Thanks for the reply John. I will be at the club tomorrow and forward the readings with and without the track signal connected to the buffer.
Jeff
Jeff, let us know what the lights are doing as well.
Will do John
Jeff
Lionel has my legacy base for low signal output repair. I have been testing my layout with my cab1-L and with no signal light on I am getting 4.0 boost out and all my problems are gone. When I hooked up my ground plane grid just to the wall ground instead of the water pipe I picked up 0.2 volts boost. When I unhook the boost out to the track I get a green light and 6.15 volts boost. Is there a simple answer to the drop in voltage when boost is connected. If I removed all trains off the track will boost increase?
First off, lose the water pipe ground and use the outlet ground only. My guess, based on what you're seeing, is there is a voltage differential between the water pipe ground and the electrical panel ground.
The base input drives the signal lights, the thing that is most likely to affect their operation on the boosted output side is anomalies with the earth ground circuit. If you totally overload the buffer with a huge load between the earth ground and track signal, the measured voltage will rise slightly on the base signal as the amplifier circuit goes kinda' crazy when it's really overloaded. In a normal layout, this should never be an issue unless there is some significant wiring issue. When I put a massive overload on the buffer, I get a pretty crazy looking signal! However, in this case, I can't imagine the command base being able to drive the same layout!
The upper trace is the buffered output signal, the lower trace is the base input signal. Please note this is NOT a normal behavior, only when the buffer is overloaded way past it's maximum power output rating.
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Hey John. Just disconnected the track signal from the buffer. Indicator light turned green! Measurements were 1.87 and 6.2. Seems good to me. Upon reconnection light back to red? Yuck! What’s do think is going on?
Jeff
I'm somewhat at a loss, but I think if you can find someone that has an oscilloscope, you could check what the output looks like before and after connecting to the track.
Most people are connecting this and Shazam, great signal. However, a couple are having a similar issue, so it would be nice to figure out what would cause this to happen. It's a bit confusing if the command base is able to drive the layout.
Can you describe EXACTLY how you have this connected?
Ok, we hooked up the new TM Buffer to my layout yesterday, as described. The blue and green lights worked. We did disconnect the earth ground plane from the center receptacle outlet. All seemed ok, however, today, it did not work after 20 minutes of operation. The Cab 1 worked ok for a bit. The Cab 2 also worked for a bit. The breakers were going off. Now, after I reboot, the system comes on for a few seconds and then shuts off. Everything is Lionel Legacy, connected per directions. The Legacy cradle lights up, the Cab 1 base has the red light on. Where do I start to Correct this issue.
John,
Just adding my two cents in case it helps you troubleshoot with other red-light issues.
I believe my problem is a poor signal from the base. I disconnected Dale's "serial booster" and got the "red light" and taking the ground/base measurement off of the buffer the Volts drop immediately starting around 3 and continue to drop...holding it there long enough it slowly crept all the way to 0 and came back up but never above 1 volt.
When I plugged the serial booster back in the reading crept up to and held steady at .5 volts.
I do get a green light when the track wire is disconnect from the buffer.
I've got the RA postage from Lionel, just waiting for good 'ol Florence to leave so I can send the base down to NC.
Greg
leapinlarry posted:Ok, we hooked up the new TM Buffer to my layout yesterday, as described. The blue and green lights worked. We did disconnect the earth ground plane from the center receptacle outlet. All seemed ok, however, today, it did not work after 20 minutes of operation. The Cab 1 worked ok for a bit. The Cab 2 also worked for a bit. The breakers were going off. Now, after I reboot, the system comes on for a few seconds and then shuts off. Everything is Lionel Legacy, connected per directions. The Legacy cradle lights up, the Cab 1 base has the red light on. Where do I start to Correct this issue.
First off, the breakers going off is a RED LIGHT. NOTHING in the buffer could possibly cause breakers to trip.
You need to first figure out what kind of power issues you have, because that can't be the buffer.
Gregcz1 posted:John,
Just adding my two cents in case it helps you troubleshoot with other red-light issues.
