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Gave a friend a new Legacy controller. Hooked the "one" ground wire to the outside rail of his track, plugged in the unit, and it worked with the new Legacy loco. But....

 

Now, from time to time, we will power up and not only will the Legacy unit not operate the Legacy loco, but the track won't power up. The Fastrack switches light but look very dim. The older non-command control locos will not power up.

 

Then, we will unhook the "one" wire running from the Legacy controller to the outside rail and all locos will run fine in conventional mode.

 

We are running Fastrack and a new ZF with 2 power bricks. We are not seeing any breaker throws on the bricks, although we have been turning them off and resetting power. Sometimes, when power is turned off and we re-connect the "one" wire, Legacy and conventional will work fine for a few power-ups, and then we're back to the problem. We putting sufficient power to the tracks to work correctly in Legacy mode when we try that--at least 18v.

 

What amazes me is that disconnecting the "one" wire would have any effect on power to the track at all, or conventional operation of locos that are not command control units. (When I say not command control, I mean older Lionel units from the 1950s and early '60s that are transformer operated only units.)

 

We have tried everything we can think of, but we HAVE NOT yet run a ground wire from the Legacy unit to the green ground on the electrical outlet. Would that help? Any other thoughts?

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I believe they will send you the chip for free.  At least they were.  Installation is not as bad as it looks.  I did disassemble the entire unit but could have just installed it from the top.  As I said with a little patience and care you can do it just by removing the lid.

 

I would check and see what the chip on the ZW is marked.

Last edited by MartyE
Originally Posted by quick:

Gave a friend a new Legacy controller. Hooked the "one" ground wire to the outside rail of his track, plugged in the unit, and it worked with the new Legacy loco.

 

We have tried everything we can think of, but we HAVE NOT yet run a ground wire from the Legacy unit to the green ground on the electrical outlet. Would that help?

Bill, don't be too quick,

Although Marty and John seem to have a handle on your problem, I noticed the above in your post.

 

DO NOT attach a wire from an earth-ground point (such as the screw of an electrical outlet) to the Legacy (or TMCC) base. This will short out the command signal.

Any true earth-ground wire, used to enhance the radio transmission between the base and engine, must be isolated from the track common (which you called "ground to the outside rail of his track").

 

Dave

 

Thanks for the extra thought.

 

The Legacy base and the power bricks run through a grounded three prong surge protector into a three prong grounded outlet and our tester shows it is properly grounded.

 

As to antenna wire, I checked my layout and I do run the wire from the outlet ground under my problem tunnel. It does not touch the Legacy base or the track itself. My friend has not done an antenna yet, but so far this has not been an issue.  His layout is simple and has no tunnels or inclines.

 

The chip problem is correct, I feel certain. The problem with track  power in conventional mode until we unhook the Legacy base from the track points clearly to this issue.

 

Thanks again--this forum is a great resource.

My experience with the ZWC is the layout would power up very briefly and shut down or if I "dialed up" the power it would come up and drop. 

 

What was getting me is there were some days where I would get power and be running and then out of the blue the power would drop.

 

Hopefully that is all it is and you'll be up and running soon.  Let us know what you find.

Originally Posted by MartyE:

My experience with the ZWC is the layout would power up very briefly and shut down or if I "dialed up" the power it would come up and drop. 

 

What was getting me is there were some days where I would get power and be running and then out of the blue the power would drop.

 

Hopefully that is all it is and you'll be up and running soon.  Let us know what you find.

That is exactly how this situation works--runs sometimes, not others. Your diagnosis seems spot on.

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