An Afternoon with DCC Decoders

I have just spent the majority of my afternoon putting in Rails DCC Decoder chips, and attempting to program them. How can something be so simple, and so complex, all at the same time?

Anyway, managed to get 4 of the 6 locomotives to actually run. 2 of them just wouldn't move at all, despite appearing to accept the values programmed. When adjusting the speed, the lights came on, it just didn't move. That's going to take some more trial and error. Perhaps it was the starting voltage CV that was incorrect.

There's even sound. But that's a problem for another time.

It's scary how easy it is to lose hours to fiddling with these things. So I'm glad I was just helping, and not building something myself. It can become incredibly satisfying.