More Legacy Help Needed

JP, 

You do not mention if you are using an SC-2 or other switch operating equipment. All of my switches are, there are 35 of them are programed through SC-2s.  I can set up routes through up to seven switches. l do apologise if I am misunderstanding your question.

Ray

You are firing two switch motors at once,  Is there enough power to the switches to trigger two motors/solenoids at once?  Bump up the voltage to the switches, carefully.  I am clueless, but maybe helpful.

Sincerely, John Rowlen

the switches are connected to an ASC-3000 controller same a Lionel ASC 300. The switches are getting power from aux 18 volts . so I don't think  its a power issue.  The more I think about the problem I think it's related to the connection of the TPC-3000 and legacy base. Currently the TPC is connect to legacy using the DB 9 connection which is data and com.  The command base is is removed. So perhaps I need to get a Legacy PM and replace the TPC-3000. Thanks for your help.

I think the PM and TPC are for controlling voltage to the track. Not for throwing switches

Also see that you are using an ASC-300 which I don’t see in the catalogue only anASC-2. Is this what you are using?

JP,

I thought this might help, it looks to me like the ASC hook up is a bit more complicated than the SC-2s that I am using. I am attaching a link to a Lionel video on the setup using the ASC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSfpLdJHgpU

Ray

A follow up on the route dilemma. I called Lionel customer service and spoke with a representative that was able to work with me and solve the problem. As it turns out the problem had noting to do with wiring or hardware. The solution was you can't use the same number on the route designations as the switches are designated. That was the mistake I was making when building a route. Unknowing I was using #1 and #2 as route designations. as soon as we changed the route designation to some other number in this case route 10 and route 11 everything work fine. Nowhere in the manual does it point this out. Also the reference in the manual to "route created"is wrong it was "route save". So hopefully this info helps someone in the future.

by the way Lionel's customer service was excellent.

Great to hear that with Lionel you were able to get the solution you needed.

Ray

That’s really interesting. I have routes #1 through 5...I need to see if #’s 1 through 5 switches are included in any of those.

I think that would be interesting to confirm.

I checked and I do have #5 in #5 route, but it doesn’t throw all the switches I have programmed on it even when I remove #5. I’ve never had reliable consistent results when switching more than just a couple switches in the routes. I have command switches and SC2 modules driving them. I use the command switches on the SC2 positions #1 because I’ve always had issues with position #1 even after cutting the trace on the SC2s. The many switch routes work better if I slow the rate of switching down. After more than 10 years using TMCC and Legacy, I feel that the the designers of these train electronics are talented, but I would not trust them to fly me to the moon.

 I am using MTH switches and MTH track so no experience with Lionel command switches. That did come up in my discussion with the Lionel tech and she mentioned that they have  button you  press to program them  but i'm sure you are way past that point. Also the other difference is I am not using the SC2. I'm still using the old ASC-3000 .  As of now my issue is solved and although I did have 4 switches programmed under TMCC using routes I have changed my track layout down to two switches. .

cjack posted:

After more than 10 years using TMCC and Legacy, I feel that the the designers of these train electronics are talented, but I would not trust them to fly me to the moon.

Chuck, when I designed avionics, there was a LOT more care put into insuring reliable operation than any consumer product, nature of the beast.  You tend to be more careful when a mistake can cause a couple hundred people to die!  Toy trains are... well, toys.  While most of the stuff is pretty well designed, it hardly gets the exhaustive analysis and testing that mission critical systems get. 

Remember, a Mars lander crashed because of a simple math conversion error in the code, so even mission critical systems don't work all the time.

1999: NASA lost its $125-million Mars Climate Orbiter because spacecraft engineers failed to convert from English to metric measurements when exchanging vital data before the craft was launched, space agency officials said Thursday.