# Wiring Dallee with NCE



## JackM (Jul 29, 2008)

I bought a Thomas the Tank Engine set to run on my outdoor layout when my granddaughter visits - at just-turned 2 years she's already a train nut. I have an NCE system and I've wired their 408 decoder into the Thomas. I bought a Dallee sound card to go with it, but the wiring has me stumped.

I have the Dallee partially working at this point: basic steam engine sound that changes with engine speed. But no whistle or bell. That's going to be the most important part.

To get these features going, the Dallee instructions indicate that I need to connect each feature (S1, S2, etc.) to one of the function wires on the 408 - the 408 normally uses these wires for lighting features. I tried that, but got nothing. Seems to me that they would need the legendary blue wire to provide a path to ground, but I don't see a place on the Dallee board to connect the blue wire.

Dalee wasn't able to give me more NCE-specific advice than that. I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction. 

JackM


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Actually the blue wire is the "common" for the "decoder outputs" 

More concisely, the blue wire is positive, and the "outputs" go to ground when activated. 

Note: the blue wire is NOT ground, as in minus.. 

As long as the ground reference of the 2 devices are the same then you don't need any other interconnection. 

Now, does the Dallee need it's inputs to go positive or negative to trigger, that might be the problem. 

Also, you have looked at the NCE document to see which function output is controlled by which function key? 

Greg


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## JackM (Jul 29, 2008)

Greg - 

Yuh, I got the common thing bass ackwards. I usually expect common to be the negative. 

Dallee says "activate low to play...." sounds. Also: " all function connections are for open collector type functions such as found on...NCE...". You're right there. 

So it seems this is a matter of function mapping - which is pretty new to me. From looking at the chart of default function mapping values in the 408 instructions, it seems that I simply connect any NCE wire from the bunch that's normally used for lighting effects and then change the CV value. I want the bell to be controlled by function 1 (button 1 on the cab) so I connect the white wire (output 1) to the bell function key on the Dallee board. Then, for F1 I change the value of CV 35 (F1) to 1. But nothing happens. 

Am I barking up the wrong tree? 

Thanks for whatever advice you can give me. Last week I installed a Sierra board plus controls for cab and numberboard lighting into my S4 and it was pretty straightforward compared to this. 

JackM


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

To make your life easier, I would not use the function outputs for the lights for anything else but the lights.... i.e. leave the white and yellow wire alone. 

Looking at the manual, function output 2 is mapped to function button 1 by default... so hook output 2 to your "bell" input, and then use the function button 1 (or the bell button), output 2 is the green wire

You are missing the binary data.... it's not decimal... look at the table... look at the row ("bit weight)... cv35 is set to 2 by default... a 1 in that column has a bit weight of 2... cv36 is set to bit weight of 4 by default. 

I'd use the defaults if you can... remember also that F1 is also the bell button, and F2 is also the horn/whistle button, so hook your whistle to output 3 ... that would be the violet wire..

the default mappings of the outputs, and the wire colors are shown in the table on page 6 at the top of the page.

Basically you don't need to do any mapping or programming, the defaults are there for you. 





Greg


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## JackM (Jul 29, 2008)

Greg - 

In the words of the great American Philosopher, Fozzy Bear: "Thank you, thank you and thank YOU." With guidance from (your posting) above, I got the entire thing done in half an hour, including time to warm up the soldering iron. Avoiding the headlight wires was the main part. 

I'd like a dollar for every time I read and reread those two paragraphs above the chart in the NCE manual. 

I have great dislike for things that seem to be designed with a goal of making it as counterintuitive as possible. Stuff like, as you said: function output 2 is mapped to function button 1 by default and F2 is also the horn/whistle button, so hook your whistle to output 3 . That reminds me of my local utility company. I call their automatic meter-read number every month and it always raises my blood pressure when I get to the part where the recorded voice tells me: 

"To give us two meter readings, press one. To give us one meter reading, press three." Who thinks that stuff up??? 

Anyway, thanks for explaining it in a way us humans can understand. 

JackM


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

You can believe that my brain was going strange gymnastics the first time I read this stuff... 

And even more fun, function 0 actually controls TWO outputs output 1 and output 2 ... 

It all makes sense when you see how it evolved... 

The programming side is all old school, so much stuff in binary... so if you have 8 possibilities, from 0 to 7 or in binary from 000 to 111... makes sense and works with how the Configuration Variables (CVs) are programmed and numbered. 

Therefore, f0 / function 0 through function f28 make sense, i.e. starting at zero. 

But now you want to number the physical output pins... you naturally number physical things starting at one... you would never start counting a pile of apples with the first one being "zero" 

so now you have outputs 1 through whatever... 

there you go... and the result is function button ONE hooked to function output TWO ... 

The "road" to get there makes sense, but it's not a fun drive ha ha! 

Glad it's all working! 

Greg


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