Intermittent "Watchdog Signal" DCS 6.10

"I am not interested in knowing if others are or have experienced my situation."

"With that little bit of information...has anyone experienced this or anything remotely similar"

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Thank you...John...I appreciate you pointing out that typo or obvious case of fingers moving faster than I think.

I, certainly, would NOT have posted the thread if I did NOT want helpful responses.

Now...has anyone experienced anything similar...other than the occasional single engine missing the watchdog signal??

You're welcome. I would welcome the same when I mistype. To clarify further, are you saying there is no watchdog signal intermittently and all engines start in conventional?

Yes, I have seen this. I kept looking at specific engines and areas of the layout where I believed the problem was. However, as soon as a certain number of engines were parked in these areas, problems showed up. It sounds obvious but it wasn't at first. As engines were removed, problems went away. I redistributed power and added more TIU channels overall to my layout. I put power switches on sidings so that they could be shut off. Adding several extra engines to my layout finally pointed out flaws that were manageable with less equipment. You can't just plunk down an extra dozen engines without planning.

 Anyways, I only keep the engines I'm going to run on powered track. All others are switched off. I don't put anymore engines on a single TIU channel than the power and/or signal can handle. Even if they aren't running it affects the watch dog signal at power up. Each engine reports back and too many seems to confuse things. Even a couple of Lionel tank cars with sounds or similar equipment can tip the signal strength when you're near the edge of it's limits.

 Barry is a great resource here, especially for software advice. He isn't always correct on what's happening inside every engine. He is correct on how the system functions and can steer us towards pin pointing where any issues are arising from. I take his advice and go troubleshooting from there. G scale presented some different problems. I still use the same info learned from getting O scale layouts tuned.

 Installing MTH command and repairing engines has also helped me to stay on top of issues that arise. 

I agree Mr. B has never been wrong I the DCS department that I know of.

EJ...any theories as to why this did not happen for me until Ver 6.10?

John H...EJ pretty-much sums up the situation.

I am sure my “programming” track...with two engines sitting on it does not suffer the problem.

 I was thinking over any changes I've seen with 6.1. I can't say for sure. There was an announcement that the watchdog was modified on one of the recent DCS versions. I have not seen any problems with 6.1 that are repeatable. Most conflicts for me, have been because of mistakes.

 I have a few problems that are occurring like when I was building a consist, one engine had the polarity switch set wrong (I'm 2 rail!). Yet everytime I pressed the refresh icon on the app, I got mixed results. Even no TIU found. When I corrected the mis-thrown polarity switch, everything worked the very next time.

 I feel that the system still struggles a little with mixed consists of PS2 and PS3. It does work however. Just takes a bit of patience. Seems like it is touchy.

The only thing I can add for you, is again when the signal is pushed to it's limits, different results can occur. Sometimes there's something new that we blame on the DCS version or even a bug. I think there's just things that come to light, when the variables are changed.

 Test your system methodically, removing one engine at a time and eliminating any potential conflicts. One engine acting up seems to upset the system's performance. Charge all batteries. Rotate your engine roster and keep stuff active.

I have a slightly different take on this due to the way I have my layout powered via the TIU.

My small layout at home is run completely from one TIU channel, and I run in command mode only anymore.  It would be logical to power my layout with a FIXED channel but I rather choose to use a VARIABLE channel. The reason for this is simple, I can shutdown track power via the APP/Remote without have to power down my PH180 brick or shutting down power to entire layout. My ability to control track power is right on my remote/app.

Beings that I run command only, it doesn't make sense to dial up the voltage starting a 5 volts, so I set the starting voltage at 21.5 volts. Why not 22?  I noticed that when I set the starting voltage to 22, full power would engage to the track and the watch dog was missed by all engines nearly 95% of the time. I notice this behavior with all version of DCS going back as far as 4.20.

If I start at 21.5 and bump up to 22, the watch dog signal is never missed. I never really asked why, I know that is just how it worked.