I've been using my new DT402D for two or three months now. I believe it is malfunctioning, although I spent some time trying lots of key punching and following the manual very carefully
THE PROBLEM: Every time I enter and run a consist with the throttle, then try to leave it in place and select other locos, I get the SLOTMAX prompt indicating that the throttle address memory is full and no other selctions can be made. However this is just not true. I can dispatch any loco addresses I find in the recall of memory (and there is never more than a couple) AND either dispatch the consist or undo it and dispatch the indvidual addresses, but I still get the SLOTMAX message AND the throttle is unusable because I cannot enter any more loco addresses.
THE FIX: I have to go over to the Zephyr and steal the consist loco addresses, or just the addresses of the already dispatched consist locos and that seems to reset the DT402D. But that doesn't seem to make sense.Has anyone else had this problem?
OTHERWISE, please tell me there is an unwritten clear memory command on the DT402 as there is with the Zephyr (which is to clear switch key 36). Why would Digitrax not provide a simple one-step clear address memory command?
Anyway, thanks for any tips.
SLOTMAX is a function of the command station not the throttle. Since your Zephyr is the command station the DT is simply reporting to you that the command station slotmax has been reached. The Z has a theoretical total of 10 slots. Every loco in your consist counts towards these slots as does any other loco that you have that are not fully dispatched from the slots.
Do you by chance use a PC interface and JMRI Decoder Pro? If so, there is a very useful slot monitoring tool that displays the current status of the slots in the command station. It also lets you clear and release these slots individually.
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
You aren't properly dispatching your locos if you are getting a slot max message. Look in the back of the Zephyr manual for information about closing OpSw 36 to clear the memory. This will remove any loco addrersses and MU consists from memoery so you cna start fresh. Remember to properly dispatch locos when done with them as shown int he manual. Especially if you hit the wrong button and accidently select an address you aren't using - those are ones that will stay there forever unless properly dispatched because you'll never key in that bogus address again. If you are getting Steal messages for every loco you key in, that's a clear sign they weren't properly dispatched.
I only ever got a slot max message once on my Zephyr - when I was deliberately loading addresses to see how many it really had - 10 or 12. Seems like it actuall has 12, the extra 2 are for the jump ports, but I don't know if you can actually control a loco with a Loconet throttle in one. I'l have to try again, this layout is a little bigger so I might be able to select 12 real locos this time.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
simon1966 SLOTMAX is a function of the command station not the throttle. Since your Zephyr is the command station the DT is simply reporting to you that the command station slotmax has been reached.
SLOTMAX is a function of the command station not the throttle. Since your Zephyr is the command station the DT is simply reporting to you that the command station slotmax has been reached.
Ah, now that makes sense. I thought the new DT402 was something it wasn't. Thanks fellows.
Yes, I will look in DPro and thanks, I do know how to clear addresses from the Zephyr. Onward and upward!
I have the same problem as you Cisco Kid. I have a DCS100 duplex system. I've had another DCS100 since 1997. Once in a rare while it would go to slot=max. All I had to do was dispatch the last loco used and i was back in business. No needing to close OPSW36 This duplex DCS100 has done it 3 times since I just started using it. . I called Digitrax Tech Support and they didn't have an answer for me. I know how to dispatch/release/exit since 1997. There is something not right in the command stations or some of them. This slot=max problem has come on other forums.I'm sure someof the people are dispatching right just like me. Digitrax needs to address this problem. I amj sure I am doing everything right . I'm a longtime user. One of the times I ran 4 trains and I was back to slot=max after doing OPSW36. It does work right after that. We shouldn't have to do this By tghe way, I use 120 slots. Didn't help. I've read this too many times to be to be an isolated problem. Any other answers I have not heard? I'm just frustrated. Thanks PW
Dunno, it always stays cleared out for me when I dispatch properly - you have to be STOPPED or it won't purge the loco (otherwise it would purge a loco you leave runnign all by itself while you control another). Same on our club layout, not everyone is a DCC person so often they just park their trains and take the battery out of the throttle they are using, and after a couple of days even the 120 slots on a DCS100 get filled - it's obvious when I plug in my throttle and up pops a loco I have never run (I take my own personal throttle, and I know no one else is using it when I'm not running). Part of the problem us the UT4's, if you aren't careful the potentiometere is NOT at stop when you crank the knob all the way down. Put the directio toggle in brake usually works, but not too many do that. So we do occasionally get a slot=max, but a quick OpSw 36 clears it. Every time. Not sure what you might eb doign that it doesn't clear, or your locos aren't dispatching properly. DO you have JMRI? Use the slot monitor to check. If you never changed the OpSw settings, the DCS100 only does 22 slots out of the box.
