DCC DCC cry for help

[Rob Pulham]

Rob
Are you near enough for any of the DCC savvy folk at Keighley club to taker a look for you?
It may be faster than sending you Lenz set back to Hattons.
John K

That may be an option John, it's about 45 minutes or so away.

I have also had the offer of the loan of a sprog unit to check out my chips, but I won't get my hands on it until the 14th. on that basis I am not going to rush into sending anything back to Hatton's for the sake of another couple of weeks.

In the meantime I will work through Nigel's suggestions with the non sounds chip that I wired in yesterday to see if I can get any sort of response out of it.

I do look at the problems with a positive side - the only way you really learn about anything is when having to solve problems.

 

[Steph Dale]

Jonathan

Reference to Tinkers Green Sidings, I use ZTC system not Lenz. I have to say that I am not predisposed to Lenz system as when I was looking at systems years ago I felt that Lenz was the least of the systems I tried and more recently on a DCC course it was suggested by the lecturer that Lenz systems gave the most problems (not specified). However, that is not to condemn Lenz systems as I have no doubt that many people get them working very well.

Rob

Rob,
That statistic needs taking with a little care; Lenz is the most popular system. It's also worth noting that the NMRA and MOROP DCC standards are effectively written around the Lenz specs.
For the record I've had no compatibility issues with ESU or Zimo decoders and Lenz system. I do tend to use the MultiMaus handset for ergonomic reasons, but with the Lenz command station.

Steph

 

[David Varley]

That may be an option John, it's about 45 minutes or so away.

Rob,

Digitrains are at Pontefract show on 28/29 January if you can wait that long.

David

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks David, that's probably a better option for me should I need it.

 

[simond]

I've had Lenz kit for at least 17 years, I've found that the software supplied with the USB interface doesn't program other makes of decoder, (but JMRI works with it) but otherwise it all functions per the specs, and I have no complaints. I have both an LH100 (push button) which works well for programming, and an LH200 (knob) (correction - the 90 is the set) which is easier to drive with. I also purchased a red Multimaus, which is compatible with xpressnet.

Many moons ago, I installed a multi-district system on a very large garden railway, using Lenz equipment, and again, it was very satisfactory. Whilst I am of the opinion that the Lenz control gear is excellent, my experience with their decoders was less positive, and all my locos were equipped with Zimo units until sound became an option, I am now using a mixture of Zimo and ESU decoders. I feel it's weak saying "x has the most problems" and not backing it up with data, particularly for someone who is teaching, but that does seem to be more and more typical of our post-truth world.

I've used 3 other systems, including a recent NCE and an older ZTC, whilst the ZTC controller "looks very nice", I found it no better than the Lenz in use, and it had reliability issues requiring several return-to-base repairs, and I understand it to not be compliant with the NMRA specs that were issued years ago, that said, I believe these are no longer the accepted norm. The NCE one does have a glitch to do with acceleration levels which was described by Pauliebanger on RMWeb a year or so ago. The third was an early entry level system whose name eludes me now, but it had a throttle per loco and the locos had to be numbered to suit the throttles.

I'll be interested to learn the cause of Rob's problem.
Best
Simon

 

[Scale7JB]

Apologies if i've sent this thread off on a complete tangent..

Also apologies to Rob, it must not have been tinkers green sidings, as it was definitely one of Simon Thompson smaller layouts that the K2 went bang. It was a warehouse based layout at one of the Brightwell meetings around about 2010..

JB.

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks again all for your contributions.

I must have had my head on the right way up this morning because after talking to Graham I set about more testing.

First I ran through the suggestions put forward by Nigel to try to program CV1 direct. this ultimately showed up the same error.

Next I reconnected the wires back to the track connections (as opposed to having the programming wires to terminals P and Q) I then tried shorting the system out and nothing happened.

Next I dug out my multimeter and checked inputs and outputs - Power is going in but there is nothing coming out to the track. I reconnected the programming wires to terminals P and Q and tested again while running through the checking CV sequence, again nothing doing.

Then having checked the instruction booklet again I noted that the LED on the front of the main unit is flashing constantly which indicates (according to the instructions either a short or a lowering of voltage). The LED continues to flash even when the output wires are removed completely - so no possibility of them creating any kind of short.

All of this takes me back again to the belief that I have a faulty Lenz unit rather than faulty chips. I didn't try Nigel's suggestion of running the chipped chassis on DC as I couldn't be sure that my old controller which is a Gaugemaster isn't a feedback type and I didn't want to risk doing any unnecessary damage when I can borrow the Sprog in a couple of weeks in the meantime I will talk to Hattons tomorrow.

