I recently added a DB150 as a booster to a DB150 Command Station/booster. I have a double track mainline and the eastward is one power district and the Westward is another. The Command Station powers the Eastward and the Booster powers the Westward, The Booster has the Ground and Config A connected by a length of wire. The Command and booster are connected jack B to jack B with a J12 6p 6c loconet cable. With the Booster added to the layout I connected rail A wire to the right rail on the Eastward and rail B to the left rail on the Eastward track. I connected the Booster rail A wire to the right rail on the Westward track and the rail B wire to the left rail on the Westward track. The Eastward and Westward tracks are electrically isolated from one another at all crossovers with insulated rail joiners. Now, when I tried to run a locomotive through a set of crossovers form one maintrack to the other the locomotive shorted out. I corrected this problem by switching the track leads on the Booster- which doesn't make any sense to me- but it worked. Next issue. When I shut off track power with the DT400 throttle the Command station shuts down, but the booster continues to supply power to the Westward track. The "track status" light is a dim yellow color instead of orange. Anyone have any ideas about what's going on with the booster? Everything was going swimmingly until it was added.
I had the flipped booster happen to me. I searched the Digitrax list, and from what I can tell the only fix is to reverse the two wires on the "A" & "B" rail connections on the front of the booster. If I had to guess, it's because Digitrax boosters are also auto-reversers, and I guess sometimes they click over to the opposite polarity.
As for the glowing light on the booster even when the track power is off, that usually means you have something bleeding into the circuit and providing that power. To chase it down, you'll have to isolate sections of the layout until you find it. Good luck!
Paul A. Cutler III*******************Weather Or No Go New Haven*******************
Either the rail leads are flipped or you have a railsync issue on Loconet. I suspect the rail leads are flipped. Note that some of the DB150s were reversed on the front of the DB150. Rail sync issues get a little tricker to troubleshoot. In that scenario you aren't 180 degrees out of phase like a flipped rail situation but slightly out of phase because the pulses of the command station and the DB150 aren't exactly in phase.
Engineer Jeff NS Nut Visit my layout at: http://www.thebinks.com/trains/
Some DB150's came with the rail leads flipped. Yours might be one (it migh tbe your first, older one, rather than the new one - result is the same). OR your loconet cable might be phone wired, not data wired, which flips the railsync leads and has the same end result - the rail a and b of the second booster do not match the first. Check that cable carefully, because if it is 'flipped' that may be aprt of the second problem - the loconet signal is usually only connected to one wire in the cable but when you plug a throttle in, it ties the two together.
To properly check the cable, hold it so the pins face up, both latches to the rear (away from you) and the wire exiting down. Now compare the wire colors from left to right - they should be IDENTICAL on both connectors. If not, it's a phone-type cord and it's reversing the connections.
As for the second problem - are the insulating joiners in BOTH rails at every point the tracks powered by booster A contact the tracks powered by booster B? You can't use common rail wiring with these things, BOTH rails need gaps.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Thanks for the replies. Apparently I have a booster with the polarity to the track flipped. I can live with that knowing that some DB150s were shipped that way- or because they can act as an auto reverser may have their polarity flipped.
I recut and recrimped 6 conductor satin cable to the J12 ( really a 6 pin J11 6p 6c plug ) connectors and swapped the original command station with the booster making the command station the booster instead. This solved the problem of the original booster maintaining power to the track after being turned off via the DT400 throttle. Being curious by nature, I returned the command station and the booster to the original configuration and the problem returned. So now the original command station will be the booster and that's just the way it's gonna be. It works so I should be happy.
I'd give Digitrax a call about it though - that's not correct behavior and since it's new it should still be in warranty.