Progress on first Proto2 upgrade project

Sounds like great work.  Use small zip ties and bundle all the wires, beware of the heatsinks.

Another suggestion is to use a small drill to make twisted pairs of wires where it is possible.

If you have a local ASC the dealer loader can burn the same of the loco in the chip so it will always show up in the DCS handheld.  This feature is not available in the consumer loader.

Next time I'll put the tach reader at the opposite end from the circuit board so those wires don't crowd it.

Can I safely cut off all the wires I'm not using, like for the MARS light, smoke unit, and their associated ground wires, without messing up the processor?  That would cut down on the number of wires.  I've two bundles of unused Molex connectors wrapped up with tape in that rats nest would sure like to cut out

If a wire is not going anywhere, rather than cutting it off (presumably you're thinking near the connector to the board) I'd pop each wire out of the housing.  First pull out the connector from the board.

Each wire going into the housing has a retention clip.  With the point of an x-acto knife or small jeweler's screwdriver you can lift the plastic finger for each unused wire and the wire will easily pull out along with the crimp.  Save these crimped wires as you might need them on your next project.

Thanks; didn't know one could do it this way!

"Now arriving on track #1, train #152 The Afternoon Congressional!"

Success!

After a false start trying to use a 5v file, found the 3v file and it loaded.

All functions operational.

Now for some wire management cleanup when the BCR2 arrives and we're good to go!

Thanks to all for your help and advice.

If I can do one of these upgrades, as little as I know about these systems, so can you!

The sense of accomplishment alone is worth the price of the admission.

And the wife is happy I didn't trash her GG1

When you add the GG1 in the DCS no name will come up only an address.  Un-fortunately the consumer loader will not send serial data or engine ID information.

I went into Edit Engine Name for engine id#6, which was blank,  and entered "PRR GG1 #4765" and it took.

That works locally for your DCS handheld.  Do not be alarmed if you go to a club or a buddy's layout it will come up with no name.

Barry I have had no luck with pushing the engine name from the DCS handheld to the memory on the processor board.  

TIU & handheld programming is all current and if I use the edit name function most times we experience freesing of the remote.  Customers have told me about the same issue.

I usually just send the serial data with the dealer loader to the loco, "on the house."

Any tips for edit name?

What I'll probably do is take the approach of adding all my upgraded locomotives to Remote 1 first, then clone it to backup and download that backup into Remote 2, and change it's ID back to 2 when done.

As we don't take our locomotives to the club layout, we should be fine.

Kerrigan,

 change it's ID back to 2 when done.

Restoring a copy of a remote into another remote doesn't change the receiving remote's ID#.

Thanks Barry, another step saved!  Don't know why I didn't notice that ..

Barry, are you sure?  I haven't used the newest loader yet, but I'm rather certain the last time I did a bunch of these the first step in the process was to reset the receiving Remote, which did reset the Remote ID to #1,

Gary,

Regardless of what you may have heard, it's not necessary to reset the remote before copying a backup of another remote into it, and the restore process won't reset the remote by itself.

Well, interesting thing happened.  I decided to add the upgraded GG1 to remote 2 before turning on remote 1 where it "lived".

I did an "Add MTH Engine" function and it added to remote 2 with the new engine name I had put into remote 1, and the same engine number 6, even though 2 was available on remote 2.

The new name must live in the locomotive and/or TIU as well as remote 1 ...

Kerrigan,

The new name must live in the locomotive and/or TIU as well as remote 1

Not exactly.

The Custom Name "lives" in the engine and gets put into the remote when the engine is added to it.

This and a whole lot more is all in "The DCS O Gauge Companion 2nd Edition", now available for purchase as an eBook or a printed book from MTH's web store site! Click on the link below to go to MTH's web page for the book!

Barry,

I don't remember that I did the reset.  I was remembering it was done by the loader as part of the upload process.  Probably a senior moment on my part.

ary,

Possibly you're remembering that the Loader Program resets an engine when it's either been recovered or when a new sound file is loaded to it.

The GG went from this to this ... way too many wires!

I really need to get back into it and chop off a lot of the excess wires, and shorten some.  Trying to figure out how to re-use the spring pads for the cab mounted lighting.  Couldn't get the wires to remove from the connectors to the Proto2 unit, the little-tab-with-exacto-knife-point trick didn't work for me.  They wouldn't come out.

I do have your first edition of the book and find it a helpful source of information.  Printed it and bound it.  Didn't find a way to get an update without purchasing a new copy, which I assume is mostly a Proto3 update?

Kerrigan,

The new name must live in the locomotive and/or TIU as well as remote 1

Not exactly.

 

The Custom Name "lives" in the engine and gets put into the remote when the engine is added to it.

 

This and a whole lot more is all in "The DCS O Gauge Companion 2nd Edition", now available for purchase as an eBook or a printed book from MTH's web store site! Click on the link below to go to MTH's web page for the book!

 

http://www.mthtrains.com/content/60-1279

 

Kerrigan,

Didn't find a way to get an update without purchasing a new copy, which I assume is mostly a Proto3 update?

Not exactly.

The 2nd edition has more than 25% more information than the 1st edition (215 pages vs. 168) and includes, in addition to 2 new chapters - one for HO/PS3/DCS Commander and the other for the DCS Remote Commander - there are many, many other additions, corrections, typos and new information.