I own three Digitrax BDL168's and two of them won't detect occupancy and zone power. I have had these for years and they worked when I put them in, but when I tried to detect trains with JMRI yesterday they don't work. I have not changed anything on the layout for years.
They are always displaying 4 solid red LEDs for the track sections and nothing for zone power on the LT5 tester. I have tried changing the power supply, check the wiring (included removing it from the layout and create it's own isolated circuit), check the Loconet cables, reset the BDL168 itself, and changing the LT5 tester I am using. Nothing is working, it is passing Loconet messages through to other devices and track power is also pass through. Does anyone have suggestions for me to try.Thanks for anyones help with this
All occupied and no zone power pretty much means just that - there is no power to that zone on the input side. So it is showing all blocks int he zone as occupied since it is unable to get a true occupancy status. It's not a problem in the track wiring side - check your input. Maybe you have the feed for the zone one terminal off on the 44 pin connector.
Check out the Accu-Lites breakout boards for the BDL-168 (and PM-42 and SE8C). They make wiring up the boards much easier, no solderign to the edge connector, just attach wires to the screw terminals and plug the board in.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.