four different decoders out of the batch I bought (all new in the packaging) and none have worked.

I have some ESU decoders in Eggliners, but they were not using the 21-pin connector, so they weren't a problem.

Does anyone have any advice to offer on this? Is it possible that the ESU pinout diagram is incorrect? Something else that I'm missing?


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

There are indeed several versions of the 21 pinout, as evidenced by the blown up decoders that were tried in the 21 pin connector on the Bachmann PCC car.

I'd start with just the track and motor wires outside of the loco on the programming track.

Greg


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