WTIU DCS Signal Quality Issues with Legacy Engines on Track - SOLVED

Patrick, I see the same issues. I like to run my Legacy engines in pairs in "train" mode. I can only have one Legacy engine on the track at a time with the WTIU. If I try a lash, it clicks on and off like there's a short. I read somewhere that if we want to run more than one Legacy engine we should address both engines the same # ID. I haven't tried that yet to see how the DCS signal is affected. Plan to this weekend. So far, for my experience, the WTIU has been a disappointment. I am contemplating putting my two 10 year old RevL TIU's back on and getting them "freshened up" by some forum members who repair them. Hope you find a combo that works. IF so, please share. I have been unsuccessful.

Mike

It's not uncommon for some Legacy locomotives to impact the DCS signal.  The cure is a 22uh inductor in series with the power pickups.  Obviously, this requires opening up the engine, so it's not a solution that everyone can do on their own.

Here's a list of suitable inductors for use internally in a single Legacy locomotive.

Legacy Locomotive DCS Protection Inductors

Mike,

I sort of glazed over my earlier issues, but they were somewhat similar.  I can't quite disentangle them, but I had a bunch of idle legacy/tmcc units on the track at first, and every time I would attempt to apply power, the WTIU would make a click and reboot itself.  Quite annoying when it takes as long as it does to boot.  Ammeter indicated about 2 amps in this configuration if everything was wired directly.  At the time I was using a ZW-L, and that induced a serious buzzing noise in the WTIU, I'm sure due to the gnarly wave form.  I tried a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure one of them was to have nothing else on the track and ZW-L power going through the WTIU.  With this, the engine would sit quietly (not going into conventional mode), but the WTIU couldn't recognize that anything was there.  As if communication was only working one way, TIU -> loco.  Needless to say, I'm pretty discouraged in the apparent lack of interoperability of the WTIU and Lionel power and command control locomotives.  I wish I had an old TIU for comparison.

John,

It isn't an exciting prospect to go through adding chokes to all the offending Lionel engines, but I do appreciate the suggestion and especially the pre-filtered link for parts.  I've got a batch on order.  I'll do some experimenting and report back my findings.  It is nice that MTH has the signal strength function.  Makes it pretty easy to test stuff like this assuming you can get the TIU and loco to talk to each other.

@Patrick Keistler posted:

John,

It isn't an exciting prospect to go through adding chokes to all the offending Lionel engines, but I do appreciate the suggestion and especially the pre-filtered link for parts.  I've got a batch on order.  I'll do some experimenting and report back my findings.  It is nice that MTH has the signal strength function.  Makes it pretty easy to test stuff like this assuming you can get the TIU and loco to talk to each other.

I'm sure that Lionel has never considered going out of their way to make the Legacy stuff more compatible with DCS, so if you're going to fix it, I suspect you'll have to do it.   I did this for a few of my Legacy locomotives that seemed to be the most troublesome.  The bummer is, for Legacy steam with the wireless drawbar, you have to add the inductor to the locomotive and tender.

Why would this situation be worse with the WTIU as compared to my old RevL TIU's.  Never experienced the signal issues with old ones. AND, I am using the Legacy signal booster, would that make it worse? Have been using the signal booster for many years.

Mike

Wanted to let the thread know of my experience last evening. I placed two legacy engines on the track set to two different ID#'s. WTIU clicked on and off and would not pass power to the tracks. I then reprogrammed the engines with same ID#, restarted them as one "engine" and not a "train". WITU passed power to track with no hiccups. 2 other DCS engines ran on other loops fed by same WTIU, no issues. Just my experience on my layout. I'm interested to see if anybody else has similar situation.

Mike

I can't imagine how changing the programming of the Legacy engines caused issue with the WTIU.

I'm going to give passive mode another try tonight, and see if I get the same behavior.  I'm still waiting on the 4 amp inductors so it gives me something to fiddle with.  I suppose I could put one of the 16 amp ones in an engine, but that seems a little ridiculous.

I wonder if the signal strength is somehow inversely correlated to the total power going through the WTIU.  I wish I hadn't converted all my passenger cars to LED.  That would have been an easy way to load it up without Legacy boards in the equation.

We are aware of intermittent issues with the ZWL power supply.  The waveform coming from this supply is not conventional AC.  The WTIU doesn't always interpret this as an AC waveform.  No surprise.  We are analyzing this now to see if we can make some firmware adjustments to accommodate this supply.

Here is a scope shot of the ZWL output. 

