I recently hooked up remote LED's to my PSX circuit breakers and auto reversers to have a visible indication of a short and, if so, in which of power district. (The boards are under the layout and will be hidden by skirting.) They all work perfectly but the LED's connected to the auto reversers also blink when the boards are in reverse mode. I find this blinking to be annoying and under normal circumstances I have no need to know whether or not those boards are in reverse mode. If anyone knows how to make the remote LED's light up ONLY when there is a short in the reverse loops, please let me know how it is done. An email to DCC Specialties earlier this week has thus far gone unanswered.
From the documentation it seems that htis is just how they work. If there is a setting to change that, tech support is your only hope because it's not listed in the documentation. If emaisl don;t work, you might try calling simply because depending on the phrasing in your email it could easily be considered spam. One common trick with a product support issue is to make the first thing on the subject line the name of the product you are writing about - hopefully the IT staff or the support company for whoever does the filtering is smart enough to add the company's actual product names to they spam filtering keyword lists to allow such messages through. A subect like "PSX-AR Remote LED help" is more likely to get through than a subject like "help! blinking LEDs!". And mentioning the product in question up front will be more likely to get the message routed to someone who can help, particularly when all tech support requests come to one person who routes them to the approriate person. If busy, this person isn't likely to read the entire message to figure out what product it is for and who to send it to, instead they will leave that for 'later' which, under a flood of mail, could become 'never'. Witht he product name right up front in the subject, they can see right away that this needs to go to someone who handles the PSX-AR product.
This goes for pretty much any email tech support request for anything.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy is correct. The LEDs are made to blink when the ASR reverses. They will blink until you travel over the reverse section again, then they should stop. Give the support company a call, but there might not be a fix.
Via personal email some one directed me to an article on Tony's Train Exchange web site with a little circuit that is designed to "filter out" the blinking reverse indicator in the remote LED's. When I get some capacitors specified therein I'll give it a try and post a report.
Sadly, the circuit suggested does not eliminate the remote LED from flashing while the PSX-AR is in reverse mode. I'm going to try calling DCC Specialties this week to see of any of their ttechs no of a way to eliminate the remote LED flashing.
The auto-reverse LED on the PSX-AR is not designed to indicate a short circuit, so I don't see why you need one on the fascia.
From The manual:
J5-3 (-) and J5-4 (+) are for a remote status LEDs. The LED is connected directly to the terminals. No resistor is required. (Off means normal) – (blinking means reversed) – (steady on means a short circuit.)
Peter
I talked with a tech at DCC Specialties today and there is not a way to wire up remote LED's for short indications without having the LED blink when the reversere is in reverse mode. I've tried a couple of circuits with capacitors suggested to me but neither one eliminated the blinking LED's in reverse mode.
Guess me and my operators will just have to get used to them.
You need alittle bit more complex circuit, with a timer. It needs to time out slower than the 'on' time for the LED output when in the reversed mode - so that the simple pulse of the LED won't trip the timer, but a steady on, indicating a short, would light the LED. Effectively you are measuring the pulse width of the signal - no pulse or too short = LED off, beyond the circuit threshold or steady on = LED on. Probably more complicated than it's worth - I'd just live with the blink, and just remember that only a steady on indicates a short in that section.
There appears to be 2 LEDs that can be hooked up. One to the block occupancy circuit (j4-5 and j4-6) open collector (page 11). And J5-3 and J5-4 (page 11). I am using the latter. When the reverse loop is shorted, the LED blinks indicating it is hooked up correctlym but doe NOT stay on. Anyone else seen this?
Jack
Hey Jack,
Keep in mind that the PSX-AR also provides turnout control using the three following methods:
J53-J54 is the Remote Turnout Switch Position and Status LED indicator. The output LED has three states:
Erik,
Tony's Train Exchange