Anyone have any experience plugging the Z-4000 straight into a DCS remote (bypassing the 40-4001 remote receiver).
Is this possible? Does it work? Or will stuff get fried?
..obviously I am asking before I foolishly dare try it..
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IIRC the only item you can plug into the Z-4000 jack is that remote dangle.
@DdotCdot posted:Anyone have any experience plugging the Z-4000 straight into a DCS remote (bypassing the 40-4001 remote receiver).
Is this possible? Does it work? Or will stuff get fried?
..obviously I am asking before I foolishly dare try it..
Don't know what you would get out of it. The remote will (tether) communicate with a TIU using a phone cord. On the other hand, the remote would not speak to the Z-4000, not would the Z-4000 speak to the remote. You certainly can't power of charge the remote either.
Best to not try it, unless one of the gurus comes up and says do it. I would wait.
Probably would be no more useful than plugging it into your land line phone.
(i.e., don't do it, for those that can't see the sarcasm 
)
-Dave
The only reason I thought of it was for situations in which a Z-4000 is located out of reasonable reach (i.e: floor under a club layout) where having a phone cord running to someplace within reach could allow you to set your voltage with a spare DCS remote and bypass having to zero out or move the z-4000 handles at all.
since 40-4001 900Mhz remote receiver can be finicky and have poor reception, I wondered if this could be a way to bypass it in the above scenario.
thanks to all who chimed in. I definitely won’t risk it, but if an expert out there does know or has tried it - would love to hear the results.
Got me curious, so here's yet another reason not to try it..... It won't fit! 
I don't have a Z4000 to look at at this moment, but I do have a DCS remote and also the remote receiver for the Z4K.
The plug on the Z4K remote receiver is bigger than the jack on the DCS remote (looks to be the same size as a traditional line cord for a phone, but with 6 contacts vs the more traditional 2 or 4 for a home phone setup). The DCS remote uses a phone handset cord that is the same on both ends. (so if you have a cord that fits the DCS remote, it will be too small to properly fit the jack on the Z4K)
A bit of a guess here, since I never worked at MTH, but it was probably a really smart design decision by the engineers at MTH all those years ago to make the DCS remote jack in a way that it could not easily be accidentally plugged into the back of the Z4K.
-Dave
@Dave45681 posted:Got me curious, so here's yet another reason not to try it..... It won't fit!
The plug on the Z4K remote receiver is bigger than the jack on the DCS remote (looks to be the same size as a traditional line cord for a phone, but with 6 contacts vs the more traditional 2 or 4 for a home phone setup). The DCS remote uses a phone handset cord that is the same on both ends. (so if you have a cord that fits the DCS remote, it will be too small to properly fit the jack on the Z4K)
A bit of a guess here, since I never worked at MTH, but it was probably a really smart design decision by the engineers at MTH all those years ago to make the DCS remote jack in a way that it could not easily be accidentally plugged into the back of the Z4K.
-Dave
Unfortunately I think you can stick the Remote Handset 4 conductor cord plug into the Z-4000 6 conductor socket. I believe there was a post long ago where someone tried it and fried stuff.
The Z-4000 provides power to operate the receiver/dongle electronics. The DCS TIU remote has its own power source (batteries). Just speculating, but the "frying" that BobbyD mentions above could be from the Z-4000 driving power into the remote when none is needed?
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@Dave45681 posted:A bit of a guess here, since I never worked at MTH, but it was probably a really smart design decision by the engineers at MTH all those years ago to make the DCS remote jack in a way that it could not easily be accidentally plugged into the back of the Z4K.
Actually, you can easily plug the handset cord into the AUI jack on the TIU, it's not good for either of them.
You want to talk about dumb design decisions on model train electronics, we could talk all day! 
Thanks for all the clarity. The curious bug bit me on this, but I didn’t scratch it.
Glad I checked in. Will just stick with the finicky remote receiver unit - if I ever end up using it anyway.
@BobbyD posted:Unfortunately I think you can stick the Remote Handset 4 conductor cord plug into the Z-4000 6 conductor socket. I believe there was a post long ago where someone tried it and fried stuff.
OK fair enough. I guess I should have said it will fit (too small though), but just as well as a handset cord fits into a wall outlet for a telephone. (meaning it physically is small enough to fit, but doesn't fit properly)
But I guess in today's world, with many people going "cell only", even moderately technical people may have no idea the sizes of the plugs on these cords, or even realize they are different. (I worked at Radio Shack during school breaks in the early 90's so land line phones were still pretty standard.... helped more customers with how to run extensions than I could ever hope to remember... )
I think we've got enough posts with recollections to demonstrate this is NOT a good idea. It would be sad to see an otherwise functional remote removed from the dwindling population because someone decides to try this just to see what happens. I recommend anyone considering it print Stan's graphic and tape it near their transformer.
-Dave
The Z-4000 remote receiver works pretty well, at least it did for me. My Z-4000 is in a box now and the remote receiver is in the closet, I run with Lionel bricks.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Actually, you can easily plug the handset cord into the AUI jack on the TIU, it's not good for either of them.
I guess maybe it was only a moderately smart decision then. It will insert, but won't really "fit".
At least they didn't use the exact same connector to make it feel like it was "meant to be" when plugged in. 
-Dave
Yep, but enough people actually plugged the plugs on the TIU and AIU incorrectly that MTH came out with a mod to modify the AIU to avoid the damage caused when that happened. The AIU input and output jacks ARE the same size and type, but they are NOT compatible!
Of course, we've all seen the warning from the DCS Loader not to plug the remote cable into the AUI jack or it'll cook things, there is no protection circuit for that. Obviously, that's another thing that happened more often than it should.