Mine doesn't do that.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
If the loco is stopped and you dispatch the slots go Idle and can be used again. I was just setting up my new little PC I built to use in the layout room and I opened up the slot monitor as one of the things to verify that JMRI was workign and my old Deloof Locobuffer was properly communicating, and all but two slots say Idle. The other two are Active - and correspond to the addresses currently in use on my DT400. Idle slots are essentially in the pool and if all other empty slots are used up these will be used and NOT give a Slot=Max error. Common is what happens when you unplug the throttle without dispatching the loco first, and until the purge timer expires (default 200 seconds). Those are the ones I grab on the club layout when I plug my throttle in and both sides show address I know I never used.
There's a more detailed (and more accurate) description of the whole process in a document on the Yahoo Digitrax list, which can't be linked here because you need to be a member of the group to open it. The bottom line is if you properly dispatch your locos you will NOT get slot=max messgaes unless you're creatign and breakign consists and selectign and deselecting locos at a furious pace. If the system actually rememebred forever every loco you ever ran then I'd be gettign them all the time as I have way more than 12 loco with decoders, and the only time I reset my Zephyr was when I first got it, kind of like resetting new decoders to make sre there was no 'junk' in there, in which instance I did an OpSw 39 reset to reset the whole unit, not just clear the memory. It's been chugging away for 2 years now with no reset - this being the seond one I purchased. On the original one and my old layout, combined betwene two of us there ware over 40 decoder equipped locos, and there never was a slot=max or FULL message other than the time I deliberately filled them up for testing to see if there were 10 or 12 actual slots.
Digitrax command stations do NOT store every loco ever run - that would be absolutely useless, as then someone with a Zephyr could only own 10 locos, or someone with a DB150 could only have 22, That is clearly not the case. Consisting sucks up slots faster, especially if you use a 'dummy' address as the consist address - say train 10 made up of locos 1234, 2002, and 1901 - that's FOUR slots. Forget to break up that consist and just take the locos off the track and you've 'wasted' 4 slots that will never get cleared or purged until the consist is broken up or you do a memory clear- consists are NOT cleared just by dispatching, the consist must be broken up for the slots to go to common or idle.
OpSw 36 clears the slot and consist information on all 3 current Digitrax command stations( and the original Zephyr). OpSw 39 resets a DCS50(Zephyr), DCS51(Zephyr Xtra), and DCS100 to all factory defaults - clearing memory as well as resetting all other OpSw values to factory default. In the Zephyrs it also resets the brake rate used by the Zephyr brake handle. Since there aren't OpSw values in the DB150 it doesn't really do anything, if it's even a valid OpSw.
On the digitrax groups there is a recent thread where a couple of people noted having a problem with the new duplex throttles giving slot=max on the DCS 100. even with the max set to 120.
They suggest it may be the newer DCS 100's with the 28 function firmware.
Springfield PA
Most every time out club has had 'slot max' issues, it has been because engiens were NOT dispatched corectly. Also, you need to break consists & zero out the throttle. That 'zeroing out the throttle' is the big reason that the loco is not purged. We have JMRI attached to our club Loconet and I can 'look' at the slots and 'see' who did not dispatch out correctly! I call it the 'Truth Machine'....
We do have a duplex receiver as well as the simplex one, but only one guy has a duplex DT402D throttle. We have not seen this duplex issue.....
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
If it's only one guy with duplex and he uses the same loco's you probably wouldn't see a problem. If it's in fact the newer DCS 100's, existing layouts wouldn't see the issue as well.
Hamltnblue On the digitrax groups there is a recent thread where a couple of people noted having a problem with the new duplex throttles giving slot=max on the DCS 100. even with the max set to 120. They suggest it may be the newer DCS 100's with the 28 function firmware.
The poster on the Digitrax group was wrong, there is no new DCS100. Functions is not managed by the command station but by the handheld. This is why Digitrax command station did not need any upgrade since 1998 or so.
Jack W.
The very first of the DCS100's would only work up to F8, they wouldn;t pass the commands fromt he newer throttles. This was the ONLY update to the command station firmware. F9-F12 is done in the throttle, as is F13-F29 in the DT402.
However now that the Zephyr Xtra has updateable firmware - they ALREADY have an update for it. Doesn't sya what the fixes are, just that it is recommended for all Zephyr Xtra users.
As for the slots, since I was messing around today getting all my stuff hooked up to my new little computer in the train room (Locobuffer to the layout, PR3 for my dedicated program track - both now work simultaneously in JMRI) I decided to play around with throttles and the slot monitor utility. Right away in slot monitor it showed all 12 slots in my Zephyer occupied with one loco address or another, all in IDLE state. I selected an unused address, and it grabbed one of the IDLE slots and switched to IN USE. I then released the loco, and the slot went to COMMON. After the purge timeout the status went to IDLE.
If I selected an address that was already showing in a slot with an IDLE state, it went to IN USE. Releasing it started the COMMON to IDLE cycle again. No SLOT=MAX issues here. A slot that is IDLE is in the pool and available to be used. ANd it would appear the original Zephyr actually has 12 usable slots, not 10.