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I was running my railking 4-6-0, which is my only DCS equipped engine at the moment, and suddenly the DCS cut out I went through the trouble-shooting part of the DCS manual over and over again but still couldn't get it to work so it tried using the DCS Commander that came with the set and that didn't work either so I brought it to my local hobby shop and they ran it with their equipment and it worked fine. When I brought it home again the problems still continued. Does anybody have any ideas as to what is wrong?
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You could try general track troubleshooting:
Is it plugged into wall outlet?
Is transformer voltage turned up?
Are all connections tight?

Test track before placing engine and/or cars on track. Raise transformer voltage gradually. If fuse blows or light dims, check wiring and check track for shorts (see Trouble Spots with Track Wiring).
With cleared track, if engine doesn't run, check for power on track by placing lighted car or caboose on track.

Trouble Spots with Track Wiring
A derailed car truck. If that isn't the case, remove engine and cars from track. Look for:
Nails, screws, metal bits, etc. across the track.
Wires touching between variable voltage and common connections (binding posts, lockons)
With postwar type metal tubular track and ties - Broken or bad insulation between center rail and metal track tie. If necessary check each track section separately with a continuity tester.
Some Home Improvement stores carry the "IDEAL Continuity Tester Item #: 29192, Model #: 61-030 $2.97
With Trouble clear, place engine and cars on track one at a time and apply voltage after each addition. Engines and cars can have a short.
quote:
I went through the trouble-shooting part of the DCS manual over and over again but still couldn't get it to work so it tried using the DCS Commander that came with the set and that didn't work either so I brought it to my local hobby shop and they ran it with their equipment and it worked fine.

Sounds like you have a TIU and a dcs remote along with the DCS commander , Lets take a look at the tiu & dcs remote.

The remote must be able to talk to the tiu before anything will work. So press the "read" on the remote, you should get a message some like tiu number 1 found no AIU box connected. Give it a try and report back.

Second part... You have to get the engine added to the remote which requires a good dcs signal. What happens when you try to add the engine?? The engine also requires a charged battery so it will remember the new settings (ID)created when you add the engine.
Thanks for the ideas but i all ready have tried all of those I even reset my TIU and remote and when I tried to reload the engine the TIU still even recognize there was an engine on the track so I ran my engine in conventional mode to see if worked with my Lionel ZW transformer and of course it ran perfectly. The track I used was separate from my layout and all of the connections were good.
quote:
Originally posted by skinorth:
I was running my railking 4-6-0, which is my only DCS equipped engine at the moment, and suddenly the DCS cut out.


Please describe what you mean by "the DCS cut out". By your words, it sounds like the engine was running and simply stopped responding to commands. Which is what any PS2 engine would do if the system just stopped sending a signal. If the engine stopped running, that would be an additional issue.

If it ran OK with the dealer's DCS, then the problem is not in the engine. It won't work with your set DCS Remote anymore since you've added it into the DCS remote, which assigned it an ID number. So hear are a few trouble shooting steps to try.

When you apply power to the TIU, does the little red LED blink once then stay on?

When you apply power to the TIU, do you hear the "click" from the engine, indicating that it received the "watchdog" signal?

As each channel of the TIU has its own signal generator, you might try a different channel.

The transceiver board in the remote may have worked loose, in which case you can "tether" the remote directly to the TIU.
Mr. Norberg,

Sorry about my bad wording but you got exactly what I meant. The engine does still receive the watchdog signal. I think what you said about the transceiver being loose is probably the issue do you know what kind of cable I need to connect between the TIU and the remote would be because I tried a standard phone cable and it wouldn't fit.

Thank you,
skinorth
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