Bachmann Spectrum SC-44 (Charger) - HO

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

Bachmann Spectrum SC-44 Charger
Model Information Manufacturer Bachmann Stock Number 123-456-78 Scale HO-Scale Power Type Diesel Release Date 10-02-2019 Retail Price 499.95 Decoder Information Decoder Type(?) WOWDiesel (OEM WOW121) Version(?) 4 Lighting Functions 8 Prototype Information

Overview

Bachmann’s all-new DCC sound-equipped SC-44 Charger uses Siemens Mobility’s original design documentation and sound files. This model includes a TCS WOWSound® CD-Quality 16-bit 44,100Hz decoder with Audio Assist® for easy configuration without programming CVs and a Keep-Alive® device for uninterrupted operation, even over dirty track. The WOWSound® diesel-electric locomotive sound package includes horn, bell, prime mover, start-up and shutdown sequences, compressor, cooling fan, coupler close/release, brake release and application, crew alert, grade crossing quill, departing and arriving station announcements, and more. Loaded with prototypical features, the SC-44 Charger brings all the sights and sounds of Siemens' diesel electric locomotive to your layout.

Features include:

• Siemens-approved design
• DCC sound-equipped for sound, speed, direction, and lighting control
• TCS true CD-quality audio in 16-bit 44,100Hz sound
• Keep-Alive® device that keeps your engine running during power interruptions due to dirty track or loss of electrical contact
• Voice-guided Audio Assist® programming tool for easy set-up of almost all decoder functionality
• Dual-mode NMRA-compliant decoder
• Directional headlights
• Interior corridor work lights
• Roof-mounted strobe lights, per prototype
• Marker lights
• Steady/alternate flashing ditch lights
• Die-cast frame
• Separately-applied windshield wipers, grab irons and other detail parts

Specific Features

The SC-44 charger is at its heart a WOWDiesel decoder but has had some customization to make it specific to the SC-44 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 SC-44 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 SC-44 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 SC-44 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 SC-44 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, or if the Brake button is pressed 5 times.

New Lighting Features

The SC-44 Charger features a fully-functional emergency strobe light that operates prototypically. Send your DCC system into emergency and the engine will immediately stop and turn on the red strobe. Additionally you can also activate the “emergency brake” manually by engaging the TCS-exclusive Braking Feature fully with five rapid presses, after which the train will come to a quick stop and turn on the strobe.

The emergency strobe light also works in conjunction with the “crew alert” feature. The crew alert feature acts as a “dead mans” switch. If no user input is received after a set amount of time the alarm will sound giving the user short amount of time to enter input or else the train will go into emergency, brake, and come to a stop with the red emergency strobe flashing! When the crew alert feature is enabled, the emergency strobe will activate once the crew alert timer expires.

According to § 1.4.12 of the Siemens SC-44 Charger Operations Manual, the strobe lights function automatically when certain conditions are met. The white strobes will flash when the ditch lights are activated and headlights are at full brightness. TCS has implemented automatic and manual control modes for the white strobe lights. The factory default is set to automatic control (CV182 bit 7 is ON). In automatic mode the white strobe lights will behave as described in the Siemens manual section 1.4.12 while the strobe button is activated on the throttle (default Function 5). When Function 5 is activated, the strobe lights will turn on when both the headlight and ditch lights are active. If Function 5 is turned off, the strobe light will remain off regardless of current head and ditch light states. In manual control mode (CV182 bit 7 is OFF), headlight and ditch light status has no effect on the white strobes. The white strobe lights are controlled manually by the throttle button.

Button Mappings

The Charger locomotive supports "function pagination." 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:

• Press function 8 twice to rotate through the pages until the decoder announces "function page two."
• Press function 5
• The decoder will activate function 5 + 10 (page 2 offset) = 15

Note: the decoder supports accessing function 15 by pressing F15 on your throttle regardless of the currently selected function page.

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	Bling 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 SC-44 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

CV Addendum (Indexed CV's)

The SC-44 Charger follows the motor and lighting CV's as described in TCS's WOWDiesel Programming Guide. Listed below are the CV's that have been modified for the SC-44 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	16,251	Using Dynamic brakes does not notch up prime mover
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.