Legacy Blue Screen on power up, NEVER does anything further

Blue sky screen?

Screen changes to bluish glow when you power on, but never gets any image or text.

sounds like it does not have sofware. try loading your 1.4

Tried that twice, first time only key pad figures appeared, second time both screens had the blank blue glow. They are not happy, guess it is going back tomorrow. So much for convincing them on Legacy vs TMCC.

Just a guess, you say it was out of the box 10min, did you charge the batteries?

Flashing red lights ended, then got green.  May try with real batteries next.

Did you reload both the base and the remote?

Other remotes work fine with the base. Would a base issue garble the screen images or make them blank? We let it charge a few hours after green lights, reloaded and either no images or unreadable images again.  Seems it will be going back.

We had hoped after all the initial problems they would be testing these by now, this unit cost more than a phone, does less, and doesn't work out of the box.  Not inspiring.  

It depends.  If you loaded 1.3 into it then there might be an issue.  I guess what we need to know is version the remotes and base are?  The latest batch of remotes require 1.4 and cannot operate on 1.3 or lower.  A 1.4 remote though should work with a 1.3 base.  The 1.4 requirement is for the latest batch of remotes only.

Just a thought.  Good luck. 

Piggy backed an order so two friends got two new units in one shipment. Both sets are 1.4 factory loaded.  Called Lionel, they said to repair it the whole set must be sent back, not just the defective remote. More $$ wasted to send a huge box with a transformer in it two ways? At this point they are considering just taking it back to the store for a refund and skipping the Legacy suffering.

Why would they send the transformer back?  All Lionel wants is the remote and base.  Or are you talking about the wall wart with the Legacy system.

Wrap it and stick it all in a USPS flat rate box (you do not need to the big box back). ANd double check with Lionel, they have never asked for the wall wart back when I shipped mine, unless they have reason to believe it's bad

Are you SURE you have 1.4 loaded?  If that is a new remote, as Marty says, it requires 1.4.  I suspect that 1.3 would give you the symptoms you see.

I wonder if you could do a blind update to 1.4 and see if that solves the issue?

The blue one reads "Cab2 Program v1.4" right on it, the base one as well. Any version shouldn't prevent the remote from turning on to the point of functioning to search for a base.

It would, however, prevent anything from showing up on the display.

OTOH, it's very possible you simply have a broken CAB2.

Why give up without really working an issue. A simple return to Ohio and a few days later all would be fine It's the same distance to the post office whether you send it to the dealer or send it to Ohio

I am not saying that it shouldn't have worked right out of the box, but this is something easily fixed

Why?  You have a failure and everyone is stocking up on toilet paper? Not really sure why there is such a mentality about this.

I get that it's a bummer.  I also get it if you don't want to deal with it.  But Legacy has been out for 4 years or so and it's a reliable system.  My 2 have been solid since day 1...Literally day 1.  I was one of the first adopters of Legacy.   I'm not sure what the worry is.

Sorry we couldn't help you.

The folks who have the other Legacy set are pretty worried now.

Boy, if I gave up that easy, my DCS system would be in the trash!   Sometimes you get a defective product, it happens.

I finally got around to setting up my new Legacy system today, but haven't really run any trains with it yet.

I did have one very interesting thing happen with the Cab 2.  After I had inserted the batteries and charged it, I was fussing around with some of the buttons and, lo and behold, all of the words, letters, numbers, etc. on the display were showing up upside down and backwards.  It was like I was reading Russian.  I have absolutely no idea how it got to that state, but after fussing around with things for a while, and turning the unit off and on a number of times, I somehow managed to get a correct display.  Like I said, very interesting!

That is a new one. Sure you were not holding it upside down ? 

Never saw that on either of my CAB2's Allen, I'm with Chris, turn it right side up!

That is certainly odd, I wonder what odd mode that was.  Could this have something to do with the new display that was used for the current production run of Legacy sets?

Yes, it is kind of strange, but did the same thing once again today (keypad numbers displayed upside down and backwards).  I shut things down for a short time and then started it up again and all was well.

Since I finally installed the Legacy track connection this morning (actually attached the wire to the existing outside rails wire connected to my Z4000), I did manage to operate my new RS-11 over the entire track network for a time.  I still have to do the "module" thing with the locomotive, but that's something I'll attend to after some household chores get done.

