DCS 4.3 Reviews

I like the FSV soft key For the lash ups. I also like that you can have lower start Voltage on the Variable channels. still haveing a problem with the number board lights in lash up. 

when I start up the lash up. The number boards come on like I have set and saved with the FSV soft key. When I run the MU forward the number Board on the tail engine stay on. This how I want it. When I put it in reverse the the head light comes on. That's fine.

But when I go forward again the number board light on the tail engine go out and stay out, until I go in reverse again. Haven't figured that one out yet. I'm hoping the 4.31 update will solve that.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?...mp;v=eLERw6rRhzI#t=0

hi dave i do not have dcs but i have legacy me and my grandfather bot a legacy set off you about a mouth a go and we got the sd80mac back form lionel and the smoke unit is fixed now, we are workining on the a hill and road for our town nowwith the tips and triks we leared form you so thanks !! - matt \ you can go to my youtube page at matthews-trains or         https://www.youtube.com/channe...DA2xBB_sdRcPPNuCxgXA         

Just finished upgrading 2 TIUs and 10 Handhelds.  Using windows 8.1 I had some issues. I upgraded my to L TIUs (help off my"I" TIUs until I get a usb serial adapter) and I got a message upon trying to upgrade my remotes that it could not find my TIU. After several reboots and going back from TIU 2 to TIU3 it found the TIU and remote. (Used com3 instead of 4?).  After getting the remotes updated, I fired up my 3rd level and of course forgot to power off/on the TIU before applying track power. All my engines on the 6th loop came up in conventional.  After correcting that mistake, I got them all running under command with a glitch. I have two double headers and two single engines and I could not turn the smoke off on any units though I could control the speed and whistle on each engine. On TIU 2 with loop 5 (triple MU with heritage diesels, triple WM circus, an EVO single unit train, and an MU of dual Legacy diesels). I could not move my WM circus diesels into the active area. The MU is in the active area but the individual units are inactive. Selecting the WM units in the inactive area, I got an error message that the engine was not on the track; however, with the cursor on each of the three engines, I was able to sound the horn on each engine.  Interesting.  It may be the Legacy engines; however, all 4 trains run well on that loop.  I just can not move the inactive engines (WM) to the active area. Note that the lashups were created with my previous 4.01 DCS release (MUs or multiple headers not recreated under 4.3). Smoke so far is controllable on my other engines on all the other loops I have tested. I just tested my 7th loop and it took 90 seconds from selecting "all" and start to having the engines start up. This only took 4 or 5 seconds under 4.01.  I did move one engine to the inactive area (0-6-0) and it decreased back to 2 seconds. Note that I still have an MU on a minor loop with 2 diesels in the active area with the 2 second response.I also got the smoke to go off on one of my engines on the 6th loop.  The others still do not respond.  Three times in the past week I have used the "All" command followed by the startup and the handheld locked out.  I needed to remove a battery and restart before I could access the engines on that loop.

Anybody else?  There have got to be some more reviews out there.

Thanks,

Dave

I'm not 100% on this but it seems ever since I upgraded to 4.3 I been having strange things happen to at least some of my engines. Also noticed that I was having major signal loss with all 3 of my 3.0 engines (including my new 3.0 GS4 Daylight) when the trains were in the mountains. But here's the really strange part - when I tested my older 2.0 engines to see if they had signal issues in the mountains they worked fine with not much if any signal problems - after that I tested the same 3.0 engines and now they are working fine....I was like what the heck is going on here.  Again, I am not sure if these issues were because of the upgrade.

I'm surprised too that there aren't any more reviews. I guess everyone is waiting on 4.31.

Dave, My problem with the 4.3 appears to be the ability to retain lashup settings Using the FSV Soft Key. My previous post titled, "this time I'm stumped", refers to this if you did not have the opportunity to read it.  Otherwise this new version  seems to be performing no different than 4.2 at this point.  I run a single 9' X 22' main with various industry sidings and a 30' inclined  dead end branch line off the main.  It is totally DCS wired in a star pattern with track feeders every 6'.

