RESOLVED- PS3 Works in Conventional but not in DCS

Mack, I had this happen on a PS-2 and it turned out that I had not properly connected the tie bar to the tender.  Not sure what you have but check that out, I had your exact symptoms.  Now very careful to be sure of my connection.  

Take it to someone with a full DCS and see if you can find it.

Thanks for your suggestions, Gentlemen; much appreciated.

I believe that I have confirmed it's an issue with the board and not a bad drawbar connection, broken wire, etc.

I removed the PS3 board and put in a known good PS3 board and she fired right up in DCS. I then put the "bad" board in the engine from which I took the good board and got nothing.

Is this possible for the DCS functions to fail but all functions work in conventional (or at least the functions available in conventional)? Is there a way a tech can identify the failure point(s) and even repair them?

I'll contact GGG and see if he thinks it's worth sending to him to look at.

Thanks again,

Mack

did you try a feature reset and conventional reset?

You need to do a factory reset with the full DCS system.  If the engine was used in DCS before you acquired it, it was assigned an Id number in the remote.  The remote DCS commander only talks to engines that are at the factory default setting.  There was a way to do the factory reset with the remote DCS commander with a particular 3 button combination on later PS3 boards, but the combination eludes me at the moment.

mrmacher posted: There was a way to do the factory reset with the remote DCS commander with a particular 3 button combination on later PS3 boards, but the combination eludes me at the moment. 

Thanks again to everyone who has replied.

Jon- thanks; I will try this when I get home tonight. Just so I understand, I hit Sound button and then immediately DIR button and lastly the "-" in the speed rocker? As it is currently, it is "dead" when on tracks when connected to track with DCS Remote Commander; no sounds, etc. So this reset, if successful, would power it up and get 2 whistle blasts?

Just found this in thread from 2016:https://ogrforum.com/...mander-and-resetting

Hi Mack,

Your board swap was a good diagnostic.  Try the reset as Jon G suggested.  If you can visit or borrow a full DCS set, you should also try loading the engine into a DCS remote.  If the engine won't add into the remote, you can attempt an engine recovery.

MENU>SYSTEM>ENGINE SETUP>RECOVER ENGINE (TIU MUST be set to address 1)

If the engine recovery doesn't work, the board needs to go back to MTH.  The board hardware is likely fine, but needs to have the firmware re-flashed.  This is a lower level software problem that can't be fixed with the DSC Loader program.  MTH has a special programming fixture and loader program that is able to re-flash parts of the memory witch are off limits for the DCS Loader program.

I've seen this issue with a few PS3 engines.  Usually, MTH can get your board operating properly for much less than the cost of a board replacement.

mack posted:

Thanks again to everyone who has replied.

Jon- thanks; I will try this when I get home tonight. Just so I understand, I hit Sound button and then immediately DIR button and lastly the "-" in the speed rocker? As it is currently, it is "dead" when on tracks when connected to track with DCS Remote Commander; no sounds, etc. So this reset, if successful, would power it up and get 2 whistle blasts?

 

That is correct.  Knowing the item number will determine when it was cataloged and has the correct DSP code.

A sincere thank you to everyone for the guidance, suggestions and advice. I could not do the reset with the remote commander. Reset with z1000 got the two blasts, but did not activate DCS.

I am sending to George (GGG) . I will close the loop with an end to this story when I hear from George.

again, thanks so much!

SUCCESS!

Sent board to George (GGG). While I was certain to make sure the DCS/DCC switch was set to DCS, I completely failed to notice that the board had no jumper; hence no DCS (but did have DCC). George installed the jumper, did the factory reset and changed the sound file that I specified  and is sending back. 

Thanks again to everyone for their suggestions and advice.

Mack