Here is a what 60Hz AC looks like. 

@Patrick Keistler posted:

Mike,

I sort of glazed over my earlier issues, but they were somewhat similar.  I can't quite disentangle them, but I had a bunch of idle legacy/tmcc units on the track at first, and every time I would attempt to apply power, the WTIU would make a click and reboot itself.  Quite annoying when it takes as long as it does to boot.  Ammeter indicated about 2 amps in this configuration if everything was wired directly.  At the time I was using a ZW-L, and that induced a serious buzzing noise in the WTIU, I'm sure due to the gnarly wave form.  I tried a lot of things, but I'm pretty sure one of them was to have nothing else on the track and ZW-L power going through the WTIU.  With this, the engine would sit quietly (not going into conventional mode), but the WTIU couldn't recognize that anything was there.  As if communication was only working one way, TIU -> loco.  Needless to say, I'm pretty discouraged in the apparent lack of interoperability of the WTIU and Lionel power and command control locomotives.  I wish I had an old TIU for comparison.

John,

It isn't an exciting prospect to go through adding chokes to all the offending Lionel engines, but I do appreciate the suggestion and especially the pre-filtered link for parts.  I've got a batch on order.  I'll do some experimenting and report back my findings.  It is nice that MTH has the signal strength function.  Makes it pretty easy to test stuff like this assuming you can get the TIU and loco to talk to each other.

I'm having the same or similar issues.  At first I thought I had an out of phase power lead, or even feeders to the track reversed, but everything checks out.  I have an inside loop with 036 to 048 curves mainly for semi-scale and short wheelbase engines and rolling stock. I have a couple of MTH engines running on that loop.  But when I try and combine Legacy and MTH on the big circuit, I've had various issues from the WTIU clicking and resetting, no signal to the MTH engines, and even turned the sound off of 2 of my newest MTH engines-I thought I'd blown soundboards, but got them back with a engine factory reset.  It really makes me want to put my MTH engines up for sale and just run Legacy.  I hope someone smarter than me here comes up with a better solution than adding circuitry to my Visionline 4014!  This stuff takes me back to Windows 3.1/486 PC nightmares back in the early 90's!

Frustrated to say the least!

Jim

@MTH RD posted:

We are aware of intermittent issues with the ZWL power supply.  The waveform coming from this supply is not conventional AC.  The WTIU doesn't always interpret this as an AC waveform.  No surprise.  We are analyzing this now to see if we can make some firmware adjustments to accommodate this supply.

Here is a scope shot of the ZWL output.

Here is a what 60Hz AC looks like.

Well this would explain quite a bit, since this is the transformer I am using.

Jim

@MTH RD posted:

We are aware of intermittent issues with the ZWL power supply.  The waveform coming from this supply is not conventional AC.  The WTIU doesn't always interpret this as an AC waveform.  No surprise.  We are analyzing this now to see if we can make some firmware adjustments to accommodate this supply.

Here is a scope shot of the ZWL output.

Here is a what 60Hz AC looks like.

It's nice to hear that there might be a solution for this power supply in the future.  I was about to start fishing for trades, but I would certainly rather keep and continue using it.

My original plan was to use the WTIU in passive mode and simply tag it onto the existing Lionel ZW-L based system.  I added the chokes and everything, but this didn't work at all.  I then tried running the power through the WTIU.  I wanted to keep conventional control through the Lionel system rather than MTH, so still sort of possible if I ran through the fixed channels.  This didn't work either.  Suspecting the above waveform was part of the issue, I sourced a PH180 and tried it out (power going through Fixed1 and Var1).  I had to concede to running conventional using the WTIU, which isn't all that bad honestly.  This brought me to the final issue here and the main topic of this thread.  Anything other than DCS on the track breaks DCS.

I'm continuing down the rabbit hole, but I really hope is isn't much deeper.

Again, I'm glad to hear that MTH is working on solutions.  I know this hardware probably represents quite an overhaul from the previous generation, but hopefully we can at least get back to baseline.

@MTH RD posted:

Here is a scope shot of the ZWL output.

Is that the ZW-L at full throttle?

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Is that the ZW-L at full throttle?

I suspect not. Has anyone run a scope on the ZW-L at different voltages & under load? I was under the impression that a ZW-l at max voltage has a near-perfect sine wave.

@H1000 posted:

I suspect not. Has anyone run a scope on the ZW-L at different voltages & under load? I was under the impression that a ZW-l at max voltage has a near-perfect sine wave.

Me too, that's why I asked.

