Erratic DCS remote problem.

LAZ1957,

Couple things to look at, Batteries are the 1st thing, make sure you have good one's and put a spacer on the Battery Cover to hold the batteries tight in the HHRC.  

Because Barry has pounded me with making sure the HHRC's and the TIU's all match at the latest changes,  I will pass his wisdom along to you, every thing must match and be to the latest change revisions.  It actually sounds like your original HHRC matches your TIU and your new one does not.  

Marty just upgraded my Rev L TIU's and HHRC's to 6.1 this past week, and now everything runs perfectly again.

PCRR/Dave

Something to check... It seems most new remotes and reset remotes come with QUICKSET SPEED turned "ON" and/or OPERATING MODE set to "SPEED". My last two new remotes had erratic behavior until I turned them off.

Go to MENU, SETUP, REMOTE SETUP, look for QUICKSET SPEED, select it, push the S2 softkey to turn it off. Likewise while there, check OPERATING MODE (also in REMOTE SETUP), select it, and then select NORMAL.

DG,

   Good point sir!

PCRR/Dave

laz1957 posted:

Hi GUYZ,

  I had wanted another DCS remote and had purchased one on Jan. 23rd this year from a Forum sponsor.  I upgraded it to 6.10 and it worked ok for a while then started to not have any control of the speed of the engine.  I would use the thumbwheel and would get erratic behavior going up and down the speeds.  Sometimes it would go and other times just freeze up.  Also if I used whistle sometimes it would not turn off, and had to shut down all power to stop engine.  I did a reset on the remote and it worked good for about a minute then started the behavior again.  I took it apart, the remote and reseated the board to no avail.  Any thoughts on this or should I send it back to the forum sponsor?  Other remote works great. Thanks for your help.

My guess would be a poor track signal or remote /tiu range problem, Maybe try tethering  the tiu & remote with the curly phone cable (if you can find one)

Dudley,

It seems most new remotes and reset remotes come with QUICKSET SPEED turned "ON" and/or OPERATING MODE set to "SPEED". My last two new remotes had erratic behavior until I turned them off.

I disagree completely.

I've been using Quickset Speed exclusively on all 8 of my layout remotes since it was addd to DCS several years ago with absolutely no ill effects whatsoever.

My last two new remotes had erratic behavior until I turned them off.

Whatever was your problem, Quickset Speed wasn't the cause. If you examine how DCS actually works, which is by issuing discrete commands, you would understand that simply having the Quickset Speed function turned on couldn't possibly cause "erratic behavior". 

Gregg posted:

laz1957 posted:

Hi GUYZ,

  I had wanted another DCS remote and had purchased one on Jan. 23rd this year from a Forum sponsor.  I upgraded it to 6.10 and it worked ok for a while then started to not have any control of the speed of the engine.  I would use the thumbwheel and would get erratic behavior going up and down the speeds.  Sometimes it would go and other times just freeze up.  Also if I used whistle sometimes it would not turn off, and had to shut down all power to stop engine.  I did a reset on the remote and it worked good for about a minute then started the behavior again.  I took it apart, the remote and reseated the board to no avail.  Any thoughts on this or should I send it back to the forum sponsor?  Other remote works great. Thanks for your help.

My guess would be a poor track signal or remote /tiu range problem, Maybe try tethering  the tiu & remote with the curly phone cable (if you can find one)

Thanks GREGG.  I did do this with the curly phone cord and it did the same erratic behavior.  When applying the whistle, the whistle would not turn off nor did I have speed control with the thumbwheel.  Any direction I turned the wheel it increased the speed on the remote but the engine did not react in any way.  I had to hit the all halt button to shut down power.

DAVE,

  Thanks for the reply.  My HHRC says it is 6.1.  I did do the upgrade when it arrived, with the TIU that I used for the original HHRC.  I will do another check with fresh batteries.

DG posted:

Something to check... It seems most new remotes and reset remotes come with QUICKSET SPEED turned "ON" and/or OPERATING MODE set to "SPEED". My last two new remotes had erratic behavior until I turned them off.

Go to MENU, SETUP, REMOTE SETUP, look for QUICKSET SPEED, select it, push the S2 softkey to turn it off. Likewise while there, check OPERATING MODE (also in REMOTE SETUP), select it, and then select NORMAL.

I just did what DG had suggested and also added new batteries.  I ran my brand new Reading & Northern Pacifics for the past 35 minutes taking them through all sorts of different speeds and reversing them with no ill effects.  The remote worked pretty good.  I went slow on the thumbwheel and had only a few times that the speed went up one or two MPH but then returned quickly.  I don't know if there is a bug with this or is it the new batteries that turned this remote from wrong to right?  The batteries maybe were about three weeks old and this remote wasn't used to much because of the problem, I will keep an eye on this and let you know if there is any change.  Again thank you for your replies on this matter.

interesting that mth rd has not responded to any of this.

LAZ1957,

The batteries in these DCS HHRC degrade and need to be replaced more than most people do.  I had WillyGee (Bill) upgrade my DCS HHRC's to fully rechargeable, I love the way it works, and with high quality rechargeable Batteries my HHRC operates perfectly all the time.  Now when something strange happens, it's never my HHRC Batteries at fault. 

PCRR/Dave

I have had to replace wheels on two just purchased NEW remotes.   Things happen.  

Was this a new remote?

Hi MARTY,

  Yes this was a new remote.  I ran the trains last nite for an hour with the new remote and all worked good.  I toggled between the two MTH R&N Pacifics with no issues.  I only had a small speed step miss that went down and then back up once or twice but only for a step or two.   Whistle didn't get hung up and speed didn't lock up either.  I'll run them again today. 

From all of the symptoms and things you've tried, I agree with Marty, something is probably wrong with the remote.  An encoder is attached to the thumb wheel and it converts rotation to electrical pulses.  With the erratic and intermittent behavior, it sounds to me like a poor solder connection or bad encoder.  If it continues to improve and stabilize then it might have just been dirt, etc., in the encoder causing bad connections.  If it continues to give you problems, I would get it in for service.  I doubt the batteries are the issue.  If you don't see the low battery indicator on the screen, you should be fine.

How's the track signal? Try it on a small loop or test track.

MTH RD, you mention the possibility of dirt in the encoder.  Any reason not to give a squirt of plastic-safe contact cleaner from the front?

RJR posted:

MTH RD, you mention the possibility of dirt in the encoder.  Any reason not to give a squirt of plastic-safe contact cleaner from the front?

Encoder is pretty much sealed unless disassy.

You can swap in a new wheel faster than it takes to take one apart.  They are cheap and have large solder pads.  Easy job.