Need to completely reset DCS system--strange symptoms

Make sure when you apply power the TIU light blinks only once. If you can attach a 4 wire phone cord to the remote and TIU. Press "read" and post here what you get.

It sounds like something I did once where I didn't re-connect the wires to the TIU correctly after an update of software. It could be a loose transceiver board in one of them.

I don't use the "add track" so I'm really not familiar with that.

How is the TIU getting power? Not just from the WIU right?

Remember that the messages are just generic to show somethings wrong. The TIU might be lost after the reset. The remote reset should have cleared the remote of all info stored. If so, you have to re-add everything once the system gets working.

The red LED next to the REMOTE input jack blinks TWICE , not once, when powering up the TIU.  I have connected the remote using a handset tether to the remote jack, and I still get OUT OF RF RANGE or TIU ERROR, NO TIU FOUND, and the READ button does nothing. I removed and re-seated the small RF transceiver board to no avail.   I think my TIU is hosed.  But it's strangely related to the backup operation I did last session. I was backing up the remote and it finished early (about 10 min) where I was expecting it to take 15 to 20 min, but it did say COMPLETE.  I DID NOT accidentally plug the handset cord into the wrong jack, I was very aware of that from the warnings.  I see three options:  REPLACE the TIU with a new one, buy or exchange the TIU Board, if MTH does exchanges, or send it in for repair if they do that. I don't know which of those options are the usual approach.  I will call MTH on FRiday.

If the red led blinks 2 times on the TIU on power up somehow the TIU got addressed as TIU 2. Go back into the Remote menu to system, tiu setup and add TIU 2. The remote should then talk to it.

Here are my observations, updated.  The TIU will not communicate with remote wirelessly OR connected through the handset, wired, NOR will it communicate with the app through the WIU.  There is no communication in or out of the TIU. So I am now thinking that the TIU is bricked or its software is corrupted.  I am now thinking about downloading and reloading the TIU software as a way of resetting the TIU.  I will do this later today, so if anyone has different suggestions, I will try them. I will also try to use the remote to communicate with it as TIU 2 address as suggested above.  It has never used address TIU 2. Thanks for the suggestions.

Did everything get removed from TIU when you finished downloading sf from engine (a waste of time by the way if the SF is on MTH website).  Simpler to just down load it to a file on your computer.

The best way to approach this is with the remote and some how you did change the TIU to address 2 and you will need to FIRST go into the remote and add TIU 2.  Once done, go to system and TIU and see if you can call up TIU software. IF so, at that point your talking to the TIU.  Now go in and delete TIU one.  At that point turn everything off.   Power back up and make sure TIU still blinks twice.  Not some other number of times.  If twice, do into remote and change to 1.  All should be back to normal.  G

I doubt that your TIU has failed.

Backing up the remote to a PC should not cause this problem.

I suggest that you follow GGG's advice.  After resetting the TIU to TIU#1, if you find that the remote doesn't find your engines, havig backed up the remnote, you can always restorethings to the way they were.

G,

OK, I am back to TIU 1, confirmed by single blink of the LED.  But now I can't add a track.  The only track choices are Variable 1 and Variable 2  , and not Fixed 1 which is what I normally default to, and Fixed 2 is not shown either.   So I moved my track connection to Variable 1 and selected it.  But when I try to have it detect an engine, it says "no engines to add"  (there are two on the track).

Gary, try to restore your remote from the PC.

OK, thank you all! I am back up and running.  Reloading the backup of the remote from the PC brought everything back, once I had gotten back to TIU1.  Not sure what caused the initial problem, but I learned a lot from each of you. The reason I originally was doing an engine backup of the sound file was that this is one of the engines that did not have a SF posted online and so I wanted a backup.  I'm also big on backups for my computers, and realizing I had never done one on the DCS components, I though it would be a good idea.  Thanks again!

I always STRONGLY recommend backing up a remote to a PC.  You've just experienced one reason why.  When using a remote to renumber a TIU, the contents of the remote can go haywire. 

If it is ever necessary to reset a remote, you can restore its data to the condition before the event that cause the reset requirement.  If you have multiple remotes, it makes it simple to have perfect clones, all buttons an entries identical.

Can I ask why you were trying to add tracks?  From what I understand TIU tracks can only be created on the Variable Channels, and are used to control the voltage on those channels when running conventional engines.  You cannot add a Track using a Fixed Channel.  I am asking because you made no mention of running conventional engines.

If you have a Z4000 receiver to remotely control output voltage from a Z4000 (this gets fed into a FIXED channel), you have to set up a Z4K track on the remote so that it will control that receiver. 

This let's you run conventional on a FIXED channel as well as a variable channel

MrMoe50 posted:

Can I ask why you were trying to add tracks?  From what I understand TIU tracks can only be created on the Variable Channels, and are used to control the voltage on those channels when running conventional engines.  You cannot add a Track using a Fixed Channel.  I am asking because you made no mention of running conventional engines.

My mistake , I was trying to reconfigure from scratch without looking up procedure, it was a step I should have disregarded.