Legacy Base upgrade fail, please help

My base had the same problem, had to go back to Lionel. The authorized Lionel tech at my LHS couldn't get it to work either and also told me it had to go to Lionel for repair. I was going from 1.52 to 1.54 (maybe 1.53, I forget?). My remote upgraded just fine, but the base failed miserably. You should be able to go from 1.52 to 1.60 with no problem.

I forget the number of blinks it was giving? Lionel had me try a different black module, I had two, and a couple of other things, but nothing worked. Then they gave me an RA number.

 Thank you. Did you have any other troubles with your base prior to the upgrade attempt? Mine also intermittently needs to be rebooted to output a signal. 

The only issue it had was when it first arrived, it worked for about 15 minutes and then just died. Completely dead, wouldn't do anything. I thought it was the power supply, called Lionel and they sent me a new one. Then it was fine, worked perfectly for 6-7 months, until the upgrade problem.

Then when I had the upgrade problem it died again with the new power supply, same as it did before. After fiddling with it for a half hour or so, I finally got it going again (but it still would not upgrade). Seemed like a loose connection where the power supply plugged in, but I really was never sure what it was?

I explained all this along with the upgrade problem to Lionel when I sent it in. When I got it back I tried the original power supply I thought was bad and it worked. Not sure what the problem was the first time either. Maybe overheating power supply? Haven't tried the old one long enough to check that theory, only tried it briefly.

I never had to reboot it or had signal problems or anything like that after getting the new power supply. As I said, it worked perfectly with absolutely no problems (at least that I could see) until the upgrade attempt.

Mine Legacy 990 is one from the problem batch that was delayed for almost a year when they had the part problem and they had to send them back or rework them or whatever was wrong that caused the long delay in releasing them. I finally got it about September 2014 after ordering it in Sept 2013. It was almost one year to the day from when I ordered it and was originally supposed to be delivered in like Nov 2013.

The good news is that it has also been working perfectly since I got it back from Lionel after the upgrade fix. I have upgraded once since it came back and it upgraded without a hitch, worked great. Which now reminds me the first upgrade was 1.52 to 1.53 and the one after I got it back was 1.43 to 1.54.

Sorry to be so windy here, but though the whole ordeal might possibly shed some light on your problems. I would still explain, in detail, all the problems you have had as best as you can to Lionel. They ask for all that on the RA form as I recall.

Good Luck

I just upgraded from 1.54 to 1.60 and had the same problem.  The CAB-2 worked like a charm, but the base did not.  I have been noticing that the modules don't always make good contact.  I had trouble with an orange module in the CAB-2.  It took several attempts, but if finally worked.  For the base upgrade I just kept removing the black module from the base, reinserting it and trying it again.  It took four attempts, but the base upgrade finally worked.  Just make sure you have that module in real good.

Other than the module fit mentioned, all my upgrades have proceeded smoothly.

I have noticed that the rubber cap on the base gets in the way. you need to make sure that cap is not pushing on the module.

I took the rubber cap off my base, it's just window dressing and does indeed get in the way.  I left it on the remote as that isn't an issue.

Me too.