Dave (& Dave),

I responded to this on your "I'm Stumped" thread, as follows

"It's not you. I've duplicated it with the 4.31 beta. It'll be worked until resolved. However, I can't say exactly when that will be. It all depends on how soon MTH's developer can figure out what to correct, and then correct it."

Kerrigan,

After my previous problems upgrading, I decided to wait until this release had been out there a while.

It may be a while. I and at least one other of the beta testers intend to pound 4.31 into submission before letting it go.

Regardless, DCS 4.30 fixes a number of really annoying bugs and adds new features, and is definitely worth the time to upgrade.

Barry, Thank you for all you do for the DCS community.

I'm sure once you beat it into submission, it's going to be a big step forward in getting DCS stablized and "frozen".

I look forward to upgrading my three TIUs and three remotes (small by some layout standards) "just one more time".

You work hard for this system, and forum, Barry; thank you!

Prototypically speaking..... that's how it should be. Only the lead unit should have number boards and headlights lit.

Toy train speaking.... you can do whatever you want, but it seems to me that function is working properly.

 that's how it should be

I would agree with you, however, it unfortunately isn't working as specified.

Believe me, after this 4.3x lengthy beta testing go-round, I'd be thrilled to be able to just let it be. However, that's just not about to happen.

Barry, I appreciate your efforts.  Hang in there.

Hopefully after the final bugs are wrung out of 4.etc it will be set in hydrocal, frozen in time once and for all; the FINAL RELEASE!

Ahhhhh ... to upgrade just one more time and be done DONE!

I have a problem with 4.30 that is really bothersome.  I think it is only on the engines that are connected as multiple units but I will have to check to see if it is on single engines.  When I start-up a MU and hit the whistle or bell, it works.  After I run the train at speed, the whistle (or bell) does not work.  When I bring train back to near 0 mph, the bells and whistles that didn't work before now work even though I haven't touched the buttons.  The engines remember that these were activated earlier.  

Another issue I have is that the MU's come up with some settings different than what they were when I shut down the system.  Doesn't seem to be remembering correctly the settings at shut down.

I didn't have either of these issues on the last version and I can't remember if this occurred on the previous versions from that.

Casey - I had a simular issue happened to me the other day which happened a few times. On my new GS4 the headlights would go off sometimes and when I hit the headlight on/off button it would say they were on but when I turned them off the lights would come on. I also noticed all other lights would go dark and smoke unit would also be off. I would have to reset engine to get things all working again. 

Matt,

It's extremely unlikely that that is a DCS 4.30 issue. It's much more likely that it's an engine issue.

Casey,

Give that a try with single units.  Also try any other engine command.  (Speed change, fire coupler, etc)

Let us know what you find out.

Dave

Hello Dave,

I did a little more investigation.  The whistle problem occurs on both single units and multiple units.  Also it only remembers the whistle if you push the Fwd, Rev, or X special buttons.  It doesn't remember when I push the whistle button only.  Also, if I start from 0 mph, any whistle button (inc. Fwd, Rev, and X) will work for a while and then it quits.  Couldn't find what causes it to stop.  I would take it up to 40 smph and the whistle would work for at least 20 to 30 seconds and then stop.  When it came back on, the train was still moving but it was probably doing 5 smph or slower.

Also, the smoke is on for single or MU trains when I first start the engine even through they were turned off when I turned off the engine and power down the system.  This never happened before unless I had power supply issues such as tripping and then being reset.

If you want me to check anything else, let me know.

Casey

Casey,

It sounds as if Clikity-Clack is turned-on. Turn it off in individual member engines and also in the lashup itself as follows:

Menu/Sound/Clikity-Clack and press the "OFF" soft key

Barry,

Was the timing changed on the communication rate from the engine back to the TIU?

Dave

For what it is worth my experience has been that the Clickity-Clack feature defaults to on in any member locomotives in a lash-up in release 4.3 and the process Barry outlined above must be followed to shut it off and then you have to hit the FSV softkey or it will happen again the next time you start up the lash-up. I hope this will be changed in future releases.  I did not have the Clickity-Clack enabled in any of the engines prior to them being in the lash-up and the feature was enabled when setting up the lash-up.   That was my experience with ten locomotives (a mixture of older 5volt and the later 3Volt PS2 boards) used in four different lash-ups anyway. 

