smoke on/off affecting lights is a known 4.30 issue

Bill, this is what happens: when the smoke is turned off, the headlights, boiler, marker, interior lights also go off.  Happens in 4.2 and 4.3.  I communicated this to MTH some months ago and I have recently been told that it has been cured in the next release.

The only workaround is to not turn the smoke on; then it won't have to be turned off.  It takes a lot of effort and time to get all the lights working again.  A feature reset brings them back, but also the smoke.

RJR,

Thanks, it seems like that was not exactly what was happening to me fortunately!

Because to:

not turn the smoke on

would be like squeezing all the life, joy and happiness out of my steamers! 

Be like Bill Clinton:  "I didn't inhale."

Bill,

A few comments or clarifications...

First, this doesn't happen with all DCS engines. I've seen it happen primarily with some of my steamers, particularly where the PS2 or PS3 board is in the tender, rather than the boiler. This is not a hard and fast rule, rather, it's my personal observation.

Second, when it occurs with a steamer, it appears to be only the lights of the engine that are affected, not the tender. This would include the engine's headlight, marker/classification lights, number board lights, interior light, and firebox glow.

Third, it is not something that happens every time that the remote's smoke button is pressed. It is quite intermittent, and may occur more or less often on different layouts.

Fourth, if you like to run with smoke, as do I, just ensure that the conventional smoke switch or potentiometer on your DCS engines is turned on or fully turned up. The engine will use that as a default for DCS startup until you change it under DCS. That allows you to ensure that smoke will default to "on" at every startup.

Last, this bug has not yet been corrected in beta. Although the current beta fixes several things, we (the beta testers) don't have beta that has this fixed.

I have it occur in locos both with tender board and loco board (including a certain PS2 Northern, Barry).  Not sure if tender lights are affected.  On my steamers, it occurs every time smoke is turned off.  I have no smoking diesels.  It happens whenever grandkids think Gramps isn't looking and turn on smoke, which I never do, and then smoke gets turned off.

RJR, the smoke unit heater has a plug.

Good point, GRJ, if you want a permanent shutoff.  But Bill is looking for a workaround.

Barry,

So workaround is easy just leave the engines smoke switch on. 

My engine actually did have the smoke switch set to off (only because I had not looked at the switch yet)

Thanks again Barry  and RJR for your help.

I think I have what I need.

This engine was bought new,  but "old stock" Dreyfuss with I believe has the 5 volts boards and the split with tender and engine.  So it matches your criteria.  Also seems intermittent.  (20-3045-1)

So long as I can just start with Smoke on I am a happy camper, cause I do love that MTH smoke.

PS will keep my eyes open for 4.3.1 release as well.

Barry, I have experienced the same problem with my PS2 Premier Big Boy.  I don't know when it first happened.  I ran it with the smoke, but with my sinuses I had to turn the smoke off.  I first noticed the lights not working when I wanted to show off my progress on the layout.   The engine's headlight, marker/classification lights, number board lights, interior light, and firebox glow no longer work.  The tender light comes on when the unit is reversed and the smoke will come back on when I turn it on.  Sometimes when I start up the layout some of my engines come to life on their own and I have to shut them down and restart with the remote.  The lights never did come back on.

I have experienced the same problem with my PS2 Premier Big Boy.

A Feature Reset will turn all of the lights back on.

Bill,

I own that engine. It has the PS2 board in the engine, not in the tender.

Thanks Barry, I will try that.

jmiller, while the feature reset will bring the lights back, when I did it the smoke came back also.  For me, it took a lot of presses on the buttons for the individual lights to get them all back on.  Happens on both PS2 & PS3.