I have a 12 foot circle with no switches or accessories that runs around the ceiling in my den. I have one TIU, Rev I3A on the sticker, which the remote recognizes as address 1. The remote says it runs DCS version 4.00. This has been in place for about 12 years, and worked fine up until recently. I have two engines on this fancy setup, a pair of MTH F40's (both cab numbers of the 20-2715-1) in lashup. The lash-up got wonky (the lead loco wouldn't move but the second one did) so I deleted the lashup, and then removed both locos from the system. The system recognized and added loco 2, but loco 1 kept saying engine not found on track. I have hooked the TIU to a single piece of FastTrack, cables correct, with loco 1 sitting on it. DCS still says engine not found. I have swapped batteries between the two locos, and am able to re-add loco 2 with either battery, but not loco 1 with either. I can run Loco 2 just fine with the remote. Loco 1 clicks when I turn on the TIU, and if the TIU is already powered up and I place loco 1 on the track, the loco comes to life with lights, cab sounds, and smoke. Loco 1 does the shutdown sounds when I kill power to the TIU. Every once in a while, Loco 1 will take off at full speed when I am trying to READ the track. The TIU, with no cables other than Fixed Voltage In 1, has a solid LED at startup, and after four seconds it turns off once and it comes back solid. With the jumper in place, the LED lights at startup and stays lit. I have tried to update my software, but the loader V5 software refuses to find the TIU on any of my four laptops (two XP machines with an actual serial port, a Windows 7 machine and a Windows 10 machine). With the two non-XP machines, I used a USB to Serial dongle plugged right into the TIU so no serial cable was involved.
I have a Lionel PowerHouse feeding into Fixed Voltage In 1.
I have a stereo cable (have tried several, the same ones I use to connect my iPod to the car) as a jumper.
I have no other cables plugged into the TIU when I flip the power switch on the PowerHouse; just the jumper. The LED comes on and stays solid. I then connect the serial cable (I've tried two) to the TIU and then to the laptop, and kick off the automatic serial port thing. It will not find the TIU. I've tried having the Serial cable AND the jumper plugged in and then applying power to the TIU, but get the same result: no TIU found.
Any help or options to try?
Thank you!
-Mickey
