Troubleshooting DZ data wire driver & 2500s

I had an issue when mixing old dz 2500 from some years back with recent new dz 2500 ones and they wouldn’t work together and caused issues, Sometimes if you have a bad dz 1008 relay, which happens, that can cause issues. There is probably some silly thing your missing in wiring. Try randomly disconnecting a few different dz 2500’s . One of them could be bad and creating issues. I have about twenty dz 2500 machines with the data drive and they work well  Good luck. Try what I said and disconnect four or five dz 2500 at a time and you might find one that is causing an issue.

Ps, go back again an make sure all your Data driver wires are connected to the blue wire of all the dz 2500’s.

Thanks for the insight.  How can I tell the difference between the old and new DZ2500s?  I noticed that the screw for the rotating gear is on the bottom of the board while others have the screw on top and the cover needs to be taken off to access them.

Ps I have all my dz 2500’s connected to a separate small accessory transformer.. also all transformers should be grounded together. Almost sounds like a ground issue. You should use about 14  volts for dz 2500 switches for best performance. Maybe rather than using track ground, try ground from your power source. You have probably checked all this already. Again good luck. Let us know how to make out.

@Ron Casamento posted:

Ps I have all my dz 2500’s connected to a separate small accessory transformer.. also all transformers should be grounded together. Almost sounds like a ground issue. You should use about 14  volts for dz 2500 switches for best performance. Maybe rather than using track ground, try ground from your power source. You have probably checked all this already. Again good luck. Let us know how to make out.

I'm getting confused...you're saying that all the transformers are to be grounded together...you then speak of "track ground"...are you referring to the "common" for both transformers and track??

Well if you ordered all of them recently they should be the same. I guess there was a time that Dennis upgraded the dz 2500’s from original ones. I was one of the very first to use dz 2500’s when they first came out. So they were redesigned sometime after that.

I have three 180 bricks and a couple small accessorie transformers. As long as there all in phase  it’s a good idea to daisy chain a  ground wire to each. Also I have run ground from my cab 1L base to my power sources which are all grounded together. My data driver is plugged into back of my cab1L base which again is grounded to power grounds.

For my layout, all four PH180 transformers have the commons wired together.  Each of the terminal blocks below the transformers is from one transformer feed.  All of the bottom terminal blocks are connected using a #12 jumper.  IMO, this is mandatory for multiple transformers.

John,

I'm connecting my commons at the tpcs.  Do I need to connect from my 180 bricks as well?

No, they just have to all be truly common.  It so happened that's were it was convenient.  Truthfully, the commons are actually connected at the TIU outputs, those terminal blocks are were the track runs terminate.

Well on my bricks hot and commons are wired to my Tpc. So if you ground to tcp than your automatically connecting the ground to bricks since the bricks are wired to tcp..

@Ron Casamento posted:

Well on my bricks hot and commons are wired to my Tpc. So if you ground to tcp than your automatically connecting the ground to bricks since the bricks are wired to tcp..

It appears we're saying the same thing, only I have the MTH TIU and not the Lionel TPC.

I am glad some of you have had tremendous success with DZ2500.  While I am sure it is all my fault (of course)...I never could get them to perform consistently.  I thought that data wire setup would be great...but, the switch motors let me down.

@SD60M posted:

I am glad some of you have had tremendous success with DZ2500.  While I am sure it is all my fault (of course)...I never could get them to perform consistently.  I thought that data wire setup would be great...but, the switch motors let me down.

Well, I wouldn't say tremendous success.  If I had it to do over again, I would not be using the DZ2500's.

Well, after 3 weekends of trouble shooting, I FINALLY figured out what the problem was!!

I have two big islands for my layout (with wires going under the floor to connect them).  Since the Cab2 Legacy Base needs to be near a wall outlet, I placed all my controls under the island that is closet to the wall and ran wires to the other island.  Today, I moved the SER2 and 2001L Data Wire Driver to the other island but kept the base where it is.  I hooked everything up and NO RED LIGHT on the Data Wire Driver!!!

I did have to "expand" my DB9 cable to go under the floor to reach the SER2 from the base.  So while that issue is cleared up, I am noticing two extreme distance switches not responding.  I think I do need a second driver to solve that problem.

Greg

You shouldn’t need another data driver. Did you try to walk near by those distant switches with your cab 2 remote and try that. Maybe the signal isn’t strong enough. Or try reprogramming the dz 2500’s that are not working. Recheck wiring on those switches.the data driver is hard wired to switches, so the distance shouldn’t matter.