TIU unable to add mth protosound 2 engine

Aren't your engine already in the remote?   We need a little more info.....

Are you trying  to add a new engine?     

Also try,

Cut the power to the engine abruptly and see how long it plays sounds. If it cuts out immediately the battery is still dead.

It takes all night to charge the battery. I would invest in the MTH battery charger if you have other PS2 MTH engines and don't run them often.

Make sure you power via Fixed one so the TIU has power.  Is the Red LED on?  Did it blink once?  Go to the DCS menu and select "AON"  or do a TIU Factory reset.  Make sure no engines in the remote, if they are you can delete them all and start over, since this has been such a long time since last used.

Make sure Red output is to center rail and try again.  If still no joy, go to menu and engines and select "Recover Engine".  IF that does not work, you need to make sure train is ok and at least runs conventionally with no DCS present.  G

My engines were in the remote. I deleted them in order to start over.

I have 3 engines. I set them all on the track and charged them over night (at least 12 hours). Since I have 3 trains the odds of them being all bad is pretty low.

This morning I powered up. The red LED in the TIU blinked 9 times. I set one engine at a time, but not at the same time, on the track and attempted to add it. Each time the remote displayed “LOOKING FOR ENGINE...” and after about 10 seconds the message “OUT OF RF RANGE”. The remote was only a few feet from the TIU.

it sounds like I’m not communicating with the TIU. Do you agree?

Thanks, if nothing else, this is learning experience!

you have to have the tiu and the remote to the exact same address 9 blinks of the red led is wrong. change the remote and tiu to address  1 and it will work. if you don't know how to do that reset the tiu and it will change back to one and then  just make sure your remote address is also 1 then power up tiu and hit the read button on remote it should come back and respond with tiu found! then you should be able to add engines! 

p.s. send me an email and I'll walk you threw it ok not hard to reset! send your email and phone number and I'll  call you and walk you threw ok!

Alan

sounds like I’m not communicating with the TIU. Do you agree?

yes I agree....I don't know how you're going to reset the tiu  though if the remote can't communicate with the tiu.   Each led blink is the  actual tiu number up to 5.      9 is not good. you may want to count the blinks again.

Maybe a software up grade with the dcs loader might help...... Good luck

Ron,

The TIU blinking other than 1-5 times indicates that it will be impossible for the TIU and the remote to communicate. Period.

What may correct the problem is to reload the TIU’s DCS software with the latest version, DCS 6.1, using the DCS Loader Program 5.0.

If a software reload doesn’t correct the problem, you’all need to send the TIU to MTH for repair.

Hey Barry! How come he gets 9 TIU addresses?

We only get five! What's up with that?

What button sets it at #9? 

I wonder if his TIU and his remote have different software versions? Have you seen what causes this? (again) You probably told us before....

Joe,

There are only 5 TIU addresses. Anything else indicates that there’s a problem.

OK, thanks.

I had one TIU that had nine blinks, then the next power up it had a different number.  You guessed it, it was dead, and it never lived again.

I powered up a few more times and got 9 red LED blinks every time except once I got 5 blinks. Below is a picture of my TIU fixed output #1. The white spots I thought were there when it was working okay, but maybe not. Like I said that was probably over 5 years ago and I might be mistaken.  I’m guessing the white spots are due to melting (excessive heat). My concern is why this happened and what can prevent it from happening again if I need to replace the TIU.

Any thoughts or recommendations?

Again, thanks for your help. 

First off, I'd take the cover off and make sure the connections are TIGHT.  I've opened a lot of TIU's and found the connections to the inputs and/or outputs very loose.  Very early TIU's soldered to the posts, but later ones just use the nuts to make the connection.

Ron,

Did you reload the TIU’s DCS software?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

First off, I'd take the cover off and make sure the connections are TIGHT.  I've opened a lot of TIU's and found the connections to the inputs and/or outputs very loose.  Very early TIU's soldered to the posts, but later ones just use the nuts to make the connection.

Right on.... I'm wondering if a loose connection on fixed 1 ( turns on / off) would account for the 9 blinks. That would be wishful thinking. The tiu is fairly easy to take apart compared to a remote.    Do you have an aux power supply you could try to power up the tiu? ....  same 9 blinks?

I suspect the TIU is very sick, at least that's the conclusion I came to on the one I had with the 9 blinks.  Nothing I did could bring it back.  I even reloaded the firmware, it appeared to take it, but I still had 9 blinks.  I finally relegated it to the spare parts bin, I regularly get requests for the binding posts, always nice to have a supply of those.

If the LED blinks more than 1-5.  The memory chip has failed.  It can be replaced, but a PITA and can be damaging as it has a lot of legs to be removed.  G

Those get sent to you George, too many legs and too fine a pitch.  I draw the line somewhere around the amplifier chip on the PS/2 3V board.

I took off the TIU cover and the soldered input/output connections looked good.

I applied auxiliary power supply to the TIU and got those 9 red LED blinks.

I ordered some cables I need to upgrade to DCS 5.0 and then to DCS 6.10.

