My Prodigy Advance base unit apparently has no power for some reason. When I turn on the power to the whole system I have a green LED with a steady light on the power supply but when I turn on the base unit I have no power (pilot) light on the base unit and the LED on the power supply starts blinking and is fairly faint. This happened all of a sudden although we did have a major electrical storm about a week ago which did some minor damage but I had all the electricity shut off to the entire layout and all the other electrical components on my layout work. The displays on my wireless and wired controllers come on but of course nothing works. Any ideas on how to fix this or should I just replace it?
Dico.the layout wires going to the pa,to see if trouble in pa or track wiring.Its a start!
What does your manual say about the blinking led on the power supply? I fear that it may indicate that you have a short in your base unit. That could be due to a fried component or other damage as a result of the storm. Even though the system was turned off lightning strikes can still do damage to plugged in circuits.
Joe
The owners manual is silent about a blinking LED on the power supply. I'll do some more troubleshooting tomorrow but I suspect that something is fried internally either in the power supply or the base unit. My guess would be that the power supply would go before the base unit and that may be why the power supply light blinks when I turn on the base unit. I've contacted MRC to see what they say. Not sure whether it would be better to send the unit in for repair or just replace the whole thing.
Dadret,
If you emailed them, give them a call instead. I've gotten excellent response from calling them. I'm pretty sure the repair cost would be a lot less than a new system.
Emman
FYI - I called MRC and they have been without power for the last few days (Irene leftover - they're in New Jersey) so they haven't been answering (or getting) emails. The lady suggested I try again tomorrow morning so I will.
Did you ever get ahold of MRC? What happened?
I sent it back to MRC last week for repair per their suggestion. Just waiting to either hear from them or get it back. They apparently have a $50 flat rate for repair.
Hi Dad,
Had same thing happen to me a couple of weeks back, our layout is sectioned (blocked electrically) to run DC but with all switches over to the right for running DCC.
I was first in one night, so I plugged in and powered up and got the same as you, nout but a rappid flashing from the power-pack, so I wipped out the Din Plug between the base and layout. All became normal, so I tried my test track (T&G with a yard track on), stuck a loco on , no problems.
I found a dead short by un-plugging all boards and worked out from the Din Socket. Might help, it work for me, took over an hour though . Tried plugging in a DC pack?
Be in touch.
pick.