Over a year ago I bought a Digitrax PM-42, looked at the instructions, and put it in the to do cabinet. The layout progressed to the point I girded my loins and had at the PM-42's 44 pin connector. A month later after, conflicting input from several sources I gave up on the PM-42 and ordered a pair of AN-1's to handle my two reversing blocks. My control/throttle is an older Zephyr and that seemed to be the confounding item in my difficulties. The PM-42 short protection did work on my two short protected blocks but nothing worked in the reversing sections. My gut tells me to just take the PM-42 out and wire in the two AN-1s- neat and simple. Then the Digitrax folks assured me I could keep the PM-42 active and to reprogram them to short protection. That could be easily done but that "hard short" required to trip the auto-reverse in either device would get me back into the same situation I'm in with just the PM-42. Set the sensitivity lower than the Zephyr and nothing good happens. Set it higher and a short in one section shuts everything down. The only thing I have confidence in is the wiring although I found two other schemes for wiring the same device online. The techs at Digitraxx agreed with my diagram (with 4 less wires) and I have checked and rechecked it. I’m leaning to neat and simple unless someone who has been there can help.
Roy
Roy Onward into the fog http://s1014.photobucket.com/albums/af269/looseclu/
Close Option Switch 18 on your Zephyr. That will change its short circuit shut down time from 1/8 second to 1/2 second. That will let the PM42's and AR1's reverse before the Zephyr reacts to the short.
28.0 DCS50 Option Switch Setup ..........................................................46
Martin Myers
Thank you Martin- I'm off to garage to reset the DCS-50. I'll post how that went
I closed the ops 18 as suggested but that didn't change the results. I again contacted Digitrax but their response this time suggested my Zephyr MAY be one of the old ones that won't work with the AR-1 (Yep my dislexia struck again- its AR-1 not AN-1 as earlier posted). They neglected to mention how I was supposed to know if that was the case just recommended I send it in for some undisclosed repair. Their reply was so vague and brief that I am unsure if they want me to send in the AR-1, the PM-42 or the Zephyr. If I were wealthy, I'd send them all three along with instructions where they could put them but I live on Social Security and cannot afford to go with an entirely new (NOT Digitrax!) system. I have enough things in this world to get angry about without my hobby being added to the list.
Turn track power off on your Zephyr. It will briefly display POxx. xx being the firmware version. If it's 11, then you have the old original version. Version 10 and 12 are later versions and should work with an AR1. My version 10 Zephyr worked just the other night when testing a newly installed AR1.
PO12 is what the Zephyr displayed when the track power was turned off. This is puzzling. I have opened the gaps and removed the plastic insulating track connectors at both ends of the 3' section of flex track (the reversing leg of the loop). There is but one pair of power connections to this section and it is in the middle of the reversing leg. That is the only power in block 3. Block 1 tracks connect at both ends of the reversing section and both ends are 10 inches from the turnouts leading into the reverse leg. Ultimately all 4 blocks connect to the same two outputs on the Zephyr but that is their only mutual connection. I gave up on the PM-42; it was too complicated for me to troubleshoot. The KISS rule convinced me to spring for a pair of AR-1s but now they don't work either and I've no idea why. There is no wiring problem just two wires that go in and out or the AR-1. The Zephyr is not new but new enough. I've only used one locomotive for my test runs but its the only one I have with DCC without sound. I don't want to use sound decoders for tests. The current test loco is Spectrum 3-trk Climax (HO). I'm in a holding pattern waiting for some direction- I don't know where to begin!