I believe my problem is a poor signal from the base. I disconnected Dale's "serial booster" and got the "red light" and taking the ground/base measurement off of the buffer the Volts drop immediately starting around 3 and continue to drop...holding it there long enough it slowly crept all the way to 0 and came back up but never above 1 volt.
When I plugged the serial booster back in the reading crept up to and held steady at .5 volts.
I do get a green light when the track wire is disconnect from the buffer.
I've got the RA postage from Lionel, just waiting for good 'ol Florence to leave so I can send the base down to NC.
Greg
Sounds like you indeed have some sort of issue with the command base. Also, the fact that the power is varying as you tinker with the serial connection sounds like you may have ground crosstalk on the serial connection ground pin. I'd get the buffer running without anything connected to the command base serial data port. If connecting something to the serial data affects the buffer, it would also affect the command base signal, and that should be hunted down and corrected.
Hi John
This buffer is the best thing that has ever happened to my layout. I'm. Running engines. That I was going to sell because they would stop with blinking lutes. They now run at super slow speeds all around my layout with no problems . I now have a layout that is fun to operate thanks to you and Dave. Thanks and Ill see you at York
Great, love to hear about successes. 
John
We installed the Legacy booster on the TMB Club layout and VERY PLEASED to report signal increased by 3X and all is well. Bear in moind our club layout is over 4,000 SqFt
Thanks again for carrying Dales design through to completion
Steve
Glad to hear it, that's how it's supposed to work. Did you have any DCS interaction with it?
Well today at the club, I disconnected the TMCC power master from the hookup. Voila, green light on the booster. Only limitations now is that we cannot use CAB 1 any longer. We have several Legacy remotes and a CAB1L. All is looking good. Thanks for all your help John.
Jeff
Odd that it affects the PowerMaster, don't know why that would be.
The PM is a load for the 455KKz? So come kind of choke in series would work?
I can't imagine how the buffer is affecting the PM, that doesn't make sense.
Have two old PowerMasters a powermaster bridge, a newer 360 powermaster. Everything works good with the buffer and Legacy Cab2 setup. I don't have a old TMCC base or Cab1 in the mix.
Hey John, I think that I misspoke. It was not the power master, It was the TMCC base that was disconnected. Hope this helps.
Jeff
sphillyj posted:Hey John, I think that I misspoke. It was not the power master, It was the TMCC base that was disconnected. Hope this helps.
Jeff
How was it connected?
Did you have both the Legacy base and the TMCC base connected to the outside rail? When using the Legacy base, the TMCC base is only connected to the layout using the Lionel supplied DB9 two into one adapter. Is that how it was or was it connected to the outside rail?
The buffer should have no effect at all on the serial connection between the TMCC and Legacy command bases.
The TMCC base is connected to the layout using the Lionel supplied DB9 two into one adapter. This is the suggested method.
As soon as i removed the power from the TMCC base, the buffer went bright green. Signal strength is right where it should be.
Go figure?
Jeff
Could it be that the TMCC base is somehow connected to a different ground (earth ground vs AC ground)? I'd look at a ground loop possibly.
dick
Something is certainly odd, that shouldn't have any effect. One thing you can do, since you don't need any TMCC signal from the TMCC base, isolate the ground pin from the power brick with a 3-2 plug adapter. See if that helps, if it does, Dick is probably right.
Some interesting findings today.
With the TMCC base out of the equation, I noticed that DCS was running very poorly. Many out of range messages, horn that did not turn off and many areas where there was just no response.
Then turned off All power to Legacy, TMCC base and buffer. DCS returned to normal and ran flawlessly.
After repowering including TMCC base, buffer light returned to red DCS again showed out of range messages continued horn blowing and general non response from remote BTW this was with both the remote and the Wi-Fi
Consulted with Adrian and he noted that there was some type of interference going on between the systems. Hopefully Adrian will return from his assignment soon and get to the bottom of it
Would love to hear any and all suggestions
Jeff
One thing I might suggest it to "tone down" the buffer output somewhat, while still keeping a lot of the benefit of it being used. Here's a simple way to "tune" the buffer output, see if this helps. I'd start with my suggested values, this returns the amplitude of the TMCC signal to near default, but still allows you to have a lower impedance signal to help drive the TMCC problem areas. You can then maybe change the resistors to 150 ohms each to give a small boost if the first one doesn't do enough for the TMCC. The resistors should be 1/2 watt or larger.
