Several times in the past, I have been running the trains, nothing unusual, no events that I notice, no problems with the trains at speed, but suddenly I get a low volume beep from the DT 400 and the word “error” comes up on the display. It lasts about three seconds, and then disappears. The engines don’t miss a beat, nothing stops, and the session resumes.
What is going on? Randy?
I have noticed this as well - no idea as to cause?
My RADIO does it when the battery is low, the (3) tether units also 400’s beep in Synpethy to the Radio one I guess.
I have also noticed that the LOW BEEP caomed when the lights flicker on the loco (frog etc) but this is NOT the cause just happens.
Prof. Randy should have the answer!!!
Might be low voltage.
If you had the unit a year the lithium batteries in the control/booster might be giving out.
Your Digitrax manual should have a list of errors and how to fix.
Beats the heck out of me - I’ve had no problems with my DT400 and I don’t even have a battery in mine (no radio). If it just beeps it could be the alarm on the clock (yes, it has an alarm to go with the fast clock! I guess so you stand there and fall asleep waiting for an expected call from the DS to move or something). But accompanied by an ERROR reading… my best guess is you have some marginal Loconet cabling and you are getting garbled packets.
–Randy
Thanks for all the responses. I have no worries, it is just a puzzle. I can still pick up either of my two throttles, which I hang by the curled cables near where they enter the hand-held using a small brass hook, and use them, which I did successfully last evening. As for a loconet, Randy, I have both plugged into the face of the DB, so no “net” at the moment. I will add the other item that the SEB comes with for plugging in elsewhere-I believe that is the loconet item? -when I get the layout up and running sometime this decade. Also, this error reading and beep have occured when both paddles were on their hooks, untouched for several long seconds.
Maybe I need to duplicate Terry’s nifty paddle holders and get them off the hooks…is that likely to be an issue, and if so would the problem not manifest itself at least geometrically over time? Maybe there is something else that I am not seeing.
Thanks again, All.
-Crandell
Are you leaving a loco selected on the throttles when you hang them on the hooks, or are you releasing them first? It could be when the loco is purged fromthe command stack after a period of inactivity, although I still don’t think it should show ERROR on the screen in this case. Beep, yes - there’s a command station setting that makes it beep or not beep when a loco is purged - except it’s the command station that beeps, not the throttle. Using hooks a a throttle holder should not make any difference. Friend of mine uses velcro - cheaper and takes less space than those plastic pockets.
–Randy
I did reset my stack length to eight locomotives, but have tried to keep my eight separated by paddle so that one paddle handles only four. During my layout construction, I have managed to muck up the stacks on both throttles, so maybe there is something to the error code. I have erroneous addresses that I mistyped on both throttles, so the stacks are corrupted. I have also found myself trying to snatch a loco between throttles, which is a royal pain. Maybe, Randy, I should do a full purge on both and rebuild the stacks from scratch?
-Crandell
I suppose this could happen. I don’t even bother with the recall stack, but all it does is hold the most recently used addresses, in your case 8. Shouldn’t matter if 2 or 3, or even all of them, are addresses that don’t exist. The stack exists only in the throttle. Even actually selecting an invalid address shouldn’t do anything - I can punch in 777 and it doesn’t beep at me. Nothing happnes because I don’t HAVE a loco 777, but there’s no error message, the command station happily sends DCC packets tot he rails for address 777. There’s no difference between that and taking a loco off the track and puttign it on a shelf. The system has no way of knowing what locos are actually on the track and available for selection as opposed to ones you’ve removed from the rails.
You could purge the whole thing - and reset the command station while you are at it. It could be corrupted information in one of the address slots in the command station causing this. A full reset will clear it.
–Randy
Thanks, Randy. I’ll have to get into the manual to reset the DB, but that can’t be a bad thing.
I appreciate your responses.
-Crandell