I'm hoping someone can help me with this crazy issue. Apologies for the length but I thought it best to describe everything.

We are running a club size layout, 25 x 35 double deck, with a NCE system. Currently we have three (3) NCE AIU's (fourth waiting) with NCE BD20's providing detection on the mainline and passing sidings. When running trains during an operating session we add about 7 or so throttles and started having issues with gibberish appearing on the throttle displays. We've added power boosters to the layout and that seems to have taken care of the issue. When running an engine around the layout and looking at the LED's on the AIU's the appropriate block's are turning on and off.

When I developed the panel and added the sensors I added the AIU's via their number/port and PanelPro assigned the sensor numbers. i.e. AIU 58. I entered 58:1 and it assigned NS912. this is where things go crazy. When I start PanelPro and the Panel comes up it comes up showing various blocks occupied even though their is nothing on it. If I do have an engine or engines on it it may or may not show the correct status in those blocks (the AIU LED's are correct). I wrote a previous message and one of our members was kind enough to send me a script, initlayout.py, which I run on startup and that doesn't take care of the issue. Last night some of the guys fixed an issue with one block and added two additional ones, again testing by watching the AIU LED'S. While they did this I checked the tables, etc and could not find anything wrong. I also started to notice that the indication on the panel started going crazy with blocks flashing on and off by themselves, no-one running, no engines on layout and no one working. We even disconnected all the AIU's and restarted PanelPro, ran the script (it is in start-up), and indication was still wrong.

Any ideas? I'm hoping someone has seen this happen or something similar.

Thanks ... Albert

Albert:

Gibberish on throttles... Throttles addressed the same... Ratty connection a (I assume) plugged in throttle... Ratty connection on interconnections between UTP's and AUI's. Crimps on RJ's dislocated fingers in the jacks...

You said added boosters..? You mean warts to power segments of the CabBus..?

Power from added warts to CabBus is directional in that there is an arrow showing the back panel connector that now has local power and the direction that the CabBus power is now supplied to UTP's/AUI's down the cable.

So if throttles "collect" on one power segment of CabBus you could still be pulling CabBus power down and give you problems with the throttles.

Jim Albanowski

<snip>

Albert,

? ? Possible you have a bad loconet cable with the phasing out of sync?? Meaning the one end of cable is reversed.

Roger

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it's an NCE system, so it's probably not a LocoNet problem <g>.?

Do the BD20s show occupancy locally?? You want to work methodically from one end to the other, so BD20 -> AIU -> command station via interface or try grounding the AIU inputs and work out, see if you can see those inputs change.?

Check ground continuity between the BD20s and the AIUs.

Hope this helps

Seth

Albert,

? ? Possible you have a bad loconet cable with the phasing out of sync?? Meaning the one end of cable is reversed.

Roger

-- 
Seth Neumann
Mountain View, CA

Thanks folks ... i'll look into these suggestions and get back with results.

FYI ... The throttle numbers are unique. That was double checked since we did experience that once several months ago before the detection went in.

Sorry one more thing. That is when we started adding the power boosters and the problem seemed to go away. That is until yesterday.

Sounds like maybe your cab bus is underpowered? You mentioned adding boosters? But there is still only one command station and unless I’m mistaken that is the only source of power unless there are additional “wall wart” type power supplies added to the cab bus at various plug in points.?

Also watch out for cab address 63 for AIU’s as have found that to cause erratic updates or no updates to the cab bus clock.?

Mark Z

Hi folks

We finished going through everything tonight and we did find some issues with the cab bus. We found a couple of shorts as well as a broken wire. That seems to have fixed the issue with the throttle displays going crazy. However we are still having issues with the panel showing things that are way different from what is actually happening on the layout. i.e. There is only one train on the layout and there are multiple blocks (more than 6) showing a train. As the train moves around the layout the panel does not reflect the train movement. The NCE AIU's have a LED for each of the BD20's that are connected and the AIU's are showing what is happening on the layout correctly. For whatever reason the data is not being reflected on the panel.

Someone suggested that maybe the CAB bus power was to low. We checked the voltages at each of the jacks and they range from 10 to 15V, The later happening after the boost given by the "wall wart". According to NCE the minimum voltage is around 8V so odds are it is not that.
?have more suggestions.

Thanks Albert
I've also doubled checked all of the sensor tables, block tables and the block segments on the panel and everything is programmed correctly. I'm hoping some of you may

Have you checked the NCE monitor in JMRI to see if it is correctly receiving the output from the AIUs? it could be a problem with the USB interface board or the cable
Is the speed of the connection set the same in JMRI and the NCE USB?


John W

One more thought. Cable lengths can degrade the signal. I have occasionally had issues when I tried a 12 ft cable?

John W

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Thanks Dave and John

We are using the Power Pro with a serial interface to the computer. As for the cab addresses I set the AIU's up as 57, 58, 59 and 60. The throttles are down in the single digits and teens. I will check them using the SHOW CABS as suggested.

I'll be at the layout again next week and will check AIU broadcasts disablement and baud rate. I've not used the JMRI system console or NCE Command Monitor before but I'll give it a shot.

Thanks for your suggestions and support.

Albert

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Folks

I want to thank you all for your help. Issue solved. By using the system console it became apparent to me that all the issues had to do with one of the AIU's. When I looked at the sensor table for that AIU I realized it was the one where the team had wired things backwards and I had to INVERT the sensors to get it right. Unknown to me the team corrected the wiring. Once I removed the INVERTED status all the indication was correct. So between my changing this and correcting the issues we had with the CAB bus everything is now solved.

Again thanks for all your help.

Albert