I basically burned out Fixed Channel 1 of the WTIU by innocently driving it with an 18 VAC chopped waveform from the MTH Z Controller. When the WTIU sees a chopped waveform, it gives off a worrisome and unexpected buzzing sound.  After about 4 seconds of this, Fixed Channel 1 is damaged and no longer able to send out the DCS control signal.

My other observation is when Base3 is attached to the ground and the 22uH choke is used (with pure sinewave transformer) , it takes a few more engine refreshes than usual on the DCS App to move the MTH engines from inactive to active. However, my MTH engines are still showing a signal quality of 10 while running Legacy.

@H1000 posted:

I suspect not. Has anyone run a scope on the ZW-L at different voltages & under load? I was under the impression that a ZW-l at max voltage has a near-perfect sine wave.

Hope someone can show this to be the case at all voltages. . . This "wave" form isn't even a wave.  Could this be a anomaly from the measurement introduced by the Oscilloscope?

Could the risk of damage be avoided by running the WTIU in "passive mode," i.e., connected to the track circuit but powered independently from its own brick?

I did some more testing tonight.  I didn't see any real differences between normal and passive mode, but I did make some new observations.

As before, if I take all legacy stuff off the track, pretty much everything works just fine with a couple of DCS engines running.  WTIU sees both of them no problem.  They both report good signal quality (8-10).  As I add legacy engines to the track, reported signal quality goes down, and will start to give a "no response" message.  With about 4 other Legacy engines on the track, it pretty much always shows "no response."

The interesting new observation is that everything still responds perfectly fine.  I can run the engine as normal.  The only time I got into trouble is if I ever hit the refresh button.  Then one or both engines would go into the inactive roster.  This leads me to believe that the signal coming out of the WTIU is probably loud and clear, while the return signal is attenuated in some way.  The result is a sometimes annoying, but manageable DCS+Legacy experience.

I'd love to hook a scope up to this and quantify what's going on, but that thing has eluded me for a couple of days now.  @gunrunnerjohn and @H1000, I have looked at the ZW-L output at full throttle in the past, and if I recall correctly, it still isn't perfect.  There is no jump, but there is still a short little flat spot between each positive and negative lobe.  Subjectively, the buzzing isn't as bad at full throttle, which makes sense.  Note that this could just be my particular ZW-L.  I feel like others haven't necessarily had this problem, and maybe it is supposed to be a perfect sine wave at full throttle.

I haven't found anywhere else online other than this thread from MTH that shows a scope view of the ZW-L output. I'm curious if it's similar to the ZW-C and how the C behaves with the WTIU.  One thing to try, before you turn on the ZW-L, turn the power up to max voltage on the handle feeding the WTIU. Wait for the WTIU to complete its boot up and then flip the switch on for the ZW-L. The transformer should instantly output max voltage like a brick power supply. The idea here is to avoid the slow progression of power increase from the ZW-L from 0 to 18 volts where the sine wave is modified until max voltage is achieved, the WTIU wouldn't see a modified sine wave from the ZW-L in this situation.

I've never been a fan of modified sine wave transformers, my preferences for power are the PH-180, Z4000, and the postwar ZW with proper circuit protection. I bought my dad a ZW-L a number of years ago due to it's classic look & feel but that's where its impressiveness ended. We didn't like the way it ran postwar stuff, everything seamed to have a louder buzzing and we also noticed a hum or buzz sound from some early TMCC & PS2 engines. The ZW-L was returned and the Z4000 went back into service on his layout.  It doesn't have the classic look but it is a solid transformer.

FWIW, if you run mostly command, you could totally eliminate the issues with chopped waveforms.  I run with four Lionel Powerhouse 180 bricks, they go through the MTH TIU and on to the tracks.  The two variable channels are configured in fixed output mode upon startup.  However the variable channels will seamlessly revert to variable mode just by selecting them and varying their voltage using any MTH remote control.

My running is 98% command, very occasionally I run conventional on the two tracks on the variable channels and control the voltage using the DCS remotes.  The boxes at the very top are the DCS-RC boxes configured to be watchdog generators to keep DCS locomotives from starting up in conventional mode.

I don't claim this eliminates all the problems, but it certainly eliminates issues resulting from chopped waveform transformers.   To truly resolve the Legacy locomotive issues, you still have to consider the inductors in the power feeds inside the Legacy equipment.

@Patrick Keistler posted:

I did some more testing tonight.  I didn't see any real differences between normal and passive mode, but I did make some new observations.

