Ok, this is a long sordid story so I'll try to summarize where I can to make it easier to understand for everyone in hopes that you all can help me find a solution.
I have an HO layout broken up into 4 power districts (blocks). I have an all Digitrax system. My base station is a DB150 (Empire Builder) track leads go out to a PM42.
The PM42 is wired correctly as it was sent to digitrax and they check it too. However, without actually connecting the PM42 to anything (it is powered by itself with a PS14) but the 2 track leads coming from the base station and the ground wire coming off the PM42 to the ground terminal on the base station the PM42 trips, on 3 circuits, continuously until you shut it off. Remember it's not even connected to the track yet. If you connect the track it does the same thing. I have sent the board back to digitrax, they replaced it with a new one and it still does the same exact thing as the first and they tested it before they set it back.
Now, I am a pretty darn experienced DCC guy, and I'm not intimidated by lots of wires or any kind of technology but this has got me completely stumped. I have NO CLUE why it does this and can't see any good reason why it's happening.
Anyone else have any ideas?
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Are you absolutely certain the things you DO have connected are connected to the right pins on the edge card connector, and none of the solder tails are bent and making contact with others? Since it's the same with two different PM42's its not the board, and since the track wires are not connected it's not the layout wiring, or a for real short somewhere. That pretty much just leaves the connections on the edge card connector.
How are you conencting and disconnectign the track wires? Did you run short lengths of #18 or so wire to a terminal strip and then allow for connection of the track wires? That's about as big a wire as will attach to the solder tails without breaking them off or bending them over.
Here's how I did mine:
The 4 position strip on the left, the bottom two terminals are the Rail A and Rail B feeds from my DB150, the top two are 15V from a power supply I have. The bottom strip is Rail A and Rail B for each section, the layout bus connects to the free terminals on that strip. The ground is the green wire to the right, it runs to a terminal strip in front of the DB150.
--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-
Thanks for your input! I have checked the wiring 4 times over, even digitrax looked at it and they said it works. BUT it never hurts to have another person check your work. So I'm going to get some macro shots of it tonight as well as the entire wiring set up and post the pics for you to look at.
As far as bridging the pins, no I try to run a pretty darn tight ship when it comes to soldering, as you will see, each wire was soldered on and then shielded with shrink wrap in an effort to prevent that very thing (bridging) the only connections that are not shielded are the power source connections (maybe I should do that?).
All in all I'll get some pics together tonight, and I'll draw up the exact wiring diagram so you will have the clearest picture of what I'm seeing. I'm very appreciative to have someone's help as this has been very frustrating.
More to come
OK, here is the wiring diagram of my digitrax set up signaling and all. Please review and let me know what you think.
Here is a link to a PDF of the same thing: http://www.crtraincrew.com/forum/DW_ohioValleyRegion.graffle.pdf
Photos will come this evening
Ok, here is a macro shot of the blue connector for the PM42, note numbers face the component side, letters down. Please check this against the wiring diagram supplied in the digitrax PM42 manual, "Example A, Single Booster with 4 power districts" I checked it before I posted this picture (again) but alas, it checks out. But never the less here we go. :)
So again to restate my problem, if I connect the PM42 to the track leads from the DB150, and connect the ground wire to the ground terminal on the DB150, connect the power cables on Pins 3 and C (I think without looking) and then turn the track power on at the booster, the PM42 trips repeatedly until it is shut off. Without even having the PM42 connected to the track on the layout.
If you only have the power connected to the PM42 and no connection to the DB150 what happens?
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
Do you have a loco net cable attached to the PM-42? I would check your ground wire. I have noticed issues before where the ground wire was loose and caused it to trip. Check your Loconet cable if you do have one plugged in that is a setup up a straight thru cable. This could be causing a grounding issue thru the loconet cable.
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You have the rail A/rail B crossed for all you track outputs, but that really won't matter at this stage - if the black wire is on pin 4, the black wire to the track should be on E. The only time this woudl come in to play is if you have a second booster with no PM42 feeding to the tracks - crossing from the PM42 section to this boosterwould cause a short from being out of phase.
Otherwise, it sure looks like all the wires are in the right place. Did you try the ground down at the other end, on X? On the PM42 there is a heavy trace around the board that if followed (it flips sides I think), should lead from B to X so it really shouldn't matter which pin you connect ground, as long as one of them is connected. Is the ground at the command station in the proper terminal?