Adrian was talking about this, and I figured it would depend on exactly how the DCS was wired. I suspect a perfectly optimum wiring of the DCS might not have the issue, but if you have any signal degradation of the DCS signal, it may be more adversely affected by the boosted TMCC signal. Note that just because you got 10's for the signal test, that doesn't mean you have perfect DCS signal, it just means you have enough for solid communication with the locomotive.
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Good evening forum friends and helpers, as stated earlier, my entire system died. Today, I hooked up the Cab 1 System by itself, tada, it worked. (Without the Buffer). Then, I hooked up the Cab 2 Legacy System by itself, ( without the Buffer), and it was dead, the Cab 2 would not turn the layout On. I do not have electricity testers, what’s my next step. Just for your thinking, my layout is operated by 2 TPC’s 400)s, connected through the new Lionel ZW with 180 Watt bricks. With the Cab 1, everything worked fine. Thank you all for any ideas....
Obviously, I'm not sure what happened. The only thing I can think of is we had an instance of a short in the earth ground tether that blew the fuse in the Legacy power brick. If that is the case, we can replace it. However, with no meter of any kind, it's hard to determine if that's the case. The buffer operation itself is incapable of causing a failure of the Legacy base, so that's the only thing I can think of.
Thank you, how can I test the earth ground tether part only, to see if it was the culprit? Also, would this TMCC Buffer System work with the Cab 1 base, without the legacy system being connected? Thank you again.
Does the Legacy base power up at all? Do you see the lighted legends on the base when you plug it in? If no, maybe the earth ground tether is shorted. I tested all of them before shipment, but the connector design isn't the most robust, and sometimes things shift in use.
If the base doesn't light up at all, we need to test the brick, find a friend with a meter. It puts out 8-9 VAC FYI.
The lights come on the Legacy base, (cradle) come on, and there’s is blinking when I try to power up, it’s just not turning the track power on, like no signal. This is without the Buffer connected. I do have an electrical company in town that can test the tether. The Cab 1 base and Cab 1 remote work.
Well, if it didn't kill the fuse in the Legacy power brick, the tether isn't shorted. I can't imagine the buffer being able to damage the Legacy base, it just doesn't have the energy to do that. Something else has happened, though I can't imagine exactly what.
Thank you Gunrunner, I will get with Lionel tomorrow and get their ideas, I think this rules out any problems with the Buffer. One question, will this system work with the Cab 1 System alone?
Sure, lots of folks using it with the old TMCC BASE and CAB1, it works fine. It's actually how I did a lot of testing, I have an old TMCC base on my test bench.
The only thing you'll see different is the signal strength light will either be off or even red. However, if the base is working, it'll still work a lot better with the buffer. The Legacy base puts out a much stronger signal than the old TMCC base, and that's what the signal strength light is really calibrated for.
Thank you for the information, If the fuse had blown in the Legacy brick, would any lights come on in the cab2 Command base? Also, is there a reboot to the Legacy system?
Something like the tpc’s need breakers reset?
oh, never mind, it worked with cab 1...
Thank you Cjack, yes, the system works with Cab 1 Therefore making me think the TPC’s are working ok. So, the Legacy System, when used by itself, the base lights up, the lights also blink on the charger, the yellow light is on, but, the Cab 2 will not turn on the TPC’s to power up. Is this do to the fuse in the Legacy base? Thank you for any advice. Leapin Larry
leapinlarry posted:Thank you for the information, If the fuse had blown in the Legacy brick, would any lights come on in the cab2 Command base? Also, is there a reboot to the Legacy system?
If the fuse had gone, nothing would light, the base would get no power. The only "reboot" that I've ever known about for the Legacy command base is removing power. Did you try changing channels on the Legacy base and then searching for it with the CAB2?
