Just unpacked my brand new NCE PowerCab. Connected to the bus wires under the layout, plugged it in. LED lit up as it should. Power cab powered up and I entered the loco number. Tried to move the locomotive. No headlight, no bell, no sound, no movement, nothing. Checked the track with a volt meter and there is no power to the rails, anywhere. Nothing about this in the trouble shooting guide in the back of the manual. What am I missing?
I’m impressed, a question about lack of power from someone who has actually checked with a volt meter. We don’t see that often enough.
Is the Power Cab plugged into the correct side of the panel? (make sure you did not install the panel upside down)
As I recall, the bus fits into a little green connector, is that connector firmly plugged into the panel?
The only other thing I can think of is to do a reset on Power cab itself. Page 59 in the manual.
Edit One more thing, If you have crossed feeders, the Power Cab may be detecting a short and shutting down. I use a circuit breaker, so I don’t really know what happens to the PC display during a short. Someone here will.
if the PowerCab is plugged into the proper jack on the PCP, the LED on the PCP will come on after the PowerCab cycles up and generates track power after a few seconds. The LED is connected across track power.
If there’s a short, the PowerCab will constantly cycle. Disconnect the track connector from the PCP, the PowerCab should cycle and the red LED on the PCP should turn on and remain on.
If the LED comes on, try reconnecting the track and if the PowerCab starts cycling, find the short and fix it. Rather leave the PowerCab cycling, test with an Ohmmeter.
I have the Power Cab. LED is on solid and Cab display is solid on, make sure both leads to track are connected properly at the output connector. Check both screws at the connectorwith a volt meter. My meter shows 13.6 VAC. Not DC if you are not aware.
Rich
The PowerCab booted up normally and did not constantly cycle. I “selected the loco” and entered the number 3 as the instructions stated. All of that reacted normally.
I have traced my Power Cab and I know the LED is connected directly to the output terminals if you have it hooked up according to the manual. What AC voltage do you see right at the two screws for the green output connector?
If you see about the same voltage, do a decoder reset. Cycle track power. Headlight should cycle about sixteen times.
Rich
Edit
My connector is black, not green. Others said the led lights with track voltage, so your measurement is suspect. It is measured on AC voltage as Rich said.
If there is still no voltage, I would still try the controller reset, as mentioned. You want the V 1.65 manual from this page https://ncedcc.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201565799-Power-Cab-Manuals
There are no jumpers or dip switches that can be set or changed to get you up and running.
I have a Bachmann loco that loses it’s mind on a regular basis and needs to be reset to respond at all. But you need track voltage for that.
Really, I’ve never noticed the headlight doing anything during a recycle. I admit I could have missed it.
BigDaddy
I’m impressed, a question about lack of power from someone who has actually checked with a volt meter. We don’t see that often enough.
Is the Power Cab plugged into the correct side of the panel? (make sure you did not install the panel upside down)
Yes, LED is at the bottom.
As I recall, the bus fits into a little green connector, is that connector firmly plugged into the panel?
Yes, first thing I checked.
The only other thing I can think of is to do a reset on Power cab itself. Page 59 in the manual.
On page 57 in my manual, I’ll try that.
Thanks.
Edit One more thing, If you have crossed feeders, the Power Cab may be detecting a short and shutting down. I use a circuit breaker, so I don’t really know what happens to the PC display during a short. Someone here will.
Hi 2002p51,
Just an FYI: When using the quote feature, be sure that your comments come AFTER the
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Also, if you’re responding to several individual sentences or paragraphs like you did above, it’s better to highlight them one at a time with your mouse, click the “Add Quote to your Post” button (again, making sure that your response comes after the
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FWIW…
Tom
Okay, back to the issue. If the LED on the PCP panel lights up then you should have everything wired up correctly.
The only thing left is a disconnect between your track bus and the PCP panel. Otherwise, you should have power to your track. How is the track bus attached to the track?
Tom
Well, that was one thing I got wrong, I was thinking it was DC power. I now see approximately 13 - 14 volts AC at the screws on the small connector on the board. Still nothing at the track so the problem must be in the wiring.
I have the layout wired in the standard bus style. A two wire bus running around under the layout with feeders up to the tracks every few feet. All connections are made with suitcase connectors and all feeders are soldered to the rails. As I said earlier, this has been running this way in for a couple of years with no issues.
Check the wiring to your circuit breakers and make sure the bus wires are firmly connected. What circuit breakers are you using? And how many power districts do you have?
No circuit breakers and this is a small layout, the main line is approximately 36 feet, so I guess you could consider the whole thing one power district.
If you were getting power before you hooked up the Power Cab, and resetting as others have suggested does not work, then the problem has to be a connection between the Power Cab/PCP panel and the first feeder.
Agreed. I won’t have any time to mess with it today but later this week I’m going to pick up some alligator clips and make a temporary hook up to a separate piece of test track and see what happens. Pretty sure the connections I have made to the bus wires are good but you never know.
Many thanks to all who have pitched in with answers. Appreciate all.
I think what you want to do first is disconnect the Power Cab and then try to run some juice into your layout using the alligator clips and a DC transformer. If you still dont get any power to the track then the problem has to be the connection at the first feeder. If you do get power, the do your test track thing and see what happens.
This all seems a bit crazy, given the simplicity of the Power Cab setup.
If the Power Cab is connected to the Power Panel and there is power at the taps, then the only thing left to check is the other side of the two wires leading from the Power Panel to the layout.
Rich
I agree Rich. The problem is either with the bus wire connections to the PCP panel or, for whatever reason, there is a problem with first suitcase connector at the first feeder. At that point, the connector may not be a plain crimp through the insulation but it has severed the bus.