DCS Meltdown. What's causing it.

Well???

The MTH bricks don't trip unless something is really wrong in my experience. They will try and provide extra power and go into a brown out before tripping. I purposely drove them hard to see how many engines they would run with smoke and without.

It is commonly posted to have fuses inline between your power, and the TIU for protection.

What are you describing when you say:

"I hit the TIU reset"

with the remote right? Not like there's an actual reset button I believe?

So you did it while running trains and the power was on?

You do know that each channel should only have 10 amps max right? I've never combined two bricks like that. If I did, I'd add extra protection and I'd use matching ones. The Z1000 brick is only rated at 6 amps I believe? That one of mine won't trip unless I take it way over. I have to run several engines (4 or 5?) and the engines will actually slow before the breaker trips. I believe an amp meter would be needed to see exactly how much it can put out for me.

 Maybe the problem is with using two different bricks? Maybe it works until there's an overload situation?

Why did the lights go?

I didn't know MTH sells a wye cord for combining bricks? are they parallel or in series?

I can't find any wye cord at MTH?

I didn't combine the two bricks; I combined the two tracks onto one brick. I normally use one brick per track.

Scott Smith

I reset the TIU with the remote with the trains on the track but they were not running.

The Y adapter was the wrong term; I am referring to the barrel adapter.

Scott Smith

Cool. I just got confused then. Obviously there are issues. Hard to say why all at once then. Sometimes it seems like all hell is breaking loose all at once.

You have to troubleshoot each issue. Keep the problem engines off the track and get the layout right. Somethings wrong if the lights all went out on all your cars. Just seems like a power surge or something major to take them all out especially with the TIU in active wiring.

 I think many users drive this stuff past it's limits and don't realize it. I bought our grandsons extra pass cars and stuff started melting. Lock on smoked, car melted, Z controller went, and continuous problems. So I took away the extra cars and started over. I put in LEDs with an undersized board and that melted too. My fault as I listened to another poster without verifying the usefulness of suggested parts.

 Electrical has to be right or stuff burns.

and the TIU should not be hot!

Engineer-Joe posted:

and the TIU should not be hot!

I agree, I have never had one feel warm before. I am wondering since I replaced the TIU (the replacement was the one getting hot), if I have a brick that has gone wacko. Maybe I replaced the wrong brick. Maybe the bad brick to begin with was the one on Fixed 1. I use the Auxiliary power port to power the TIU. I had 5 Blue Comet Passenger cars along with the 400E.  All cars have the LED lights in them. That should not have overtaxed anything, if it did the breaker on the bricks would trip.

Scott Smith

Scott.....check out the thread that Gilly started earlier today.....I posted a video of one of my locomotives acting up.....see if it's similar to yours.

Peter

Putnam Division posted:

Scott.....check out the thread that Gilly started earlier today.....I posted a video of one of my locomotives acting up.....see if it's similar to yours.

Peter

Yes that is the way my locomotive was behaving.

Scott Smith

WOW! 

....and Hump Yard Mike (see recent thread below) is also having issues.....unfortunately, I am not smart enough to see any links here......

Peter

Scott,

You didn't say why the 3 TIUs were sent in for repair.

NJCJOE posted:

Scott,

You didn't say why the 3 TIUs were sent in for repair.

I bought a used ones and it had issues. One was my sons and he blew the radio board. One was my original one I had been running for 14 years and it quit. I had these sitting in a box and finally decided to send them off for repair.

Scott Smith

I would take the tiu's apart that you say are running hot and take a good look at the board traces maybe they are damaged from over loading or a short circuit look and smell if there is any obvious burn parts or traces that look over heated. let us know what you find out!

Looks like I am getting my answer from my thread. So it just may be possible for the TIU to "take out" an engine. I have not noticed that our TIUs are getting hot. That doesn't mean that they are not.

The one common denominator is "Rev L, running the current version". We have "ONE" operational TIU remaining. 

Step #1, watch it like a hawk and see if it is getting warm.

Step #2, roll back the version to an earlier w/o any known issues.

FWIW, Kanawha got a picture of his voltmeter displaying 58 volts on a TIU output. While we just didn't believe it at the time, that would be more than enough to turn loose the "magic smoke".

Scott, did your TIUs get the TVSS Replacement Service Bulletin work performed on them?

Gilly@N&W posted:

Looks like I am getting my answer from my thread. So it just may be possible for the TIU to "take out" an engine. I have not noticed that our TIUs are getting hot. That doesn't mean that they are not.

The one common denominator is "Rev L, running the current version". We have "ONE" operational TIU remaining. 

Step #1, watch it like a hawk and see if it is getting warm.

Step #2, roll back the version to an earlier w/o any known issues.

FWIW, Kanawha got a picture of his voltmeter displaying 58 volts on a TIU output. While we just didn't believe it at the time, that would be more than enough to turn loose the "magic smoke".

Scott, did your TIUs get the TVSS Replacement Service Bulletin work performed on them?

TVSS Replacement Service Bulletin?

Scott Smith

My memory was faulty regarding the service bulletin. I sent you a copy by email.

This was in response to reduced signal strength over time. FWIW, we "had it done" to two of our Rev L TIUs. They were returned to us inoperable. Before they worked, but had lousy signal strength. 

The signal strength fading over time is the 74ACT244 drivers failing one output at a time.  MTH parallels four outputs, and the signal amplitude goes down as the individual output drivers fail.  The fix is to replace the chip on the affected channel.  There is also a run of the Rev. L that got a small TVS across the outputs, those were failing and causing issues, the "fix" was to remove them.

There's a whole thread on the TIU channel tester that Adrian started, Stan0004 improved on, and I finally created a circuit board design for.  Tom picked up the mantle and using my PCB design was offering kits to build the channel tester.

Design of a $10-20 DCS-TIU Port Tester Tool?

SCOTT, did you check to see if your bricks are compatible with each other. All bricks running a layout, including any bricks that are running just accessories, should be in phase with each other. I have found it very common for MTH bricks to be out of phase with each other.