 

[chrisb]

the LED on the front of the main unit is flashing constantly which indicates (according to the instructions either a short or a lowering of voltage)

Rob, I'm sure you've checked this already but just in case - I believe that a flashing LED on the command station can also indicates the emergency stop has been triggered and the emergency stop may be configured on your unit to cut all power to the track. It's a while since I owned any Lenz equipment but if I remember correctly the emergency stop is automatically set whenever the unit is powered on.

 

[Nigel Cliffe]

Rob,
I agree at the moment its pointing to a fault in the Lenz, either a faulty device, or an error in configuration/setup.

Just one detail, you should only see AC volts at the main running outputs. That the shorting test showed nothing, and the LED flashing, does indicate a problem.
You won't see anything on the programming track, save for a very brief pulse of power as programming instructions are sent. An analogue meter should show a needle flick as a pulse is sent, but many digital meters won't respond quick enough to see anything. Alternatively, an LED+resistor over the programming output should flash as the pulses are sent.

If there is nothing in the instructions on resetting the Lenz system back to "factory", and you're certain the settings have power on, then the logical conclusion is "fault".


On the Gaugemaster, in general, if they have a yellow front panel, then they are non-feedback types, so safe for testing. In general, Gaugemaster colour the panels of feedback (bad in this case) types in Red or Black, they also have model numbers ending in "F", such as "DF", or "H" such as "HH".
In the current Gaugemaster range, there isn't anything which is a feedback plus inertia unit (your earlier description was of an inertia type). But their range is smaller than it used to be as there are models I've used which are no longer listed.


Borrowing the Sprog. Ideally, if you can, take the locos to the Sprog owner with their computer, known to work, and check there. Only then actually borrow the device and try to set it up locally. I've known people get into almighty messes with driver files, Windows security settings, etc.. etc.., and when its not clear what is working (or not), adding another non-working device to the equation doesn't help !



- Nigel

 

[simond]

Nigel,

In Rob's post on the G0G forum, I actually checked the voltage present on the P&Q lines when programming is active. Using my cheap digital multimeter, I was seeing 50mV when idle, with pulses of 15V during programming. This was on the 20VAC range. It's not (afaik) a true RMS meter so the actual values will be wrong, but similar approximate values would confirm the connections were correct.

The leds should not be flashing in normal use. Cold starting my layout with some 15 locos on it, the control station shows steady red, the booster is flashing green. Pressing the <stop> button on the LH100 turns the track power on and the booster led becomes steady green.

Pressing F8 Enter, leaves both the LEDs steady. The display says "DIR" (direct).
Pressing the enter key changes the display to "ADR" and the LEDs remain steady.
Enter again, display "A._", leds steady.
Enter again, track power goes off, green led blinking, loco "grunts", display reads loco address, LED still blinking (red led on command station still steady)
ESC
ESC
ESC track power restored, green led steady.

I concur with taking the loco to a known working layout and confirming it is correct & functional - once the loco is known to be OK, then the process of elimination can proceed to the LH, LZ & LV.

Rob

It might be worth checking you have correctly connected the C, D, U & V lines between the LZ & LV units. If C and/or D are not connected, the green LED will flash on the LV.

Best
Simon

 

[Rob Pulham]

Nigel,

In Rob's post on the G0G forum, I actually checked the voltage present on the P&Q lines when programming is active. Using my cheap digital multimeter, I was seeing 50mV when idle, with pulses of 15V during programming. This was on the 20VAC range. It's not (afaik) a true RMS meter so the actual values will be wrong, but similar approximate values would confirm the connections were correct.

The leds should not be flashing in normal use. Cold starting my layout with some 15 locos on it, the control station shows steady red, the booster is flashing green. Pressing the <stop> button on the LH100 turns the track power on and the booster led becomes steady green.

Pressing F8 Enter, leaves both the LEDs steady. The display says "DIR" (direct).
Pressing the enter key changes the display to "ADR" and the LEDs remain steady.
Enter again, display "A._", leds steady.
Enter again, track power goes off, green led blinking, loco "grunts", display reads loco address, LED still blinking (red led on command station still steady)
ESC
ESC
ESC track power restored, green led steady.

I concur with taking the loco to a known working layout and confirming it is correct & functional - once the loco is known to be OK, then the process of elimination can proceed to the LH, LZ & LV.