If the software upgrade doesn't work I think I'm going to throw in the towel and buy a new TIU. I believe I purchased the TIU around 2005 or 2007. I haven't really used it that much, maybe 2 or 3 years until I covered the trains around 2009. Everything was working at that time.

My concern is that something I did caused the TIU to fail. My gut feeling is that trying to fix this problem is probably not worth it. WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK?

Again I want to thank all of you for your input. 

Ron

If the TIU is that old, I'd probably bite the bullet and replace it.  There's no certainty that replacing the memory will fix it, and if it doesn't, you've just added to the cost.

Trying to reload the software is Free.... If you have all the cables etc...I know I would try it but I like doing that type of thing.

Of course I'd try flashing the board!  FWIW, I did that to the one I had with the same issue, but the issue didn't go away.

I do not think the reload can work.  It will look for a TIU with address 1-5, and the TIU won't be in that range.  Same for a TIU that the LED comes on and never flashes.  G

George,

I do not think the reload can work.  It will look for a TIU with address 1-5, and the TIU won't be in that range. 

The last several incarnations of the loader program have code that looks at the TIU's ID# and if it's outside of the range 1-5, the loader program  sets it to 1 as it does the software update. The code addition was in response to my reporting the original problem to MTH.

This fix has worked for me the time or two that 've seen this problem. However, others have reported that it didn't work for them. Regardless, it's definitely worth trying.

If it's a chip failure, nothing but replacing it will work.  As Barry says, if it's just a scrambled firmware load, the reload should fix it.

Hey, a reload will cost me nothing. Why not do it. I’m a retired software engineer. I love this stuff!

Ok,  but random and out of range TIU address is a faulty memory chip.  Nothing to loose.  But I just worked a TIU like this last week and I am using latest software and ASC loader.  Program would not even recognize the TIU.  G

I attempted to load DCS version 5.0 TIU and remote code into the TIU and remote. The TIU load indicated success. The load took 30 seconds. I expected it to take longer. Sometimes that is an indication of something wrong. The load of the remote code never got off the ground. I got following error message something like "Unable to communicate with the TIU. Please check connections".

I didn't expect the load to be successful. The error message indicated to me that it may be similar to what GGG experienced.

Given that the TIU worked fine 5 or 7 years ago my hunch is it may have failed due to one of the following reasons:

1) The layout was covered for the last 5 to 7 years, but the transformer and TIU were not. The accumulation of excess dust may have caused the TIU to overheat when I turned on the track power in an attempt to keep the batteries charged.

2) Maybe a power surge caused damage to a chip. I'm going to make sure I'm using a surge protector and not just a power strip.

I'm going to purchase a new TIU.

Thanks again,

Ron

Just to finish the story here,

did you remember to unplug the stereo mini jumper cable for the remote upgrade? use a 4 wire handset cord to tether?

Did you check to see if the TIU had upgraded it's software?

Does it still flash a high number when powered?

Engineer Joe,

1) yes, I removed stereo mini jumper and used handset cord when upgrading Remote.

2) How can you determine the TIU software version?

3) TIU blinked 5 times, 4 times and then 9 times when powered up 3 consecutive times.

Thanks,

Ron

Ron, I'm afraid it's really broken.

JFYI: using the remote, you can see what software version is loaded into the TIU. (when you get the new one!)

when you power up the remote it displays the software version loaded inside.

for the TIU press menu, system, TIU set-up, TIU version is the last choice I believe.

Joe, with the TIU number dancing around, it's not going to work no matter what the remote says.   However, I suspect it's extremely unlikely that he'll get the remote to connect anyway.

I just want to close this out. I got my new TIU, installed DCS version 6.10 into TIU and remote. Engines are lubricated and running. Purchased The DCS Companion. Thanks for all your help.

Ron

Ron,

Purchased The DCS Companion.

Thanks!  

I too am just getting back into trains after some 15+ years.  Last time the trains were out my kids still quite young. One of my kids also have a TIU, original rev. G (no sticker on back), and it's LED blinks 14 times.  Wish I had 14 addresses as someone posted above ;-).  In any case I did finally talk to a MTH service rep.; George thanks for all you help.  He stated this is most indicative of defective memory.  Of course there could be other things wrong with it, but now way to tell without looking it it.  Am looking at a total bill of probably around $75, if able to be fixed and if just memory.  If it can't be fixed it still is around $25 out of pocket.  So it's a gamble.  I have since purchased the TIU/WIU set to replace the defective TIU.  Now I just have to decide if I want to gamble at getting the bad TIU repaired.  I had one person tell me I should get it fixed - would have a spare for testing, etc.  Another person told me they have had this happen and just put such TIUs on the shelf for spare parts.  I may just gamble and send it in to MTH.  I too also recently purchased the DCS companion - Good book!  (and no I do not get paid for advertising ;-)

Truthfully, I wouldn't put $75 into an old Rev. G TIU.  I just don't see the Return On Investment for that model, shop around for a more current and working TIU.