Check in the connector with the PM42 pulled out to make sure there isn;t a scrap of wire or cut end down in the contacts shorting anything out.
If you have a loconet cable connected - what about with the cable disconnected? If you overlapped board addresses with one of your other boards, you can get wierd problems.
Oh, and when you turnt he track power on, is it really ON? The power dot in the DT40x should be solid, NOT flashing. If it's flashing, hit Power, +/on again.
Is your power supply known good? WHen I shut my system down my PM42 gives off some random clicks as the filter capacitor in the power supply feeding it drains.
@simon: The PM42 sits idle (like it should) as long as the track power is NOT turned on.
@ Randy: I wired this according to Digitrax's own example diagram so I'm not sure (without look at the manual) what you mean by rail A and B wires are crossed. I'm only using a single booster/basestation (DB150).
@ Randy and Renegade:
No, I don't have a loconet cable attached at all, due to the fact that you don't need one attached unless your programming it. But once I tried pluggin it in to see if that changes anything and it did not. :(
The ground wire is my guess too, right now it's on the B tab, I might try soldering one on X and try that, plus re-cut and re-tin the end to assure no frayed wires causing a short. Would a heavier gauge be more appropriate for a ground wire? Has anyone tried grounding it elsewhere like on an empty slot on a terminal strip?
As far as track power, yes it is full on (solid dot)
As far as the power supply that's a good one to check as well. I know it supplies power, but wether or not it is causing a short I don't know, still worth shoring up that connection just to be sure. And yes when I shut down the system the PM42 will give me a series of clicks (as you described) then goes dark.
I'll check off the ground wire tonight as well as the power supply and report back what I find. Thanks everyone for your help I REALLY appreciate it!
What I mean is that if you look at your photo, on the inputs you have the black wire on the left adn the red wire ont he right. On the outputs you have it the other way around. Far as I know, the left terminals on the input connect to the left terminal on the output inside the relays. If you trace continuity you should find teh black input wire connects through tot eh red output wire the way you have it. This won't cause any problems if you are consistent, unless you have a 5th power district connected directly to the track, either from that booster or another one, or else via a PM42 wired the other way. That would put the two adjoining power districts out of phase and cause a short. Since you were so meticulous in the wiring and everythign is neat and clean and nicely organzided (better than mine), I figured you'd probably want to keep it straight.
As for the power supply, have you checked the output voltage to be sure it really is working?
Heavier wire for the ground won't really do anything. I have #18, and it's a short run, my DB150 sits right next to the PM42. Same witht he output wires on mine, it's all #18 but such short runs that there's not going to be any measureable loss there. Playing around with heavier wire is just asking to break the pins off the edge connector. Which reminds me, when soldering wires to the pins, it's possible to have the pins shift in the plastic. Look in the card side with a magnifier and light to make sure no contacts are touching any other, or are skewed such that they would contact two pads on the PM42. You can look at the PM42 to see if this happened as well, you can see where the contact fingers rub on the board pads. There also should be bare pc board between each contact finger - sometimes the board etchign process leaves a bit of copper where it isn't supposed to be, but since you're on the second PM42 it's highly unlikely both would have the same issue. The problem should be with somethign that was common between the boards since swapping boards didn;t fix anything.
I don't see a connection for power at the 3 and C pins. No big deal as the PM42 is normally closed without power. The booster would trip instead. Other then that and the swap of wire color between your inputs and outputs, I don't see anything wrong.
Time to check for continuity between each of the two lettered terminals feeding each subdistrict. Look for damage to the adjacent connections. It's not hard to leave the heat of a soldering iron on them just long enough to make the plastic soft. In the process, the terminals get shifted in the warm plastic housing.
Martin Myers
This may have nothing to do with it, but if the DB150 is connected directly to the track does the DB150 trip? Did the system work and engines run before you hooked up the PM42?
I have 2 of the PM42's and if a breakers trip rate is set wrong it will not have time to reset. Did you change how fast it resets?
At least Randy and your wiring is a lot neater then mine.
Ken G Price My N-Scale Layout
Digitrax Super Empire Builder Radio System. South Valley Texas Railroad. SVTRR
N-Scale out west. 1996-1998 or so! UP, SP, Missouri Pacific, C&NW.
