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F9:
In neutral puts loco in standby/disconnect mode. When moving activates the Sound Of Power
function, when sound of power is activated you'll hear the horn hoot once. As you throttle up the loco
will sound as though it's under a very heavy load. Concisely, if you throttle down you'll hear the motor
ramp down like it's coasting. Neither of these functions will effect speed until
F9
is pressed again when
you will hear a double whistle hoot or horn blast indicating that Sound Of Power has been turned off.
F10:
Status Report. In neutral the loco will read back the address and any mode
that it may be in
(e.g., standby/disconnect). When moving,
F10
acts as a speedometer giving a verbal read back of the
scale miles per hour.
F11:
Toggles between the primary and secondary horn. After pressing
F11
once
F2
will control the
secondary horn normally.
F12:
Toggles extra light function on or off.
The Quantum Revolution also allows for changes in the “mapping” of these functions.
Mapping is the ability to change which button on your handheld controls what function
.
Sound of Power:
When a diesel locomotive starts to pull a heavy load, the engineer opens the throttle causing the engine to rev
up before the train even starts moving. In steam engines the chuff gets louder as the engineer opens the
throttle. As a train reaches its set speed, the sound level drops. When the throttle is cut back, the sound level
cuts back. A diesel engine should drop to an idle. These are all possible with the
Sound of Power
feature.
Sound of Power works by comparing the speed set by the DCC command to the speed of the locomotive. The
greater the difference between the two, the higher the volume. Keeping that in mind, it should be noted that
putting a value in the momentum CVs (CVs 3 and 4), will make the effect more pronounced.
Checking out the Sound of Power:
First increase the throttle on your DCC system. When the desired speed is reached push
F9
you will hear the
horn blast once and the volume increase. As you adjust the throttle you'll notice the sound of the locomotive
change dependent on the direction of throttle change. I.E. If you increase the throttle you'll hear the sound get
louder like the locomotive is under a load, if you decrease the throttle you'll hear the locomotive quiet down
and go to idle as if it's going down a hill and no longer struggling. When finished using this feature simply
press
F9
again and you'll hear a double horn blast and the locomotive will go to whatever speed step the
throttle is set to when Sound Of Power was disengaged.
Braking:
You can get even more control over speed by braking with
F7
. As the engine is coasting, with speed
set to
zero, F7
will act as a brake with the added sound of the brake squeal. When you press
F7
you will also hear
an air release. The longer you press, the faster the braking. This feature requires values to be set in CV3 and
CV4. If you don't have momentum in the locomotive when you drop the throttle to 0 and your loco will stop
immediately negating the usefulness of the brake. Set CV3 and CV4 to some value. We like CV4 set to half of
CV3’s value. So for starters, try about 50 in CV3 and 25 in CV4. You can program this on the main or “Ops
mode”. This adds to the fun of switching. Be sure and try the braking feature you’ll enjoy the challenge of
running an engine more like the prototype.
