Help! My Digitrax system is not working. I have a DB150 booster, a UR91, DT300 and DT300R connected and as recently as yesterday, working fine. Today I plugged in my tethered throttle and the throttle would not respond. The screen is flashing between showing the system power of 10.5 volts and "DT300vID," while across the top of the LCD display all of the function indicator numbers flash off and on and the address line has all "0's" in it. The back light for the screen also flashes on and off for an instant when the screen flips between the two displays. The same thing happens when I plug in the DT300R throttle. Additionally, the radio control doesn't work on the DT300R. For an instant the system went into the "normal" mode so I could call up an address and get a locomotive running, but then it went back to the other random flashing and became non-responsive. I tried disconnecting the Loco Net and plugged the throttle directly into the booster toeliminate any problem with the loconet with no luck. Since when the throttle went into normal mode I could get the locomotive to run fine, I know that I do not have a short on the track.Any ideas? Lefty
Lefty
If neither throttle works, even when plugged directly in to the booster (did you disconnect all other things on Loconet? If not - try that also, the ONLY thing that should eb plugged in to the DB150 should eb one of the throttles for this test). If that doesn;t work - and try both jacks to make sure - it means a fault in the DB150 and it will probably need a vacation to FLorida (sitting here in 6" of new snow today on top of nearly a foot from last week - I think *I* need a vacation to Floriday). If it works with JUST the throttle plugged in, start reconnecting the Loconet and work out fromt he DB150 and try one device at a time. When you get to the one that causes things to stop working, either that device has an issue, or the cable between it and the previous device has a problem.
--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 Randy,
i think it is a booster problem. Maybe it was struck by a power surge or something. I guess the only option is to try a new booster. Anyone with any other ideas?
lefty
Lefty,
Try resetting the booster to factory defaults by close]ing Option Switch 39. Don't forget to cycle power after closing the option switch. Instructions are in the manual.
Martin Myers
Try all 3 throttles, plugging each into the DB150, one at a time. If all 'flash', You might need to change out the CMOS battery inside the unit. ow many 'beeps' does the command station make when it powers on? Here is the power on sequence and error info:
http://ikm.digitrax.com/questions.php?questionid=629
If the command station is indeed dead, you can get it fixed for $35, plus shipping if it is out of warranty. Go to the Digitrax Support web page and follow the instructions.
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
No CMOS battery in a DB150, but an OpSw 39 reset is a good idea.
Good point, Randy. I was not sure what is in a DB150 as I have a DCS100. If he cannot get any throttle to do anything other than 'flash', how is he going to do a option 39 reset?
Lefty-
The flashing display on your DT300R could be the dreaded "capacitor plague" problem.
About the time that Digitrax was first bringing out the DT300 and DT300R, a few of the major electronic component manufacturers in Asia produced a number of batches of faulty capacitors. They got shipped out and wrought havoc across the electronics industry. I've encountered PCs, cell phones and DCC components that suffered from these bad capacitors.
The symptoms were that the products that had these components tested out fine when they were built, would work for a while, then start failing when the capacitors started bulging and failed. My employer had several hundred name-brand PCs we purchased around that time experience motherboard failures within the first year as a result of this.
The DT300-series throttles can show this problem after a few years, if they were built with the faulty capacitors. The symptom of this is if you plug in a DT300 or start it up with a battery, and the display keeps flashing between two displays, at least one of which is gobbledygook.
I've had three of them fail myself. In all three cases, I sent them to Digitrax and Digitrax repaired them for me.
It doesn't happen to every DT300 or DT300R, and is most prevalent in those throttles built during the first production runs.
-Fritz Milhaupt, Publications Editor, Pere Marquette Historical Society, Inc.http://www.pmhistsoc.org
Thanks for the suggestions. Here's an update on the problem. Thinking that the issue was a bad DB 150, I bought a new one, hooked it up and had the same problem with flashing information on the throttle LCDs when I hooked the throttles into the UR91. But when I disconnected the power supply from the UR91, the throttles worked fine - in tethered mode. Of course, the DT300R wouldn't work in radio mode. I then replaced the UR91 with a UR92 (Duplex) radio transceiver and plugged in a new UT4D (duplex) radio throttle. The throttle linked to the system and works fine tethered and untethered.
Then I plugged the old simplex DT300 and DT300R into the new duplex UR92. Their screens showed the same flashing nonsense as before. I guess this could be a simplex/duplex issue?
Any ideas what's going on? Do I send the old simplex throttles back to Digitrax, have them convert them to duplex and forget it? I guess I'll hold on to the old DT150. It doesn't seem that that was the problem.
Abbie
OK, wait, so if you remove the UR91, and plugged the throttles in, they both worked fine, plugged in only, of course, but when you connected either the UR91 or the new UR92 and plugged the throttles in, they do not work?
If that is the case, then there must be something wrong witht he loconet cable to the UR91.UR92, or - did you use the same power supply, or get a new one with the UR92? It could be that power supply that is bad. With nothing else plugged in, the UR91 and UR92 can operate on power over the Loconet cable - barely. But plug in another device like another throttle, and the Railsync voltage is pulled too low for any of it to operate reliably. If the sequences is exactly as described previously, witht he UT4D working with the UR92 but neither DT300 works ehen plugged in WITH the UR92 connected, but the DT300's work plugged in if the UR92 is disconnected, about the only thing it can be at that popint is the power supply - should be using a PS14. Do not connect the track power screws, while this SHOULDN'T cause any issues but keep it simple. Also, do you have any other panels? Since you have a system old enough to have a DT300, any non-radio panel you have might be a UP3 instead of a UP5 - the UP3's did not have a resistor to protect the diodes and can have burned diodes, which can cause all sorts of power problems.
Before you bought a new DB150, did you try what I suggested, and disconnect all Loconet cables and try plugging the throttles one at a time right into the DB150's Loconet port?
If you have or get a second power supply, you can use the UR91 AND UR92 at the same time, the DT300R will talk to the UR91, and the UT4D will talk to the UR92. The DT300's are not upgradable to Duplex.
I also have a DT300R which resets with the DT300v1D Power 10.5 message. In reading posts on the web, there are two 4.7u SMT capacitors of an older technology on the DT300R circuit board which may fail. Most bloggers on the public sites indicate filling out the Digitrax repair form and sending the unit for repair to Digitrax is the best approach. I'm going to be doing that myself.
ArtB