As before, if I take all legacy stuff off the track, pretty much everything works just fine with a couple of DCS engines running.  WTIU sees both of them no problem.  They both report good signal quality (8-10).  As I add legacy engines to the track, reported signal quality goes down, and will start to give a "no response" message.  With about 4 other Legacy engines on the track, it pretty much always shows "no response."

Is this with or without inductors? Beyond 1 or 2 Legacy engines on the same TIU channel, the inductors are a must.

Honestly more than 3 or 4 engines per TIU channel is asking for trouble in my opinion. While modern engines draw around 1 ampere on the flat, once a load is put on them, they could easily draw more current, maybe as much as 4 amps each. With smoke units running, figure another half to 3/4 amp each. This is especially true if running lighted passenger cars (assuming incandescent).

The interesting new observation is that everything still responds perfectly fine.  I can run the engine as normal.  The only time I got into trouble is if I ever hit the refresh button.  Then one or both engines would go into the inactive roster.  This leads me to believe that the signal coming out of the WTIU is probably loud and clear, while the return signal is attenuated in some way.  The result is a sometimes annoying, but manageable DCS+Legacy experience.

The return signal will suffer the same attenuation as the TIU if inductors aren't installed in the Legacy engines.

Lionel has no reason to help out here. It's directly against their own interests. In fact, as newer Legacy electronics are designed, they could easily make design tradeoffs that make the problem even worse if it benefits legacy performance.

Yet another reason the lack of DCC support is hurting consumers.

I have not seen the Lionel ZWL waveform at various voltages and loads.  Regardless, we're looking at firmware changes that will be more forgiving and hopefully support it.  We saw some of the same issues with the initial TIU some 20 yrs ago.  We keep the window of what is acceptable pretty narrow so we can better control voltage and optimize DCS signal.  For example, if you put a DCC (square wave) on the rails, it gets really difficult to send DCS signals over that power power signal.  DCS is optimized for AC supplies that at have a decent AC waveform.  Of course, pure DC is best but, that is just physics and not typical in O ga 3 rail. 

I would imagine the harmonics of the DCC square wave track signal would really drive DCS nuts!   It's pretty hard on TMCC/Legacy as well, though it does actually manage to run with some difficulty.

Just to follow up here, I installed an inductor in a Legacy F7 from 2023 as originally suggested by @gunrunnerjohn, and it did the trick like a champ.  100% solved the observed issue.  It was a fairly quick fix, especially for a diesel.  I've got a drawer full of the inductors now, so I'll just install those as needed and as time allows for other problematic Legacy/TMCC pieces.

For reference in this case, it was a simple snip of a grey wire from the pickup rollers before it hit the control board.  Probably also worth noting that there is a second set of smaller wires that come from the pickup rollers and wheels that power the number board lights.  The way they were spliced together would have made it a little more painful to get the inductor upstream of both the control board and the lights, so I just did the control board.  This seems to have been sufficient.

I'll also note that I tracked down the scope and took a look at everything I could get my hands on.  I might make a separate thread to show some traces of the ZW-L and PH180 outputs if people are interested.  My ZW-L output looks particularly worse than the image above.  Even the PH180 isn't quite a perfect sine wave, but it is at least continuous, including slope.  I didn't quite know what to make of the DCS signal.  It was my first time looking at it, so I don't know how I would determine "good" or "bad."  I wasn't able to identify any differences visually with and without the unmodified legacy engines on the track.  Perhaps some DCS gurus can point to the details of what makes the signal good/bad in terms of the wave form.  If not, then I think I'm happy to slowly back out of this rabbit hole.

Thanks again to everyone for the helpful discussion.

Good Evening

Ive been closely following this post.  I have an older pre L version TIU ( probably 20 years old) powered from a CW80 that i use at my workbench.  Over the years, Ive had no issue using thud chopped sine transformer to power the TIU. Even when I had this TIU installed on my home layout years ago , powered from a Zw-C, no problems

Are these incompability issues with chopped sine wave transformers only  with the  new  WTIU?

@LT1Poncho posted:

Wanted to let the thread know of my experience last evening. I placed two legacy engines on the track set to two different ID#'s. WTIU clicked on and off and would not pass power to the tracks. I then reprogrammed the engines with same ID#, restarted them as one "engine" and not a "train". WITU passed power to track with no hiccups. 2 other DCS engines ran on other loops fed by same WTIU, no issues. Just my experience on my layout. I'm interested to see if anybody else has similar situation.

