Not a good beginning for my DCS experience!

Why sell an upgrade kit when you are in the business of selling Trains

First of all, MTH didn't want to sell upgrade kits at all. It was primarily the PS1 crowd that screamed for a way to upgrade their existing PS1 engines to run in command under DCS

 

Second, the differences cosmetically between PS1 and PS2 engines are considerable. I suspect that as time goes on, we'll see the same kind of improvement cosmetically in PS3 models as opposed to PS2 models, as well as new hardware features in PS3 engines that cannot be retrofitted into PS2 engines.

 

This should keep some portion of the DCS-using operators buying the latest product rather than converting older locos.

Barry,  I know the original history, it is part of my point.  You have the PS-1 and other non command units covered with the current line of PS-2 kits.  As PS-3 engines come out in greater numbers, it is going to be easier to buy a PS-2 engine of the same version as your PS-1.

 

I know marketing has pushed the idea of these PS-3 upgrade kits.  The only advantage I see is if your going after the DC, DCC O Crowd, and maybe the S guy.  But still I think you want them to buy a new Train first.  Put out those PS-3 kits, and I think a large amount of sales of trains could be lost.

 

What do you mean cosmetically, are you talking features?  The PS-1 stuff I have converted sure looks pretty good, especially in the premier line.  MTH has some pretty neat CV boards, you just did not have full control.  Like I said time will tell.  G

Put out those PS-3 kits, and I think a large amount of sales of trains could be lost.

 

I also feel if they don't put out PS2 or PS3 kits, a large amount of sales could be lost.

 

I see a rising angst among people who have shelf queens because the electronics don't work in their $1K+ engines.  They don't want to spend another $1K and have the same thing happen a couple of years down the road.

 

I have 3 PS2 engines and 4 conventional engines.  I really want to upgrade the 4 to PS2/3 (at approx $800 just for the kits) but at the same time if just 1 of my current PS2 engines dies, my feeling is to yank the stuff out and run DC to the tracks.  At least I wouldn't have spent anymore money and I would still be able to run trains.

 

We (manufacturers and buyers) are all at fault for wanting all these gadgets.  It's an addiction that has no easy cure once the ball gets rolling.  If the manufacturers are perceived as only wanting our $$$ and not caring how their product holds up, I think they're going to lose on just more than sales.  Goodwill towards your customers counts, may count even more than the bells and whistles

 

That's why I have been suggesting to make the PS2/PS3/TMCC/Legacy electronics a plug-in package.  Plug it in to run via Command control or unplug it and run via DC transformer.

What do you mean cosmetically, are you talking features

No, cosmetically, as in details. PS1 Premier engines look plain as compared to early PS2, and early PS2 look the same vs. newer PS2.

 

Further, PS3 electronics open the door for more hardware features on forthcoming PS3 engines that cannot be retrofitted  into earlier engines.

 

 Yes, I was referring to the Aristo "Train Engineer" in terms of a simple, bullet proof wireless control which I have also enjoyed in G gauge. After having left G on the shelf for tinplate O when my interest was renewed in G, (as GGG mentioned), I was nicely surprised to find plug and play DCC as an option for most G engines now.

 

It is not forced down your throat so to speak, but it can be retrofitted without a lot of nonsense. Lionel and MTH for all their presumptions of "cutting edge" electronica are both doing the O segment of the hobby by all this hard wiring stuff into a take it or leave it approach, with no upgrades.

 

It is the subject of a growing awareness in the threads I read that this is an Achilles Heel as HO and G seem to leave O in the dust as far as plug and play. They are shooting themselves in the foot for short term financial gain in my opinion. All the word smithing about supporting the O hobby seems pretty lackluster coming from them when they are using a state of the art technology in a 1950"s hard wired manner rather than plug and play.

The key to the ps2 boards that are damaged is not repair not replace the board..... Yea you might need an BSEE but all of the parts to make the board are cheap. In my experience the processor does bot go bad. Usually us the power electronics on the board. Diodes, v reg, relay and fets

To repair** not replace

I have the Aristo Craft system installed in 10 of my O gauge Williams engines and it works great.  Very simple to install and run

I'm running the definitive test on my DCS now.  I have a second TIU, also Rev. L, and I'm running the same tests.  So far, no issues in about 1/2 hour...

New data point.  It appears that something that one or both of the locomotives does locks up the TIU.  I ran both, and one thing that seems to trigger this much faster is using the DISPATCH feature to talk through the active engine.  After some running, I got to the same point as with the other TIU. This appears to eliminate a hardware issue as this is the second Rev. L TIU to do the same thing.

