Bachmann Spectrum ALC-42 (Charger) - HO

Information on this wiki page provides particular details about this model not found in our basic guide.

Bachmann Spectrum ALC-42 Charger
Model Information Manufacturer Bachmann Stock Number 68301-68303 Scale HO-Scale Power Type DCC Dual Mode w/Sound Release Date First Run: Jan 2022 Second Run: Mar 2022 Retail Price 475.00 Decoder Information Decoder Type(?) WOWDiesel (OEM) Version(?) 4.5 Lighting Functions 8 Prototype Information Builder Siemens Mobility Build Date June 17th 2021 - Present Motive Power Diesel-Electric; Cummins QSK95 Cylinder Cfg V16 Aspiration Turbocharged Power Output 4,200 hp (3,100 kW) More Info Siemens Charger

Overview

Bachmann’s all-new DCC sound-equipped ALC-42 Charger uses Siemens Mobility’s original design documentation and authentic sound files recorded from the prototype. This model includes a TCS WOWSound® decoder with Audio Assist® for easy configuration without programming CVs, and on-board Keep-Alive® device for uninterrupted operation, even over dirty track. The WOWSound® diesel-electric locomotive sound package includes sounds for horn, bell, prime mover, air compressor, dynamic brakes, cooling fan, coupler close/release, brake release and application, and many more!

Loaded with prototypical features, the ALC-42 Charger in HO-scale from Bachmann Trains brings all the sights and sounds of Siemens' sleek new diesel-electric locomotive to your layout.

Features include:

• Siemens-approved design
• DCC sound-equipped for sound, speed, direction, and lighting control
• Dual-mode NMRA-compliant decoder operates sound, motor, and lights on DCC or DC power.
• TCS true CD-quality audio with 16-bit depth resolution at 44,100Hz
• Authentic and prototypical sounds
• Voice-guided Audio Assist® programming tool for easy set-up of almost all decoder functionality
• On-board Keep-Alive® device that keeps your engine running during power interruptions due to dirty track or loss of electrical contact
• Directional headlights with "Rule 17" dimming operation enabled by default
• Interior corridor work lights
• Roof-mounted strobe lights, with operation per prototype
• Directional marker lights
• Steady/alternate flashing ditch lights
• TCS' industry-leading "quiet drive" Back EMF motor control for superior slow-speed performance and load compensation
• User-loadable speed table options (3-point, 28-point, and 126-point curves)
• Three select-able Throttle Modes
• Two configurable Momentum Modes
• TCS' new and exclusive Function Pagination System
• Die-cast frame
• Separately-applied windshield wipers, grab irons and other detail parts
• Realistic top speed (limited in some cases by track voltage)

Specific Features

The ALC-42 "charger" is at its heart a WOWDiesel decoder but has had some customization to make it specific to the ALC-42 Charger locomotive. The information below details where CV’s and operation differ from the standard Diesel decoder.

DC mode operation

When operating in DC mode, the ALC-42 Charger locomotive will sit still until a sufficient track voltage is present. Once the minimum voltage is met the locomotive will begin to move. A horn blast and bell will activate automatically. Users may trigger a grade crossing horn quill sound by quickly adjusting the track voltage up and back down quickly. The directional horn blasts, quill, and automatic DC mode bell are enabled by default and are controlled by the Automatic Sounds CV.

Additional Sound Features

The ALC-42 Charger locomotive features new sounds such as “Whoosh” and “station announcements” as well as new traction noises like “traction motor” and “traction motor gearbox." Listen for the whine of the traction motors as the prime mover spools up and the Charger takes off. As the locomotive climbs toward 125 MPH, the traction motors are drowned out as the noise from the gearbox hardware hums ever louder.

The ALC-42 Charger supports an "automatic bell" in DCC mode. After the locomotive starts the bell will play until the DCC mode automatic bell cutout speed step is reached. Please refer to the CV Addendum (Indexed CV's) section below for more information.

The ALC-42 Charger includes a brand new Emergency Brake air dump sound. This sound will play if a user presses the Emergency Stop button on their throttle, if the Brake button is pressed 5 times in a row, or if the decoder goes into emergency via the "Crew Alert" feature.

Notes on Lighting Features

The ALC-42 Charger, unlike the SC-44 Charger, does not feature the emergency strobe or flashing beacons; however, the emergency brake sound effect and operation is no different than on the SC-44 model.

Button Mappings

The values outlined below in the button mapping, sound list, and CV values are the defaults assigned to this particular decoder from the factory.

For information on how to program your locomotive using the values provided in the charts below, please see our Comprehensive Programming Guide, WOWDiesel V4 Programming Guide, and/or List of Standard CV's.