Mike

So you are saying with Legacy engine on track that the WTIU does not even let AC power got thru?  Or do you mean no DCS signal?  G

@GGG posted:

So you are saying with Legacy engine on track that the WTIU does not even let AC power got thru?  Or do you mean no DCS signal?  G

Two observations thus far:

First, with more than one legacy engine on the track (either in a lash up or just sitting on a powered siding), on my layout, the WTIU will not pass track power. It clicks the power on and off as if there’s a short. Of course there is none. If I take one of the legacy engines off, it works fine

Second, with no legacy engines on the track and the Base 3 attached, the DCS signal is in the range 4-7. I installed a switch between the Base 3 and twack to test what happens if I shut off the Base 3 communication to the layout. When off, the DCS signal is all 10.

All this since attaching the WTIU’s. No issues with the Rev L’s. And I am using Dale/GRJ’s signal booster TMCC booster. Have for years.

Mike

Maybe MTH R&D can give some insight to the changes they made for Power control now that all channels can pass DC.  Does it still have Fixed channels, or are all the channels Variable?  While I understand how DCS signal could be disrupted, not sure how or why a poor AC signal is causing power not to pass, or from one person having the TIU buss and kill the channel.  Will there be an ASC Service update made for troubleshooting and repairing at the component level like there is for the Rev L and down TIU?  G

@Lionel16 posted:

Good Evening

Ive been closely following this post.  I have an older pre L version TIU ( probably 20 years old) powered from a CW80 that i use to bench test MTH currently.  Over the years, Ive had no problem with using a chopped sine transformer to power the TIU. Even when I had this TIU installed on my home layout years ago , powered from a Zw-C, I had little issue.

Are these incompability issues with chopped sine wave transformers only  being discovered with the  new  WTIU?

I think they've always been an issue, but I think they affected revisions of the TIU differently. I think in addition, there are different versions of the CW80 that worked better than others.

No matter what version of each you have, if it works or not can largely depend on the amount of track connected, the total length of the circuit, and the load on the transformer.  All of these affect the shape of the waveform and may or may not work better.

No matter what you do, the specifics of a layout or the environment these devices are used it, can affect their performance. 

@LT1Poncho posted:

Two observations thus far:

First, with more than one legacy engine on the track (either in a lash up or just sitting on a powered siding), on my layout, the WTIU will not pass track power. It clicks the power on and off as if there’s a short. Of course there is none. If I take one of the legacy engines off, it works fine

Second, with no legacy engines on the track and the Base 3 attached, the DCS signal is in the range 4-7. I installed a switch between the Base 3 and twack to test what happens if I shut off the Base 3 communication to the layout. When off, the DCS signal is all 10.

All this since attaching the WTIU’s. No issues with the Rev L’s. And I am using Dale/GRJ’s signal booster TMCC booster. Have for years.

@GGG posted:

Maybe MTH R&D can give some insight to the changes they made for Power control now that all channels can pass DC.  Does it still have Fixed channels, or are all the channels Variable?  While I understand how DCS signal could be disrupted, not sure how or why a poor AC signal is causing power not to pass, or from one person having the TIU buss and kill the channel.  Will there be an ASC Service update made for troubleshooting and repairing at the component level like there is for the Rev L and down TIU?  G

My guess is that the WTIU has some sort of new circuitry to check the load on the track and that maybe it's incorrectly detecting a short. I'm curious @LT1Poncho what sort of transformer you are using with the WTIU?

As to the Base3 causing issues... it could very well be that the new circuitry there presents a load to the the DCS signal at 3 MHz or whatever it is. I'm guessing a choke would help there too.

@rplst8 posted:

My guess is that the WTIU has some sort of new circuitry to check the load on the track and that maybe it's incorrectly detecting a short. I'm curious @LT1Poncho what sort of transformer you are using with the WTIU?

As to the Base3 causing issues... it could very well be that the new circuitry there presents a load to the the DCS signal at 3 MHz or whatever it is. I'm guessing a choke would help there too.

All my WTIU channels in use are powered by individual Z1000 transformers. Please advise as to what type and location of choke application. Thank you.

Mike

Hardly solved.  I have a lot of Legacy engines and I am not about to open everyone of them to install a inductor to satisfy the WTIU especially if they are under warranty.  I really hope @MTH RD can tweak the WTIU code to be more forgiving.  I've used DCS since it came out without any issues and want to continue to do so but again without modifying my Legacy engines.