Rob

It might be worth checking you have correctly connected the C, D, U & V lines between the LZ & LV units. If C and/or D are not connected, the green LED will flash on the LV.

Best
Simon

Sorry Simon,

But I have no idea what the acronyms stand for - Which bit is LZ and which bit is LV?

I only have 1 LED on the front of the 'base' unit.

This is how I have it set up to save confusion.

U is connected to the Blue outlet on the transformer and V is connected to the Red outlet.







This is my old Gaugemaster unit.



Regarding testing the locos/chips I agree entirely with both you and Nigel. The plan is to take the locos along to the test track at Shildon and ask the guys to test them for me on known working equipment.

Although I hear Nigel's concerns about the Sprog and drivers etc. that bit doesn't faze me because my day job is IT. But I take on board that it will be an unfamiliar bit of kit and not ideal for solving initial problems without having an understand of how it works etc.

Thanks again for taking the time to offer help, it's much appreciated.

 

[Nigel Cliffe]

Rob,

I think Simon is describing an earlier Lenz system, where there are two components, the Booster and Command Station, were separate metal boxes. In the more recent systems (which you have) the two components are combined in a single LZV100 box.

I remain of the view with the current observations that the main suspect is the Lenz system. Either a blindingly obvious setup issue which we've all missed so far, or a faulty unit.

That said, more observations from the photos:
1 - the Gaugemaster looks like a non-feedback type (so fine for testing). Model number underneath or on the rear would confirm that.
2 - the Gaugemaster will (probably) have a 16v AC output, we can use that for some more testing of the Lenz system.

The Lenz LZV100 manual says AC input, of at least 1 amp for testing. The Gaugemaster delivers that. So, we can test the Lenz Power Supply by replacing it with the Gaugemaster and its AC output. If same problems, unlikely that Lenz Power Supply is at fault ( I think this is low probability, but relatively easy check).

My reading of the LZV100 manual is that the LED can flash in various situations, and some of them are "normal". And some flash states indicate multiple different things (doh!). So, until one knows what is a quick or slow flashing, its hard to tell what its doing.
Elsewhere in the LZV100 manual, page 13, is section 6.1 "System Reset". It might be worth trying this before sending the device back. It says: On handset, call up loco 00 and set speed to zero. Press F4 25 times (that's what it says!). Remove power from the LZV100.



On the Sprog, the issues are that there are different drivers depending on the age of the Sprog hardware. Plus Windows 8 and 10 make installation of unsigned driver files difficult (for older Sprog hardware, newer is easier). Then there is installing more software (Java and then JMRI) which can have issues. Usually it all goes very smoothly, but it can get into a mess.


- Nigel

 

[Steph Dale]

Rob,

The programming track connects to ports P and Q on the command station. This could be root cause of all your problems...

Steph

 

[Rob Pulham]

Hi Steph,

I have been connecting to ports P and Q when doing the diagnostics using the programming on the programming track (as opposed to on the main). I just connected it that way to illustrate the set up so people could see what I had and how it would be wired for 'layout' running.

 

[simond]

Nigel,

You are absolutely correct, I have the earlier (about 17 years earlier...) 2-part set, with an LV200 booster and an LZ100 command station. I really hoped it was the C&D connections!!!

Rob,

unfortunately my post will not be a great help, although I'd expect more-or-less the same behaviour if it's all working - sorry for the confusion.

I can confirm the 25 button presses!

Best
Simon

 

[Rob Pulham]

Thanks Simon,

I attempted to perform a reset this afternoon but now it won't do anything other than flash LH100 and all the letters/numbers etc on the screen alternately so tomorrow I call Hattons and leave it with them.

 

[simond]

Well, hope it all gets sorted, do keep us posted

Best
Simon

 

[Nigel Cliffe]

Rob, yes, if it failed the reset, then only course is back to the retailer. Their problem to sort it out.

- Nigel

 

[Rob Pulham]

I spoke to Hattons and after originally trying to fob me off with the line "you have had it over 6 months you need to go direct to Lenz" to which I replied no I don't I bought it from you not Lenz and that they had to deal with it for the full warranty duration they agreed to take it back. - All that said once she realised that I wasn't taking the party line she was really very helpful. A return postage label has already arrived by email.

The downside is that they don't have any more and are not likely to be getting any so getting my money back or a different system that Hattons do stock is the only option. I am going to see what I can find elsewhere before making a final decision.

 

[richard carr]

Rob

I have been using NCE for over 10 years never had a problem.

Richard