Well, his are tripping witht he track wires disconnected from the track, so there's nothing wrong there. But one other thing I did just think of - is the DB150 working properly? Low voltage there will cause the PM42 to be flakey as well. That's pretty much the situation I get when I power down my layout - the MF615 powering my DB150 drains its filter cap long before the power supply powering my PM42, so the PM42 is active when the DB50 voltage drops. It goes nuts with the clicks for a second until the DB150 is totally off and the PM42 power supply finally drains.
I have been using PM42s for quite some time and I have run into this problem as well. My solution was my DCS100 was not completely hooked up and it was causing the tripping of the relays from a lack of ground referance. The inputs from the booster and the ground must all be presant at the same time or the PM42 gets confused. Once I connected the ground properly the problem went away. Other things that can cause this same issue are too many engines on one block, not enough power at the booster to supply all the needed power. Other accessories causing an issue with the ground, tripping speed for the PM42 set too high, Tripping current set too low. If you are using a computer interface disconnect it until all other problems are solved, if the computer interface causes the problems make sure that everything for the computer interface is wired properly especally the ground channels.
Hope this helps.
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Oh and one more question. You are powering the PM42 with an external power supply right? I dont see the wiring for it on your macro shot.
Massey
First of all, thank you everyone. but this still continues:
Report: shored up all power supply connections double checked power supply and everything there works. It just continues to trip repeatedly...
@mfm37: I'll be checking the pads tonight but I'm pretty sure it's clean as I don't hold the heat to anything long enough to heat everything around it.
@Lake: Yes the Db150 functions properly without the PM42, trips when you do the coin test. And yes I can by pass teh PM42 all together and everything works just fine.
@rrinker: Actually contrary to what I said earlier, when I shut off the track power the PM42 stops tripping instantly.
@SMassey: OK, I'm not following you 100% on what you said, My DB150 is connected completely (both track leads and ground going from the DB150 to the PM42). It's not the engine issue as it does this without even connecting it to any track. Now the "not enough power at the booster issue" is interesting, would switching it to G SCALE be a wise? Don't have a computer hooked up. Not yet at least. As for Tripping speed and tripping current, I have not changed these settings at all, everything programatically is at the default factory settings.
Thoughts?
Thanks again to everyone for your help, but the problem still rolls on :|
SMassey Oh and one more question. You are powering the PM42 with an external power supply right? I dont see the wiring for it on your macro shot. Massey
SMassey: Yes it is powered with a PS14
Hmm, really at a loss here. If the wiring absolutel ypositively is as shown in the diagram, no chance for the DB150 to be powering track directly that is also powered through the PM42, I have no idea why it would be tripping. Don;t switch tot he G scale setting - just check the voltage at the rail A and rail b of the DB150. Just use a standard DVM, you don;t need a speciality tool like a RRampMeter, it will be accurate enough. Check voltage betwene Rail A adn ground and Rail B and ground as well, they should be the same.
Have you tried an OpSw 39 reset ont he DB150, just because?
Now it starts to get radical, I suppose. Liek cutting allt he wires off the 44 pin connector and hooking up just the input to one section, the power supply, and the ground, and trying that. Or if you have another 44 pin connector, make a test rig, just solder some SMALL wire to the approriate termiansl and try one section at a time. Also hook up a lLoconet cable, at least between the DB150 and the PM42. If you have a computer interface, Locobuffer or PR3, try monitoring the PM42 via JMRI or Loconet Checker. Loconet CHecker I think will allow a PM42 reset as well.
Sounds like a feedback problem, opposing grounds or positive wiring feeding back on each other,just a suggestion. Jim
rrinker Hmm, really at a loss here. If the wiring absolutel ypositively is as shown in the diagram, no chance for the DB150 to be powering track directly that is also powered through the PM42, I have no idea why it would be tripping. Don;t switch tot he G scale setting - just check the voltage at the rail A and rail b of the DB150. Just use a standard DVM, you don;t need a speciality tool like a RRampMeter, it will be accurate enough. Check voltage betwene Rail A adn ground and Rail B and ground as well, they should be the same. Have you tried an OpSw 39 reset ont he DB150, just because? Now it starts to get radical, I suppose. Liek cutting allt he wires off the 44 pin connector and hooking up just the input to one section, the power supply, and the ground, and trying that. Or if you have another 44 pin connector, make a test rig, just solder some SMALL wire to the approriate termiansl and try one section at a time. Also hook up a lLoconet cable, at least between the DB150 and the PM42. If you have a computer interface, Locobuffer or PR3, try monitoring the PM42 via JMRI or Loconet Checker. Loconet CHecker I think will allow a PM42 reset as well. --Randy
Have not done anything with the DB150, but I am of the opinion that it certainly won't hurt to do the OpSw 39 reset. The good news, I do have another 44 pin connector. SOOOO :) I'm gonna try a couple quick things and see where that takes me.