TCS Function Pagination System

The Bachmann Spectrum ALC-42 (Charger) - HO locomotive supports TCS' new "function pagination" system. This makes it easy to access all 28 functions and all lighting effects on throttles with limited function access by adding an offset to the pressed function button (offset of +10 for function page 2; offset of +20 for function page 3). For example, to access function 15:

• Press function 8 twice to rotate through the function pages until the decoder announces "function page [two]"
• Press button 5 on your throttle/controller
• The decoder will activate function 5 + 10 (page 2 offset) = 15

Note: the decoder supports accessing functions above 9 at any time by pressing the corresponding button(s) on your throttle regardless of the currently selected function page.

If you have a command station which supports all 28 function buttons and would like to disable function pagination, this may be done by re-configuring the User Options indexed CV 4:19. For more information on the User Options indexed CV for Version 4 WOWSound Diesel decoders, please see Page 19 of the WOWSound Diesel Version 4 Complete Programming Guide. This document can be used in conjunction with the Indexed CV Addendum below.

To disable Function Pagination, set the values of the Indexed CV as follows:

• CV 201 = 4
• CV 202 =19
• CV 203 = 144
• CV 204 = 251

Button Mappings
Function Button	Sound Action	Light Action	Dual Enabled	Page and Button
0	None	Headlights	Yes	Page 1 Button 0
1	Bell	Blink Ditch Lights	Yes	Page 1 Button 1
2	Horn - Long Blast	Blink Ditch Lights	Yes	Page 1 Button 2
3	Horn - Short Blast	Ditch Lights (on/off)	No	Page 1 Button 3
4	Whoosh	Number Board Lights	No	Page 1 Button 4
5	Train Brake	Strobe Light (on/off)	No	Page 1 Button 5
6	Startup/Shutdown	Marker Lights (on/off)	No	Page 1 Button 6
7	None	Dim Headlights	Yes	Page 1 Button 7
8	1x Press Mute/Unmute 2x Press rotate light/sound mode or page 4x Press Audio Assist™	None	Yes	Page 1 Button 8
9	Dynamic Brake	Corridor Lights	No	Page 1 Button 9
10	Manual Notch Up	Ditch Lights Blink	No	Page 2 Button 0
11	Manual Notch Down	Emergency Strobe (on/off) (or with 5x brake press or with E-STOP function)	No	Page 2 Button 1
12	Coupler Close	None	No	Page 2 Button 2
13	Coupler Release	None	No	Page 2 Button 3
14	Brake Release	None	No	Page 2 Button 4
15	Traction Motor Blower	None	No	Page 2 Button 5
16	Momentum	None	No	Page 2 Button 6
17	Crew Alert	None	No	Page 2 Button 7
18	1x Press Mute/Unmute 2x Press rotate light/sound mode or page 4x Press Audio Assist™	None	No	Page 2 Button 8
19	Random Whoosh (on/off)	None	No	Page 2 Button 9
20	Grade Crossing Quill	None	No	Page 3 Button 0
21	Forward Quill	None	No	Page 3 Button 1
22	Reverse Quill	None	No	Page 3 Button 2
23	Stop Horn	None	No	Page 3 Button 3
24	Rotate Bell/Horn	None	No	Page 3 Button 4
25	Windshield Wipers	None	No	Page 3 Button 5
26	Station Announcements Departing	None	No	Page 3 Button 6
27	Station Announcements Arriving	None	No	Page 3 Button 7
28	1x Press Mute/Unmute 2x Press rotate light/sound mode or page 4x Press Audio Assist™	None	No	Page 3 Button 8

Random Sound Mapping
Random Sound Generator	Sound Played
1	Air Compressor
2	None
3	Dust Blower
4	Whoosh (When enabled with F19)

CV Addendum (Standard CV's)

The ALC-42 Charger follows the motor and lighting CV's as described in TCS's Comprehensive Programming Guide. Listed below are the CV's that have been modified for the Charger decoder.

CV Number	CV Value	Description
CV3	6	Acceleration
CV4	6	Deceleration
CV13	247	DC Mode lights
CV29	6	Configuration CV
CV35	16	Light output 1 mapped to F3
CV36	16	Light output 2 mapped to F3
CV39	16	Light output 3 (brown wire) mapped off of F3
CV40	64	Light output 4 (pink wire) mapped to F5
CV41	64	Brown wire mapped to F11 (Red emergency strobe)
CV49	8	Front headlight uses Rule 17
CV50	24	Rear headlight uses Rule 17
CV51	10	Light output 1 is a Ditch light
CV52	11	Light output 2 is a Ditch light
CV53	36	Light output 3 (brown wire) is a single pulse strobe 1 (red emergency beacon)
CV54	27	Light output 4 (pink wire) is single pulse strobe 2 (white strobes)
CV61	41	Configuration CV
CV63	10	Ditch light blink holdover time
CV117	221	Ditch light blink rate
CV123	0	So Rule 17 does not dim on F4
CV124	76	Ditch lights blink (F0-F6) on buttons 1, and 2
CV140	255	Increase red strobe blink rate to about 2 seconds
CV142	255	Increase white strobe blink rate to about 2 seconds
CV158	4	Enables Rule17 dimming on F7
CV159	32	Ditch lights blink (F7-12) on button 10
CV182	134	Disabled motor delay (motor changes speed right after throttle is changed, no delay), activate automatic control of the white strobes.
CV189	0	Dynamic brake min speed set to 0
CV190	10	Rate of deceleration from Dynamic Brakes
CV191	10	Dynamic Brake speed decrease (in speed steps) per press of the dynamic brake button
CV248	5 / 6	Sound Set Revision Number: First Run = 5; Second Run = 6