 

At this point, I unplugged track power on the output of the TIU but did not power down the TIU.  The TIU still didn't respond to the remote.  Power cycling the remote did not bring it back either.  The only thing that brings it back is turning off the TIU power and then bringing it up again.

 

No, it was not stuck in DISPATCH, the display was normal on the remote.

 

I can't imagine why the TIU would be in la-la land with no connection to the track, even if the locomotives were sending it something strange previously.  They're certainly not sending anything to it at this point!

Hi John,

 

Now that we have eliminated the TIU as a possible cause I am virtually certain the problem is with one of your remotes.  It is virtually impossible for the engines to cause this behavior.  It is HIGHLY likely that one of the remotes (could be either one) has a MIC button that is too sensitive.  The dispatch feature is being triggered intermittently by the defective button.  What is likely happening is that the remote is sending the "dispatch on" and "dispatch off" commands randomly and frequently.  The TIU is probably getting confused and locking up in "dispatch on," which as Barry mentioned earlier disables the other remote communications.

 

If you want to test this theory you can open the remotes and put a piece of masking tape on the contact pads for the MIC button.  If the problem goes away than we can look at a proper fix.  If not, you will have eliminated the most likely cause.

Well Dave, I'd believe that except that both remotes and both TIU's did exactly the same thing.  Now, if you're telling me that the two remotes both have the exact problem, then I'll have to agree to disagree.  I'd buy it if it were just one.  I'll stop short of saying it's impossible, but I sure think it's highly improbable.  In addition, since it appears to me that for some reason the use of the dispatch feature accelerates the onset of this issue, I don't know that I want to disable it totally.

 

I do agree that it clearly isn't a hardware problem with the TIU, same logic applies.  If two pieces of equipment yield the same result, then I look for something common between them.

 

In this case, I'm seeing the software in the remote and the TIU as the thing that is the same in both.  I wonder how often the dispatch feature is actually used, other than fooling around when you first get the remote.

 

It does mystify me why the remote can't talk to the TIU when this happens, which is why I lean to something going to LA-LA land in the TIU.  Since powering down the remote and turning it back on doesn't change things, I have to suspect the TIU as my top suspect.  Note also, early in the debugging I turned off one of the remotes and turned the other one on and tried to talk to the TIU with that one, that failed as well.  By your logic that the TIU can't be locked up, I'd think the second remote would have brought things back to normal.  Hard to believe it spontaneously started sending dispatch commands right from power up.  Just powercycling the TIU brought everything back to life, I didn't touch the remote.  If the remote was sending the dispatch randomly, even though I didn't see it, there would be no reason for it to stop when I powered down the TIU.

 

I'd like to figure out a way to make this repeatable in a shorter period of time, then it might also be easier to track down a cause.

 

I'm like a bulldog here, I'm going to get to the bottom of this!  It would be easy to throw up my hands and sell both remotes and TIU's, they're in demand.  However, I'm not letting them off that easy!

John, you just don't understand how the system works.

 

The remote sends out the commands to start/stop the dispatch feature.  The TIU and locomotives take action based on those commands.  What I'm suggesting is that the TIU is getting confused by errant commands from one or both (agreed, likely only one) of the remotes with a defective button.  The TIU is supposed to isolate it's communications to only one remote when the dispatch feature is turned on.  If the TIU is getting confused by a bunch of on/off commands it might just be locking out the remote with the bad button as well.  In such a case, the power off/on cycle to the TIU would be the only solution just as you described.

 

Well Dave, I'd believe that except that both remotes and both TIU's did exactly the same thing.

A bad MIC button on either remote could do this with any TIU.  You don't have to be using both remotes.  All that needs to happen is for a bad one to be turned on.  You might not have to even touch it if the button is bad.

 

In addition, since it appears to me that for some reason the use of the dispatch feature accelerates the onset of this issue, I don't know that I want to disable it totally.

That detail only serves to reinforce my theory.  You're adding extra dispatch commands.

 

If two pieces of equipment yield the same result, then I look for something common between them.

Yep, the remotes are still the same.  They are a common factor.

 

It does mystify me why the remote can't talk to the TIU when this happens, which is why I lean to something going to LA-LA land in the TIU.

Nope.  This too reinforces my theory because the dispatch feature is the only one that normally cuts communications to other remotes.

 

Since powering down the remote and turning it back on doesn't change things, I have to suspect the TIU as my top suspect.

Not any more.  Now that you've tried two TIU's it's time to look elsewhere.  You're now looking for something that induces the behavior in the TIU, not the TIU itself.