Thus far, and strictly from a first-time novice user's standpoint, I've found Legacy easier to connect than DCS (the "one wire" thing), but not nearly as intuitive to operate.  Fortunately, there's the online tutorial series by Lionel that does help explain things more clearly compared to what is presented in the Legacy manual and locomotive manual.  But as I noted before, I'll work with it for a while to get past the learning curve, and that will likely help to refine my thinking.  Keep in mind that I had a head start with DCS, so any comparison I make between the two systems wouldn't be all that credible at this point.

I had a CAB1 and then the Legacy first, so I find the DCS system complicated.

I agree, once I get more comfortable with the DCS, I'll probably have a different opinion.  I still like the big knob on the Legacy better than the thumbwheel on the DCS, and the active keyboard is more flexible.  OTOH, the DCS does have some unique capabilities that Legacy probably will never have.

I just loaded my first Legacy model (Alaska RS-11) and all apparently went well.  I didn't fuss around with too many of the soft keys yet, aside from volume and dispatcher, but there's plenty of time to get to that later.

I definitely like the red wheel on Legacy better than the thumbwheel on DCS--mostly because I have big paws.  I must admit that the thumbwheel on my new Rev. L DCS seems to be operating far better (more responsive) than the thumbwheel on my older system.

I do have a question about the batteries in the Legacy remote.  Seems like the blinking red lights on the base are alternatively blinking for an awfully long time before going to green, and I notice that the handheld, while in the base, gets quite warm.  Is this normal?  I'm giving some thought to buying a new set of rechargeable batteries tomorrow to see if they might perform better.  The handheld screen does indicate fully charged batteries.

Allan, they all get warm in the command base.  I charge my remotes in the #993 charger, that doesn't get them hot.  I sent mine back a couple of times for charging issues, they got it working and charging, but the CAB2 still gets mighty warm.  I've turned off the charger in the #990 and covered the contacts.

And yes, they do take quite a long time to charge, apparently a fairly slow charging rate.

Do NOT buy different batteries other than Radio Shack's recommended by Lionel and Mike.  Lionel CS will tell you which batteries are recommended.

Hopefully, Allan hasn't had to buy batteries yet!

All of my comments are for the actual batteries supplied by Lionel.

You can buy other rechargeable batteries but then you cannot use the built in charger.   The batteries will work fine in the remote. 

While I was having the charging woes, I used plain Alkaline batteries.  They work fine as well.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm still having problems.  I gave the engine an ID of 36 (first two numbers of the road number), but when I call the engine up the two left indicators on the bottom row of the touchpad display go blank (the row with startup and shutdown). I can still run the engine and control the other functions, but shouldn't those buttons also be visible so I can shut the engine down?

I'm going to try reinstalling the memory module and see if that makes any difference, although I believeI did things in the right order the first time around.

It's working correctly.  The bottom row goes away when you do anything else like throttle, horn, or bell.  To get it back simply push ENG again.  Have you loaded the module yet?

Hi, Marty!

Thanks for that "shutdown" display tip.  It worked, and I'll just have to remember that one.

Yes, I did load the memory module (a second time) and I believe it's still fine, as it was the first time.

As I noted earlier, a bit of a learning curve for this Legacy novice.

I'm still a bit concerned about the heat generated when charging the batteries, and the time it takes.  Just to experiment a bit, I may try three new alkaline batteries to see what effect that may have.  And I do understand the if I use alkalines in the remote, I will need to make sure the charging unit in the base is turned off.  Any other cautions in that regard?

Some folks have put electrical tape over the contacts either on the base or remote claiming they were discharging the batteries even with the charger off.  I haven't found that to be the case though.

What is the 993 charger, John?  I am a bit concerned about the heat of the supplied batteries when that sucker is charging.  For now the remote shows the batteries are fully charged, so I just leave the remote out of its base.

I will eventually get this figured out.  And if I run into anything too heavy for my old mind, I can take comfort in knowing that Big Mike Reagan and his crew are just down the road a couple of miles (one of the main reasons I invested in the system and new Legacy additions to my motive power roster). 

The 993 is the remote and charger only.  No Legacy signal generating capabilities.  Looks just like the base you have though.

Thanks again, Marty!

I'll get back to playing with this later tonight.  I need to dig out the box and module for the Legacy GP-38-2 I bought some time ago.