MTH 45 1028 infrared activation device flickering lights

So we're all on the same page, you apparently have the Scaletrax ITAD.

Do you have the part number of the signal you have hooked up and how exactly is it wired to the ITAD terminals as labeled above?

It's very curious that the "green" light stays ON when the "red" light flickers on...my first thought was a wiring error but one step at a time.

There is a relay inside the ITAD that you might be able to hear "click" on and separately "click" off.  If your train room is quiet enough and hearing good enough, can you hear this clicking...or might you hear a rapid chattering/buzzing synchronized with the red flicker?

Thank you for the reply. It was working before and another one exhibited the same issue and now it is working fine?

It seems to work if I point it down at the track but when I put it back into position it won't work. Again, the green light is on but maybe not as bright as it should be and when I pass my hand over the sensor I get the red lights blinking not very bright and making a chattering noise.? That is all it will do. The green light is on all the time.

I have it hooked up to a MTH overhead signal. I also have the other one hooked up to another MTH overhead signal.

1. Good.  You can "hear" the relay clicking/chattering.  If you remove the wires to the signal, so that the ONLY wires to the ITAD are to AUX+ and AUX- do the relays still chattering in the same way?  Obviously you won't see and green or flickering red.  I'm trying to isolate the problem.

2. Separately, as you know the ITADs have a "DELAY" adjustment knob.  So when it is "working" and you trigger the ITAD with waving your hand or whatever the relay SHOULD click on...then after you remove your hand it should wait several seconds (adjustable by the DELAY knob) before clicking OFF.  When it is "working" does the DELAY adjustment behave like this?

3. Finally, is this behavior something new or has been like this from day 1?  When the behavior started, had you just made some material change to the layout (like changing transformers or the like).

I started screwing around with the wiring around it.

Again, I started screwing around with the wiring around it. I had the negative wire connected to my negative wire around the layout but also connected with it a Lionel blinking billboard. Once I remove the negative from the billboard everything works fine. I'm not sure why? Can you explain?

I appreciate very much your help and hopefully I have corrected the issue, thanks again, Jerry

Turn all the lights off, close the curtains/blinds and see if you still have the issue.  Just a suggestion.

My guess is you had an intermittent-partial "weak" short-circuit in the wiring.  By "weak" I mean perhaps just one tiny strand of a stranded wire that is touching some other contact or terminal...or something of that ilk.  It wasn't a "strong" short-circuit otherwise your breaker would have popped.  The weak short-circuit might be lowering the voltage to the ITAD and any nearby signals...perhaps explaining why the green light is on but dim...and if the voltage to the ITAD is too low I can imagine a scenario where it causes the relay to behave intermittently (chatter).

Early on you said physically rotating the ITAD changed the behavior.  I'm thinking that movement pulled-on or jostled the cable/wires "just enough" to break the weak short-circuit.  Likewise, removing the billboard wire was also such a movement.

Clearly I'm wildly speculating.  I was trying to come up with a plausible explanation for all the behaviors you reported.  I suppose we could play a game of 20 questions asking you to try this experiment or that experiment.  But if it's now working not sure there's much point.

Presumably you found a different point to connect the billboard and it is working again too.