Cab04P / CAB04E

MODELS COVERED (in picture order): CAB04E / CAB04ER / CAB04P / CAB04PR

CAB CLASS: Engineer

PART NUMBERS:

CAB04E: ENCODER KNOB

CAB04ER: ENCODER KNOB with radio

CAB04P: POT KNOB CAB

CAB04PR: POT KNOB CAB with radio

CAB HISTORY/DESCRIPTION:

CAB04's evolved over time.

CAB04/CAB04P: Originally the CAB04 was just a POT (potentiometer) knob. The knob works like your volume control on a old stereo. Physical rotational stops at the stop and full speed points. The knob, all of which have a black line on them, gives you a physical indication of the speed setting. The position of the knob was directly tide to an absolute speed.

CAB04E: Later the CAB04 was offered with a Encoder Knob. An Encoder Knob offered the ability to pick a train in motion and take control without changing its speed when you turn the knob. The Encoder Knob was a RELATIVE SPEED control device. Turning it to the right simply said take the speed your at now and make it go faster. Likewise turning the knob to the left said take the speed your at now and make it slow down.

The introduction of a ENCODER CAB04 being produced along side the POT CAB04 forced a change in the model numbers. The model numbers got a E or a P after the CAB04 as in CAB04E and the CAB04P version.

The early production Cab04 version had a green LED which was later changed to RED in latter production versions.

TOGGLE SWITCH VERSION

Latest versions of the CAB04E introduced a toggle switch on the top. This allowed the operator to control two trains at once with the flick of a switch. What is really happening is the toggle switch dynamically changes the cab's ID number between two preset ID numbers. But only one is active at any given time. You can also think of having two cabs in one. One for each train sharing a common case. A split personality selected by the toggle switch. You could also think of it as virtually unpluging one cab and plugging in the other as if you had two separate cabs. That is exactly how the command station sees it.

RADIO VERSION

The Radio adds a R suffix after the CAB04x name. Does not matter it the cab is pot or encoder.

NCE did offer "radio upgrades" to existing cabs when the radio option was first introduced so a customer did not have to buy new cabs to enjoy radio operation. The original upgrade came in kit form and was installed by the customer. However customer had various level of success with the kit installation. For warrantee reasons NCE discontinued the upgrade kit and offered to do the radio upgrade at the factory for a fixed price. Today the upgrade is no longer offered.

STATUS LED

The Status LED gives you status information about the state of the keyboard and button press action.

1) When the LED was off, the keypad was being used as a function control keypad. Each key number was a function number.

2) When the LED was on, the keypad was setup for data entry of something like a engine number or a macro number.

3) The LED would always blink when a button was pressed. It did not matter if the LED was ON or OFF. This gave you physical verification that your button was pressed.

SETTING THE CAB ID/ADDRESS.

The factory default Cab ID/Address value is the same for given class of cab. On a given layout, every cab must have a unique cab ID/Address REGARDLESS of what class of cab it is. The layout owner must to assign unique ID/Address between 2 and 63 to very physical cab. It is best to make the cab with the address number on it and make a list so you do not create two cabs with the same ID. Once assigned, the cab will memorize the ID/Address you assign to inside itself and it does not change even when you use the the given cab on multiple NCE layout.

The process of setting the cab address require one holding down the SELECT LOCO key when you turn on the cab or plug it into a cab panel that is on. The cab will wake up with the Status LED on. Press the number to be assigned to the cab and then press the ENTER key. The LED will go out and the cab will no use that ID going forward.

RESETING THE CAB and DEFAULT ID/ADDRESS

The process of reseting the cab starts the same way as setting the cab ID/Address. However if you enter cab ID/address 0, the cab will reset back to factory default values.

DEFAULT CAB ID/ADDRESS (NON TOGGLE VERSION) = 5

DEFAULT CAB ID/ADDRESS (TOGGLE VERSION) = 5 & 6.

PRODUCTION STATUS:

All in current production.

ALTERNATIVE CABS:

CAB05 / CAB06

2/23/18