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Hi everyone.  Haven't posted in years!  Got the Christmas set out and it appears my DCS Remote Commander receiver isn't working?   Worked last year.  Tried on a couple of different PS2 engines (with BCRs), again that worked fine last year... they still all have factory settings, and work fine with a Z1000 in conventional mode.  The receiver light is blinking when I hit a remote button (new batteries in the remote), but it's just not doing anything... engines just sit there and idle. 

Any ideas?  Any other reports of these just not working anymore at some point?  It's stored in a climate controlled attic when not in use.  I've used it for probably 6-7 years (during the holidays) with no issues.

I was going to just buy a new one... but it looks like they're no longer made, and prices on used ones on ebay are a little shocking!  I'll probably still try to get one if I can find one that's reasonable. 

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or suggestions on what might be wrong, or how to troubleshoot / fix... I'm assuming it's just "gone bad"... but figured I'd check here. 

Don

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@GTW Don posted:

Hi everyone.  Haven't posted in years!  Got the Christmas set out and it appears my DCS Remote Commander receiver isn't working?   Worked last year.  Tried on a couple of different PS2 engines (with BCRs), again that worked fine last year... they still all have factory settings, and work fine with a Z1000 in conventional mode.  The receiver light is blinking when I hit a remote button (new batteries in the remote), but it's just not doing anything... engines just sit there and idle.



Don

Again, the fact the unit shows a blinking LED light indicates the microprocessor is running and getting the command from the remote. The engine is either starting in conventional because it cannot see the watchdog signal at power on and further DCS commands -potentially because again PS2 engines are specifically DCS signal polarity sensitive and incorrect polarity to the track is easy enough to miswire and get wrong. The train would still have power- just no DCS signal.

It is possible you have a bad or damaged unit (same reasons a TIU channel can get damaged or degraded with ACT244 failures). But, I would check the obvious things first, and again what stands out here is, knowing that the engines you say you tested were in fact PS2. PS3 is not polarity senstive, but PS2 is, so if a PS3 engine works, and multiple PS2 engines do not, then we suspect wiring is swapped.

And, once a year nature of setup and teardown of a track-leads to exactly the potential for this kind of mistake.

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