I’m confused and frustrated!! I recently rewired my DCC layout seperating it into four power districts with my MRC Prodigy Advance and an MRC Power Booster and all going through a Tony’s Trains PS4 circuit breaker. Two of the districts, my mainline, are wired from the PA to two of the four breakers on the PS4 and they work fine. The other two districts, my industrial area and engine servicing area, are wired from the Booster to the other two breakers on the PS4 and they don’t work at all. I have power to the tracks but the locos will not repsond to any commands. Using the test light supplied with the booster it shows I have the polarity reversed from the booster to the track but when I reverse the polarity it STILL shows that its reversed. Using a meter I know I have the polarity correct (the polarity is the same for all tracks, both the ones that work and the ones that don’t). I checked the output from the PS4 to the track and its OK (I have power coming out of the breaker). I just got the booster back from MRC after they repaired a short but I think its OK since I have power coming out of the PS4. ANY IDEAS??
Is the PA connected to the booster?
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
The Booster is a dumb power amplifier. There should be some kind of signal wire or cable connection between the main PA and the booster. That’s what it sound like is missing. (Like a telephone type wire and connectors, usually 4 wires.) Your looking for the command station connector I think, since I have NCE and that is what they call it.
To check your other connections, remove the PS4 input from the Booster and jumper over the PS input from the PA. In other words, feed both sides of the PS4 from the PA and see if it works. If it does, you need the signal cable from the PA to the Booster.
If you already have this signal connection between the two, it may be a bad cable or wired wrong.
The Booster is properly connected to the PA. I switched the track leads between the PA and the booster and had the same problem only reversed so my wiring is OK. BUT, out of curosity and I’ve tried everything else, I changed the cable from the Booster to the PA (I used the recharging cable from my PA wireless as I think all the cables are the same. GUESS WHAT - everything started working right so the problem was a bad cable. I’ll call MRC and get them to send me a new cable. I’d have never guessed it was the cable but the more I work with DCC the less surprised I get when I find and fix a problem. Thanks for the help.