DCC throttle malfunctioning

On Mon, 26 May 2008 20:43:57 -0700, I said, "Pick a card, any card" and "Carter Braxton" instead replied:

Sigh. Reinstall Windows and reboot.

Oh, wait. Wrong fix for the wrong problem. Lost my head.

-- Ray

And uninstall Vista and IE8.

-- Cheers

Roger T. Home of the Great Eastern Railway at:-

48° 25' North Longitude: 123° 21' West

Hunh? Wuzzat? Never heard of 'em.

Must be a Mac user.

-- Cheers

Roger T. Home of the Great Eastern Railway at:-

48° 25' North Longitude: 123° 21' West

"Carter Braxton" wrote in news:NrL_j.2911$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi065.nbdc.sbc.com:

Are you alone on your system, or do you have other throttles? Sometimes a throttle doesn't release the address properly, and you get funky behavior. We (a club of around 6-7 regular operators) get funky operations sometimes when there's a lot of people running, especially over the radio side.

Try the left wheel and see if it does it too. If so, try resetting your system.

Puckdropper

Nope. Experienced Windows user - experienced enough to avoid switching to their "latest and greatest" until there's absolutely no way not to, and that point sure ain't here yet for those twin piles of doggie breakfast.

If that does not work, the encoder may be bad. That means a trip to Norcross is in order.

Howard G

Sounds like a service issue to me, you're working a variable resistor, and anything mechanical can develop problems which affect its electrical performance.

is their tech support page, a good place to start.

OTOH, in case it is a programming issue, you could try resetting everything to to factory state first, the reprogramming the CVs. If the throttle has the same issues when reset to factory state, then there are problems you can't fix. If it's OK, reprogram the CVs, one at a time, and testing functionality each time. This will reveal which CV is messing things up, which may be useful information when you contact Digitraxx.

Good luck.

Well, except that the DT400 uses encoders instead of pots, I agree that it's a problem with your right encoder.

I'd call Digitrax first to confirm it's there's no way to "reset" it, but it sounds like a trip to Norcross is in order.

Stevert

"Steve Caple"

We are in 100% agreement. :-)

-- Cheers

Roger T. Home of the Great Eastern Railway at:-

48° 25' North Longitude: 123° 21' West

Meaning it jumps up and down when turning the knob in one direction? That sounds like something is electronically messed up in the handheld, not software. There are a couple throttle settings you can change (look it up in your booster's manual), but none of them are going to make the throttle jump around like that.

You might try to reset the throttle to factory settings, but this is probably something you'll need to send the throttle in to fix. The only other thing I can think of is a loose set screw on the knob, but that doesn't fit your description very well. *

On 5/27/2008 10:10 AM PV spake thus:

How about physically cleaning the encoder? Sounds like a shot of electronic tuner cleaner or similar might be in order; the encoder's switch contacts may be gunked up.

Thanks Guys... it looks like the DT400 is getting a trip to Norcross. Appreciate all the comments (at least the ones that applied to my queary)

Carter

While I know absolutely nothing about DCC and/or encoders thereof I do know that typical mass-merchandised radio-shlock type "electronic tuner cleaner" ain't worth a fart for dang near anything, let alone real electronics. The stuff to use is Caig's DeoxIT from Caig laboratories:

It ain't cheap but it works very well indeed. Been usin' it on my musician pro audio and R/C airplane gear for years. Good stuff! Don't work for Caig labs, just happy to've discovered their products.

Tejas Pedro

I've never had to take one of them apart to see if the shaft encoders are optical or electrical, so I don't know if degunking the contacts will do anything other than make it spin easier. I would think that if the contacts are messed up, it would skip settings (say go from 23 to 25 on linear mode with a dead click inbetween), but it wouldn't go back down and then up again. That was the key symptom in the description.

One other thing occured to me is that it might be worth clearing all the slots in the booster - I've seen one think that two throttles were the same one or somehow married together so that each got the other's messages (sort of like when you steal a loco). You can clear slots via a CV or by using JMRI. *

DT400 does not use potentiometers (aka. variable resistors). It uses digital encoders (continuous turning). Having clarified that I agree that whatever the knob is turning is defective and it shoudl be returned to Digitrax for servicing.

BTW, one of the reasons I don't care for Digitrax is those silly encoders which turn and turn and turn. I like a throttle with positive stops on both ends of the knob rotation. Yes I know that they sell utility throttles which use a potentiometer. But those are too simple (not enough function buttons).

Peteski