Sound goes crazy on new Army 400E

RA while in warranty

Joe Gozzo

Well.. It is army..

Request an RA. They will make it right.

That's pretty interesting.  I guess I'd first do a factory reset and see if it gets it's mind right.  If that doesn't do it, consider reloading the sound and chain files.  Finally, if all else fails, then I'd send it back, but I hate to ship things if a simple reset or code load will fix them.

It does sound like a temperature related failure, does it always take a couple minutes to go nuts or will it fail quicker if it's been warmed up?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

That's pretty interesting.  I guess I'd first do a factory reset and see if it gets it's mind right.  If that doesn't do it, consider reloading the sound and chain files.  Finally, if all else fails, then I'd send it back, but I hate to ship things if a simple reset or code load will fix them.

It does sound like a temperature related failure, does it always take a couple minutes to go nuts or will it fail quicker if it's been warmed up?

Temperature? Of electronics?

Joe Gozzo

Yes, the board components warm up fairly quickly under power.  It's very common for temperature related failures to pop up.

Steve "Papa" Eastman posted:

Any idea what’s going on here? If I start up and start running right away, no issue. If it sits idling  after start up, after abut two minutes the sound goes crazy. This has been since it came out of the box. Don’t know if it’s related, but smoke is erratic. From mediocre to poor. To add insult, it’s already broken a traction tire, that’s the easy part. Any suggestion or do I request a RA.

Steve

 

I am sure MTH will resolve. I had to ship a 400E back twice due to Motor and shaft not being properly seated at factory. As we all know it is not cheap to ship a 400E to the east coast due to size and weight. I contacted the Operations Manager there and they sent a call tag the second time going back, so that I would not have to pay for freight. Engine runs great now.

Joe Gozzo

gunrunnerjohn posted:

That's pretty interesting.  I guess I'd first do a factory reset and see if it gets it's mind right.  If that doesn't do it, consider reloading the sound and chain files.  Finally, if all else fails, then I'd send it back, but I hate to ship things if a simple reset or code load will fix them.

It does sound like a temperature related failure, does it always take a couple minutes to go nuts or will it fail quicker if it's been warmed up?

Did the resets, no change. If I put it in "idle" after some running, it goes nuts sooner than if I do it when it's cold. I've e-mailed MTH, waiting a response

Steve

Sounds like a classic temperature related failure, so I suspect a trip to MTH is in it's future.

Steve,

I tried to replicate your problem with my Blue Comet 400e with Protosounds 3. I ran it for 45 minutes, let it idle for 15 minutes, nothing weird happened.

Not the same engine, but I had a similar sound experience with my new Bush 4141 engine when I was testing it recently.  My experience didn't seem to have to do with temperature though, and I recognized I had a particularly crappy DCS signal for whatever reason(probably 2 to maybe 4).   (regular loop of tubular, with no gap insulating pin anywhere on the center pin, so I am asking for trouble with multi path going on with the DCS signal - though I've used it like this before with relative success (few missed commands/not on track once in a while) and never heard any odd garbling like this) 

I was also simultaneously using Legacy to manipulate the power the ZW-L I was using to feed power to the track.  Not 100% sure this specifically hurt things, but what I did next seemed to help, so I mention it (just in case you are using a ZW-L or maybe other TMCC track control items simultaneously).

I took the ZW-L out of command mode and dialed up the voltage manually from the handle and also added a lighted lock on the the track (I know it's not as good as doing proper block isolation to avoid the multi path, but I figured it was worth a shot).

After I did that, I was able to have a decent length operating session going for a bunch of laps around the track and activating all the special sounds in the engine, and I don't think I had a recurrence of the garbling.  (Maybe I did when I entered the track signal test mode, but it made it through normal operation for a while).

Might not be relevant to your specific situation (I would assume your layout setup is way more "DCS friendly" than my floor loop is), but the random garbling of sounds was very close to what you show here.

-Dave

Thanks for sharing Dave. In my case, it happens on 3 different layouts. None of my other P3 400E's have the issue. Still no response from MTH.

Steve

Still had not heard from MTH as of this morning, so I called and was able to get through. Sam gave me his e-mail address so I mailed him a link to the video. Hopefully we can make some progress now.

Steve

Have seen a couple examples where this weird behavior in sounds occur with PS-3.  I think a simple reload of SF might resolve this.  I just had an FEF that I upgraded to PS-32 with a PS-3 SF.  Tested a few times in conventional and DCS and all was fine.  Shipped back to CA, and it exhibited weird sound effects and no chuff or not consistent.  Factory resets would not resolve.  So before shipping back, resent the SF.  Customer had it reloaded and that resolved all issues.  So may be worth doing that before shipping.  G

If you shut it down and start it back up right away, are the sounds correct? If so, it is not a temperature related issue, it's a software issue. I have an AF piper with PS3. When I got it, several of the sound effects sounded like static. Some of these effects sequence when the engine has been idle for a while. I used San Diego Mark's sound editing tool and found that the specific sound effects were loaded with the wrong sampling rate designation in the file. There are two sampling rate types. All I did was change the type designation in the file and reload it to the engine and everything worked. 

You could try a different sound file from another PS3 400e. Save the one you have first.

George

Yep, just listened to it. That's a sound file problem. Same thing that happened to me. You can play the static manually by hitting the right soft key on the remote for the wrongly coded sound.

George

I originally said codec, it is actually the sampling rate. Here is the thread where I explained how I changed it.

https://ogrforum.com/...es-on-your-pc?page=2

The special sounds are designated in the file as 4 bit, but they are actually 24 bit. The PS3 board is trying to play them at 4 bit based on the sound file designation, so that's why you hear static.

George

I ran into the same problem with a steam kit ps32 board I installed in an engine a while back, and would not run In convectional plus sounds were wrong after loading the correct files again. turns out I had to reflash  the board again and do a factory reset  after reloading the sound files then all worked perfectly!

Thanks G & George, however I have no clue how to or what is needed to do it.

Steve

Fixing the sound file may be a little advanced if it's not your thing. I can do that for you (no charge). Contact me offline.

You will still need to be able to load a sound file. That is done with the DCS Loader program attached to a PC. It's a similar process to upgrading a TIU. If you don't do this yourself, best option is to find a local MTH Authorized Shop to do it for you. GGG (the other George) can fix your engine if you send it to him as well.

George

Got an in warranty RA from MTH. Now where is that darn box?

Steve

It came back from MTH yesterday. They replaced the PS3 board. I had also mention the smoke being erratic. They replaced the wick and impeller. Also replaced a traction tire that had broke on its last run. So far seems to work as it should.

Steve

I am glad to hear it is fixed.