 

Note also, early in the debugging I turned off one of the remotes and turned the other one on and tried to talk to the TIU with that one, that failed as well.

That also fits with my theory.  Once the TIU gets confused it cuts off communication with all remotes.  No matter what you do with the remotes, once you've passed that threshold they will have no impact on the TIU.

 

By your logic that the TIU can't be locked up, I'd think the second remote would have brought things back to normal.

Nope. That's not my logic.  That's you jumping to a conclusion.  Perhaps I could have stated this differently, but you're drawing links that I'm not.

 

Hard to believe it spontaneously started sending dispatch commands right from power up.

Not hard at all.  A bad MIC button would likely send commands as soon as the remote was powered up.

 

Just powercycling the TIU brought everything back to life, I didn't touch the remote.

Yep.  My theory is that the remote is inducing a failure in the TIU which cuts off all communications at the TIU. Once that happens, only recycling the TIU would relieve the problem.

 

If the remote was sending the dispatch randomly, even though I didn't see it, there would be no reason for it to stop when I powered down the TIU.

Oh yes there is.  I'm suggesting the remote is sending the commands early and often and never stops as long as it's turned on.  The TIU dose it's best to follow along with the errant commands but eventually looses track and thus looses contact with all the remotes.  Once that happens, only recycling the TIU would relieve the problem.

 

There's a whole lot of experience going into this suggest.  All of the behavior you have described and all the nuance of how DCS functions could well fit with a bad MIC button.  Very little of what you have described could be explained by a bad engine or TIU.  You can choose to try my suggestion or not.  I don't care.  If you really want solve this you should care.  If you try my suggest I will try to help you whether it works or not.  If you choose not to try it I won't darken the doorstep of this thread any longer.  You've got an interesting problem, which as i said earlier I have never seen before.  I would really like to see you get to the bottom of this so you can enjoy your trains and we can all learn something new.  If you're not interested in taking advice I won't bother offering it.

Just out of curiousity were the 2 remotes used or new?  It is a shame there is no one with DCS near you.  You could take your 2 remotes and operate their system and see what happens, or take your TIU and use their remotes.

 

At this point the troubleshooting technique is not really removing anything as a fault.

 

While a much, much lower probability, the dual fault has not be removed either.

 

So pull the batteries out of one remote and operate the other.  Then switch up if this doesn't solve the issue.  Then pick one remote with the other having batteries removed and try Dave suggestion of taping over the mic button.  G

Well, when I get the other TIU and remote back, I'll try actually removing the batteries from the one not in use.  I am 100% sure I had the one not in use turned off, and it's pretty hard to believe with a blank display that it was still actively sending, but I suppose anything's possible.

 

Taking the remote apart to get to the switch contacts is way down my list of things I want to do, sometimes those membrane keyboards don't take well to being disassembled and fooled with.

 

The MTH tech has cracked the code I believe.  Apparently, there is an issue in the DCS system where the DISPATCH mode gets stuck in the TIU.  It's not a sticking button, but rather something about the TIU software operation.  If you key the mic a few times it's supposed to unlock it.  I've yet to test that theory, but I'm going to.  I have the TIU back, so now I just have to do some testing to see if that fits the final piece into the puzzle.

The MTH tech has cracked the code I believe.  Apparently, there is an issue in the DCS system where the DISPATCH mode gets stuck in the TIU

From my post on this thread of May 27...

 

John,

 

Be aware that when you depress and hold the Mic button, the remote will become completely non-repsonsive.

 

Further, this will also happen, occasionally, when the button is depressed and released. The Mic can get "hung up" and needs to be pressed and released agin in order for the remote to be able to issue commands once again.

 

Coincidentally, the above matches your reported symptoms.

The difference is I did press it a couple of times with no change. I'm going to try to duplicate it again and keep pressing the button to see if it ever recovers.  I'm also wondering if one or both of my locomotives were contributing to the issue in some manner.  I'll try to get the same combo failing, and now that I have another one, when I get it working properly, I'll try the same thing with that one.  Also, the audio wasn't simply the feature sticking, because the background audio was coming through with the static pops interspersed.  It didn't sound like what the DISPATCH sounds like.

 

I think that "feature" needs a lot of work!  I'm guessing that it's simply a low priority that hasn't been worked on.  Clearly, this is not a hardware issue, but rather a software thing that just hasn't been addressed.

 

I have since run for two-three hours with no issues by simply avoiding ever using the DISPATCH feature.  Truthfully, with what I know now, I'd like to somehow disable it totally so that it could never be used by accident.