Hang in there guys. I REALLY REALLY appreciate the help and support trying to get this darn thing to work.
On another note I did get my SE8C hooked up to my signals with the BD4. That sure works nice. And if Sanata Claus brings me a PR3 I'll be in business to automate this beast. :)
The PM42 is capable of running trains even when it doesn't have power (the relays operate in the normally closed position). The relay energizes when there is a short, disconnecting track power. You can still operate with PM42 powered down. Try and see if you get a short when the PM-42 is powered down but still connected to the booster. This may determine if there actually is a short as your booster will trip.
Renegade asked you if you have a Loconet cable connected and, if so, if you are sure it is a data cable and not a telephone cable. I didn't see an answer.
I know this is really basic, but are you absolutely sure that you have gapped the track in all the correct places and that you have gapped the same rail in all the places you are connected?
I know that sometimes I make an error in the places that I know so well that I didn't really pay close attention.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Dano, I have a PM42 running successfully on my layout right now. If you want to you could send me yours and I will install it in my layout (a known good configuration) for you and test it to make sure that you are not just chasing your tail. All I ask is return postage. Here is a pic of my setup before I installed it in my layout.
Mine is set up with 3 power districts and one reversing loop.
Lemme know!
gondola1988 Sounds like a feedback problem, opposing grounds or positive wiring feeding back on each other,just a suggestion. Jim
Yes I agree, it's just finding where.
Renegade1c The PM42 is capable of running trains even when it doesn't have power (the relays operate in the normally closed position). The relay energizes when there is a short, disconnecting track power. You can still operate with PM42 powered down. Try and see if you get a short when the PM-42 is powered down but still connected to the booster. This may determine if there actually is a short as your booster will trip.
Great suggestion and I did not know this, I will try it tonight!
Phoebe Vet Renegade asked you if you have a Loconet cable connected and, if so, if you are sure it is a data cable and not a telephone cable. I didn't see an answer. I know this is really basic, but are you absolutely sure that you have gapped the track in all the correct places and that you have gapped the same rail in all the places you are connected? I know that sometimes I make an error in the places that I know so well that I didn't really pay close attention.
Yep using a data cable, flat RJ12 is what it is called, as far as track being gapped, it trips before you even connect it to the track so I know it's not that. But I appreciate the thoughts and ideas :)
SMassey Dano, I have a PM42 running successfully on my layout right now. If you want to you could send me yours and I will install it in my layout (a known good configuration) for you and test it to make sure that you are not just chasing your tail. All I ask is return postage. Here is a pic of my setup before I installed it in my layout. Mine is set up with 3 power districts and one reversing loop. Lemme know! Massey
I appreciate that, but before I go to that trouble I'd suggest just matching the wring diagram I provided, it is on page 1 of this thread. Personally I don't think it's the board, my hunch is it's the 44 pin connector, but I won't know till I do more tests, will start tonight after I finish swaping out a ATLAS switch for a PECO...
Both data and telephone cables are flat and six wires and use the same plug. The difference is telephone is wired pin one to pin six. Data cable is wired pin one to pin one. I just want to sure you understand that.
The Loconet signal is symmetrical and most Digitrax accessories can use either, but I believe that the PMs require data cable all the way from the command station to the PM42.
The wiring you are doing appears to be good but I will double check it when I get home. I for some odd reason cant access Digitrax's website from my work computers. I believe this issue is with your ground referance at the 44 pin connector. Before I hooked the ground up on my system I had the same issue. Once I fixed the ground it functioned perfectly.
I keep thinking about HAL when reading this post. I think the creepiest thing he said was in 2010 after they powered him back up and he said "I am completely operational and all my circuits are functioning perfectly".