@MartyE that's totally fair.  To be honest I think DCS and Legacy engines just won't be playing with each other all that often on my layout.  I have less qualms with cracking Legacy engines open, but I'm not in a hurry to modify all of them.  At least I don't have to rewire anything on the layout to switch between the two.  I'm still debating on whether to go through the WTIU or go passive.  I guess it depends on how much I want to support conventional running.

@LT1Poncho, the fact that you have a massive signal strength issue with the Base 3 connected is something I haven't experienced.  If anything it might be fluctuating between 10 and 9 with/without, but I haven't done any intentional testing.  Perhaps this does have something to do with the waveform.  I hope you're able to track it down.  Assuming the WTIUs and Base 3s are identical, it must come down to some factors in the waveform as influenced by the transformer and the environment.

I think the whole discussion of waveforms warrants another topic.  I'd bet with 10 transformers and 10 layouts, you could get 100 different waveforms.  Without knowing more specifics of the signal format and logic/timing, I don't think us consumers are very well equipped to figure it out all the quirks.  At least we have SOME options to fix SOME of the problems.  Hopefully those with more knowledge and access can lend a hand.

If example waveforms of how things behave out in the wild would be useful to MTH developers, I'd be more than happy to post some.

@LT1Poncho posted:

All this since attaching the WTIU’s. No issues with the Rev L’s. And I am using Dale/GRJ’s signal booster TMCC booster. Have for years.

If you're using the TMCC Buffer, I'd suggest playing with the signal strength tuning.  If you got the first run without the signal strength pot, contact me for a simple upgrade kit that will allow you to optimize the balance between the TMCC/Legacy and the DCS signals.

In a summation of previous posts, please do not attempt to use a chopped waveform transformer like the CW80 or Z Controller with the WTIU. It will cause the WTIU to buzz and ultimately damage WTIU internal components.  MTH has acknowledged the issue in an OGR posting and is trying to come up with a software fix, but IMHO it remains to be seen if that will work or if a new hardware version of the WTIU will be necessary.

As others have reported, I've observed the interaction between the BASE3 signal and the ability of the DCS app (with WTIU) to immediately "see" MTH engines on the track...even using the 22uH choke coming from the transformer. I completely agree with @MartyE that I'm not going to tear into under-warranty engines to install chokes. As alluded to by @gunrunnerjohn, there may be a signal strength balancing that needs to be accomplished or a software change to the WTIU that @MartyE mentions.

I am “Just Sayin” . . .

As a rather intelligent fellow but not an electrical engineer, I have been following the Base3 discussions and the WTIU discussions. I would like nothing better than to buy a Base3 for my new layout and also a WTIU, be able to install them and have “resolvable issues” from a non-electrical engineer perspective. It is hard for me to believe that those of you involved in these discussion understand how daunting all of this is to me. I don’t even understand what the gizmos you are referring to, actually do. I have used DCS for many years and relatively trouble free on a very large layout. I have used Legacy Cab 2 remotes for many years problem free on a very large layout. I have used Legacy and DCS on the same layout problem free. Now, I honestly do not think I can install either one confidently and I certainly do not think I can install both and have a good result based upon what I am reading here. Once we start talking about installing chokes in locomotives as possible fixes, I am totally lost.

I have been in three rail hi rail modeling for many years. I was in on the first TMCC installations. I installed DCS and after getting some help from Marty Fitzhenry who came to my house and Barry Broskowitz who patiently took me by the hand and helped me fix wiring mistakes, I had a layout functioning 99% problem free for quite a long time. Owing to health issues, I took the layout down but now I am rebuilding because I miss the trains too much.

In summary: Unless a team of you is willing to come over here and walk me through this, I’m sticking with my Cab 2 and DCS. Thank you very much.

Luddite Jerry

@Jerryrails posted:

I’m sticking with my Cab 2 and DCS.

Jerry,

You are a smart man!

(The rest of us are gluttons for punishment.)

Based (no pun intended) on what I'm reading, the remaining problems with the Base 3 are mainly app related.  So one approach that may work for those who don't need all that functionality is to use the cab-1L to control TMCC and Legacy (and LionChief) locos with the Base 3.  Perhaps a similar restricted approach will work with the WTIU if you hard wire your DCS remote to the WTIU once the necessary cable is available?  Just a wild guess based upon other peoples' experiences, and absolutely no personal experience.

It's becoming clear, at least to me, that for some of us, a simpler approach to using the new Base 3 and WTIU may be preferred, with a handheld, even a hard wired one,  that perhaps has limited functions but fewer complexities/potential for problems.  Having recently tried DCC I can vouch for the fact that simplicity with fewer functions has some attractions .