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Hi Dan,
I am sorry that you are having physical problems. We will miss seeing
your lighted
accessories on the layout.
You said “with our command issues for LEGACY and MTH , I might not run any
trains anyway.”
Do we have some new issues with Legacy? I thought we had resolved the
Legacy
issue by replacing the Legacy command base. Right now, we are
borrowing Eldon’s
base for shows until Lionel returns our repaired base. For the last
two shows,
Legacy appeared to be working fine (with Eldon’s Legacy command
base).
Is there some new problem which I am not aware of?
(I agree that the club was rather lax in determining that the Lionel Legacy
Command Base
wasn’t working. We thought the signal problems were caused by the
environment, not
the Command Base. We had been seeing signal problems between the
CAB-2 handhelds
and the Legacy Command Base for several shows before we borrowed Eldon’s
Legacy
Command Base to see if that was the source of the problem. That was
grossly unfair
to the members who wanted to run Legacy engines.)
You said “Saw the conversation between you and Bill and believe our group
needs
to figure out whats going on, as some of us guys have LEGACY and MTH
Proto 3 engines.
We have to much money involved in command systems, not to work these
issues
out before shows. ”
DCS was working at the last show (TCA in Garden Ridge), so I was as
surprised as anyone
else that it failed at Temple. DCS was working fine early Saturday
morning, then started
going down hill. There is really nothing we can do about a unit which
fails during a show.
I agree that members who have command controlled engines (TMCC, Legacy, and
Protosound
2.0/3.0) should be able to use command control on the layout.
Perhaps the club should consider buying spare command bases (Lionel
TMCC
Command Base, Lionel Legacy Command Base, and MTH TIU) so if a unit
fails
at a show we can substitute the backup unit and (hopefully) continue
running
in command mode.
You say “We need more people involved with DCS and LEGACY, because
when
you're not there and something goes wrong with DCS were out of luck.”
Just
because I built the power cart doesn’t mean that I understand any of
the
command systems well enough to fix problems. There is nothing
mysterious
about the power cart. The various units are connected together the
way Lionel
and MTH specify. The only thing people need to know about
running
Protosound 2.0/3.0 engines is that the “TIU ON/TIU OFF” switch on the
section
of the Power Monitor for the track you are running on must be in the “TIU
ON” position
to run Protosound 2.0/3.0 engines (and should be in the “TIU OFF”
position
when you are not running a Protosound 2.0/3.0 engine). Also, if you
need to
perform a reboot of the TIU (for example, after someone presses the ESTOP
button
on an MTH handheld), you have to press and hold the “TIU RESET”
button
in the right-hand section of the Power Monitor for a couple of
seconds.
One problem which I see repeatedly is that members who are attempting
to
run Protosound 2.0/3.0 engines don’t appear to know the procedure to
add
their engines to the MTH handheld controllers or how to access an
engine
which is already known by the controller. These procedures are not
special
for our layout – they are basic DCS procedures which are described in
the
DCS user’s manual. Also, for DCS, the definitions for engines are
stored
in the individual handheld controllers, not in the TIU.
Therefore,
if you add your engine to one controller then pick up a different
controller,
your engine probably won’t be there. This is different from Lionel
Legacy
where the engine definitions are stored in the Legacy Command Base,
not the handheld controllers. Again, this is not specific to our
layout -
this is basic DCS operation.
I hope this
addresses the issues in your email.
Thanks.
Ira |