Replacing older TIU with new one

Your new TIU should be set to TIU 1. That said, if you want to have it as TIU 3 you can change it to TIU 3, but it won't have anything on it so you'll have to re-add everything.  It really makes no difference whether you use 1 or 3.

Appendix J of Barry's DCS companion book details the exact procedure required to replace a TIU without losing anything in your remote or having to re-add everything to your remote. The only thing the TIU stores (and you will lose) is any play/record session you may have created for that TIU.

I don't have the DCS book...I was hoping someone could give me any important tip...if not, I'll just swap out the old TIU#3 and plug in the new TIU#1. I think I need to add it to the DCS remote and hopefully am back in business. I trust I wouldn't need to re-add all the engines and lashups...that'd stink.

You add the TIU to your remote - everything stays in the REMOTE’S memory. Delete the old TIU. You’re good to go.  You can renumber the new TIU too. You’ll need to make sure the new TIU is in super tiu mode via the menu if you have multiple TIUs.

Thanks Jeff! That's good to know.

FWIW: after adding the new TIU to the remote, it did not recognize any of the former PS3 engines. I then deleted the old TIU - thinking that would help, but in doing this it deleted all engines associated with that TIU. As I add them back via the new TIU, its auto-assigning them to their previous # in the old TIU.

Are you sure you're not resetting the remote?  The engines and their numbers are stored in the individual remotes.  I use my remote on my workbench TIU to work on engines, when I put them on the layout, if I use the same remote, they're right there and ready to go.  If I pick up one of the other layout remotes, I have to add the engines again.  I've swapped out the layout TIU several times, never lost any engines from the remotes.

GRJ, I definitely did not reset remote.

When you swap out your TIUs are they all numbered #1?

When I did deleted the older TIU#3, it did give me a message to the effect of "...all engines associated with this TIU will be lost (deleted)..." something like that. That leads me to believe engines in remotes are associated with a TIU.

If you are replacing TIU #3, then your new TIU should be set to TIU#3 before you do anything else. (Do it off the layout and with the other TIUs off.) Then swap your new TUI for the old TIU#3. Everything should pick up right where you left off, as the remote stores the engine assignments, not the TIU. The problem is the remote also associates an engine with a specific TIU address. When you replaced your #3 with a #1, that association was broken. So any engine previously entered that was associated with TIU #3 needs to be deleted and reentered. It will now be associated with TIU#1. BTDT.

Chris

LVHR

@lehighline posted:

If you are replacing TIU #3, then your new TIU should be set to TIU#3 before you do anything else. (Do it off the layout and with the other TIUs off.) Then swap your new TUI for the old TIU#3. Everything should pick up right where you left off, as the remote stores the engine assignments, not the TIU. The problem is the remote also associates an engine with a specific TIU address. When you replaced your #3 with a #1, that association was broken. So any engine previously entered that was associated with TIU #3 needs to be deleted and reentered. It will now be associated with TIU#1. BTDT.

Chris

LVHR

Perfectly stated! The only thing I'll add is in order to properly replace/swap a TIU like this is the need for second or spare DCS remote (this can also be done with a WIU & the DCS App). When doing this on that spare remote, any associations with engines that were found on TIU1 will be lost when you change TIU1 to TIU3, but only on the second / spare remote.

Well stated Chris.  I skipped over that part as I have a number of remotes, and I routinely clear the workbench remote and freely swap it's configuration regularly.  I did indeed have them both configured as #1 when they were swapped in.

I learned this the hard way when we were dealing with multiple TUIs and multiple remotes on our modular layout. That's why the engine add track (off the layout) and the layout TIU have the same TIU address. The other requirements were 1) you had connect your remote to the Add engine TIU with a tether, and 2) a pad was kept with the Add engine TIU to keep track of what engine addresses were used. If you added an engine that had an address on the list, you had to change it to an unused prior to placing it on the layout. Then the associations work and you do not have more than one engine with the same address at the same time.

Chris

LVHR

Given that the engines are stored in the remotes, it's pretty "iffy" when you start swapping stuff anyway.  For DCS, I routinely reset the remotes so I don't have overlapping and duplicate engine numbers.  I'm sure there's a "logical" method to keep them all straight, but it's not logical to me.

In addition, having 40-50 engines in the remote gets a bit confusing to find the one you want to run.  I prefer to have the ones that are in use at the time in the remote and the others on the shelf just on the shelf.   It's not difficult to add a new engine, so I just add them when I want to run them.

This is all making sense now...thanks all.

Another nice function is the refresh button. It will show active vs inactive engines on the remote.

lol, this was like solving a puzzle...and the only way I could've solved this was to have first changed TIU#3 to #1 (or use another remote that didn't have TIU#3 in it).

I still like DCS for the digital readout of the remote.

Actually, no. First thing to do is backup your remote to a computer. The DCS loader has that feature, IIRC. Then tether your remote to the new TIU. Delete the existing TIU3 from the remote, which also deletes all the associations that go with it. Renumber the new TIU to address 3. You now have a blank TIU 3. Go back to the DCS loader and download you saved TUI 3 data to it.  You are back in business.

Chris

LVHR