Junior posted:Hi Guys.....
I've been reading all these posts with great interest to see what will fall out of this.
I am not an electrical engineer. I do not claim to understand all the discussions. I am a hobbiest who likes to run his trains and enjoy all that DCS has to offer. And I do SINCERELY appreciate all the help and guidance you all on this forum provided to me and many others from time to time. I'd be pretty lost without you.
My question is.....what does a person like me do? I run my layout with 2 TIUs. I went out and bought 2 new Rev L's because reviews indicated that was the way to go.....that was my choice and I accept that.
But what do I do now? Are my Rev L TIUs affected by these hardware issues? I don't know. Have I had derailments? You bet. Do I just bite the bullet and send the TIUs in for repair?
To say that this situation is frustrating for me is an understatement.
I just want to know what model railroader hobbiests like myself who have made a substantial investment in MTH and DCS need to do next.
It appears though that this discussion is far from over and I need to "sit tight" as those far more knowledgeable than I find other issues with the Rev. L design before taking any action (sorry for the run-on sentence).
Very frustrating indeed......
So you're an example of the person I'm thinking about most actually....
Helping you requires 2 things to happen:
1. A way for you to diagnose your TIU without needing a BSEE degree and a $500 scope.
I'm trying to work out a simple test tool (trying to keep it under $50) that can be used to quickly check each TIU output and just give you a thumbs up or down without a lot of software or circuit measurement knowledge. Stan2004 is thinking about this too it seems. The DCS signals are fast, infrequent and complicated so it's not as easy as just measuring track voltage, but we really are working on some ideas.
2. A repair that won't break again:
The mod I've done in our club and the SD3R club (TVS + silicon clamps) seems to be invincible, we haven't seen any damage in 7 months. The signals remain 14V pkpk week after week since Nov 2017. The MTH mod in the service bulletin is half of the mod we did (the TVS without the silicon clamps). In that condition we did see failures, not not as frequent as the bare Rev L TIU. The TVS devices are easy to put in, but the clamps are complicated and require a lot of rework and parts meaning it's not too practical for MTH to offer it. My setup is very prototype-ish and needs serious work to install but guys like GRJ are working out cleaner and easier to apply versions. Perhaps the answer will be to send your TIUs to someone like him if you want the highest level of robustness.