Regards - Glenn

Dave,

Was the timing changed on the communication rate from the engine back to the TIU?

To the best  of my knowledge, no, it was not.

Casey & Glenn,

For what it is worth my experience has been that the Clickity-Clack feature defaults to on in any member locomotives in a lash-up in release 4.3

The bad news is that I cannot attempt to replicate your observations with DCS 4.30, as it is no longer installed in my DCS.

However, the good news is that DCS 4.31 beta, which is installed in my DCS, handles Clikity-Clak just fine, and lashups default to Clikity-Clak "OFF".

I proceeded as follows:

• I created 2 new lashups under DCS 4.31 and verified that Clikity-Clak was, indeed off in both
• I then turned it to AUTO, did an FSV, and verified that it persisted from shutdown and power-off to power-on and startup
• I then turned it OFF, did an FSV, and verified that it stayed off from shutdown and power-off to power-on and startup.

While there are still some issues with 4.31 lashup lighting and sound settings, Clikity-Clak appears to be working properly in lashups.

Barry,

I went to the Clickity-Clack feature and turned it off and the bells and whistles on my single an multiple units appear to work well.  I think this is fixed.  Thanks Barry.

As for the other problem of not remembering settings, it still seems to be there.  I noticed last night that when I turned the smoke on, the volume coming out seemed to be small or not at all.  After playing around, I found that the the smoke setting was on low because when I set it to medium, it worked the way I thought it would.  Today, I turned things on and the same thing happened with the smoke setting being on low.  I have also noticed that when I stopped the train, the train seemed to be stopping at a different rate the first time it is stopped.  For the long trains, I set it to 1 smphps but the train seem to stop at something quicker.  After that, it seems OK.  Back to the smoke, it seems when I turn on the engines, the smoke setting is on (with the setting to low which takes a while to figure out that the smoke is even on).

Casey

Casey,

Smoke on or off at startup in DCS land is determined by the setting of the physical  smoke switch (or pot) on the engine. If the switch is "on", smoke defaults to "on" at startup. If it's "off", it defaults to "off" at startup.

Barry, I have seen this statement before, but I do not see that when testing boards.  I always start off with smoke pot off, but usually smoke starts.  I have not seen consistent behavior on this.   G

George,

I have not seen consistent behavior on this

Of, course, I don't see nearly the number of boards as do you, defective or otherwise. However, whenever I've cared to look, that's always been the case, as well as what I've been told by MTH.

On the other hand, your tester doesn't have an on/off switch, either.  

What is frustrating through this is that I have done the same thing the last few revisions and it worked.  Now with 4.3, there are now these foibles such as the Clickity-Clack, smoke issues, and other odd behaviors.  Shouldn't the things that worked on 4.2. act the same way on 4.3?  I would think.  I guess they didn't do regression testing on the software.

Also, I don't have the FSV softkey on any of the lashups that I have checked.  The remote says 4.3 on power-up so I should have the right revision.

I have a couple which turn clockwise to off and the opposite to on; is that right?

Casey,

I don't have the FSV softkey on any of the lashups that I have checked.

Make sure that you rebuilt your lashups under 4.3.

It's the very first soft key.

 I guess they didn't do regression testing on the software.

If you think you can do a better job, feel free to volunteer to be a beta tester. I hear the pay is great.

Barry, I have a smoke volume pot and I turn it off.  Same as a switch.  I think the caveat may be that a feature or factory reset is not done.

I may have to experiment more, like I did with the Conventional Reset versus DCS reset on direction lock.  G

Casey,

On the engines where smoke comes on, make sure the that the conventional smoke control is switched off or turned all the way down.

 It seems that all of my existing consists (maybe all when I get the time) now have the clikity clack turned on by default. I never use it. When I lost sounds I had to figure it out.

 I built a new consist and both engines were already running. After the build, the rear helper engine had all the lights and sounds turned on. I'll have to play more but there's new things to learn.

Joe,

In the DCS 4.31 beta, Clickity-Clack is turned off by default.

Great Barry! I didn't expect it to turn on by itself! When it did with my 4.3 download, my little brain had to remember what you had posted.