I equipped the bare wires from the handheld unit with conventional phone jacks, and wired everything up per the enclosed instructions. However, when I hook everything up and power up the system, the locomotive takes off and doesn’t respond at all to the controller. Unplugging the handheld from the phone jack causes the loco to stop.
I have no idea what’s gone wrong. I’ve sent an inquiry to the manufacturer but haven’t gotten a reply. Could anyone who knows anything about these units share some insights as to where the problem might lie?
Be kind to my neck…its stretched well out there, is sore, and very sunburned.
The throttle is miscalibrated or not set for start-up settings. It needs an internal adjustment, or its rotary knob is on wrong, or you have wires crossed, or it is a defective circuit inside. Obviously whatever is to meter voltage to the track is giving it full juice upon start-up, and in the absence of a manual adjustment downward by you, only withholding the power (unplugging the paddle circuitry) stops the engine. So, that’s why I suggest internal adjustmen/circuitry issues or the knob is not actually turning the rotor rheostat thingy or whatever it is (what do you want from a psychologist?!) and it is set to full power.
Sorry, no one else has responded, and I didn’t want you thinking you were being ignored. I have not seen mention of this system, but that is undoubtedly my own limitation. Hopefully others will know and help you out quickly.
It does sound like a wiring issue. Are you sure you didn’t wire the plug upside down, it’s very easy to do, I’ve done it myself. Hopefully no damage was done to the output transistors. If it’s not the plug, then some thing’s defective in the unit.
The input side to the throttle needs to be wired to the A/C side of the power pack and there must not be anything else connected to the D/C side of the power pack. Both A/C and D/C use the same step down transformer in the power pack and by using anything else on the D/C side of the power pack interferes with the A/C side. This is another reason why I went to DCC. A DC hand held throttle renders the D/C side of any given power pack useless.
To wire a hand held throttle;
Connect the two input wires of the throttle to the A/C side of the pack.
Connect the two output wires of the throttle to the track rails.
DO NOT CONNECT ANYTHING ELSE TO THE D/C SIDE OF THE POWER PACK or the throttle won’t work and you can damage the throttle by doing so…chuck
The particular throttle in question can be wired either to the AC or the DC output. It does surprise me that you were able to install a 'phone jack on the end of the controller’s tether wire, as the wire gauge is fairly heavy compared to handset wire.