CV Addendum (Indexed CV's)

The ALC-42 Charger follows the motor and lighting CV's as described in TCS's WOWDiesel Programming Guide. Listed below are the TCS Indexed CV's that have been modified for the ALC-42 Charger decoder.

[The Sound type "Air Spitter" was re-named to "Dust Blower" in Audio Assist]

[The Sound type "Sanding Valve" was re-named to "Emergency Brake" in Audio Assist]

Indexed CV Number	Indexed CV Value (CV203,CV204)	Description
8	3	Default to new Charger K5LA Horn
9	0	Charger defaults to Traditional throttle mode
10	80	Reduced Global Volume of decoder
11	0	Only one prime mover is available in the Charger decoder
v12	255,2	Enable all DC mode automatic sounds
14	16,15	F0, 1, 2, and 7 dual mode enabled (active in light and sound mode)
15	9	Dynamic brake notch setting
19	208,251	"USER OPTIONS" Indexed CV - bitwise (inclusive selection): (0)* Enable Manual Notching audio feedback sound (1)* Automatically notch down prime mover when brakes are on (2) Mute on startup/engine auto start mute if set (3)* Enable switch/mainline mode audio feedback (4)* Enable Rotate horn/bell audio feedback (5)* Enable lightmode/sound mode audio feedback (6)* Enable Audio auto shutoff timer (7)* Digitrax bit-set simulates button 2 as toggle while in A.A. mode (8) Dual Prime Movers - Set to enable (9) Prime mover notches up with dynamic brakes (10) Reverse directional horns (11) Switching mode prime mover mechanism, if set prime mover will jump notch, otherwise it will stair step (default) (12)* Mainline mode prime mover mechanism, if set prime mover will jump notch (default), otherwise it will stair step (13) Bypass corridor light timer (14)* Enable Bachmann Function Pagination (Not available in First Run models) (15)* Grade Crossing Quill sound blinks ditch lights (Not available in First Run models) Lines marked with an asterisk (*) are set by default. First-Run Charger default values: CV203 = 16; CV204 = 251 [00010000 11111011]Second-Run and later Charger default values: CV203 = 208; CV204 = 251 [11010000 11111011] (Second Run is the same as above except disables dynamic brake notching, enables Function Pagination, enables quill blink)
23	0	Only 1 bell available (E-bell)
32	10	Notch 2 speed step (traditional throttle mode)
33	25	Notch 3 speed step (traditional throttle mode)
34	35	Notch 4 speed step (traditional throttle mode)
35	50	Notch 5 speed step (traditional throttle mode)
v36	60	Notch 6 speed step (traditional throttle mode)
37	70	Notch 7 speed step (traditional throttle mode)
38	80	Notch 8 speed step (traditional throttle mode)
43	5,0	DC Mode start voltage – Voltage at which the engine will start making noise in DC mode, the higher the value the higher the voltage
44	5,70	Voltage at which the DC mode bell will stop playing, the higher the value the higher the voltage threshold.
45	15	Speed step in DCC mode that the automatic bell will stop playing at
46	1,144	DC Mode motor hysteresis – When the engine starts moving in DC mode the increased current draw may cause some oscillation, if so increase the value in this CV until the oscillation goes away. If the engine is going through a power on reset try increasing Sound CV 43 (Voltage at which the Engine will power up at while in DC mode)
50	6	“Switching momentum” mode acceleration value
51	6	“Switching momentum” mode deceleration value

Decoder Service and Repair

For service/repair, contact the Bachmann Service Department by visiting www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/service.php, calling 1-800-356-3910 (toll-free within the U.S. and Canada), or emailing service@bachmanntrains.com. Bachmann’s Service Department is available Monday thru Friday, 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM ET.

You can also send your locomotive to: Bachmann Trains Service Department 1400 East Erie Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19124

Please include a detailed description of your concern and complete contact information. For some service issues regarding DCC sound decoders, the Bachmann Service Department may forward your locomotive to TCS for resolution.