Help! I recently purchaed the Walthers Cornerstone Series Grade Crossing Signal and the accompanying electronic controller. I hooked it up to the AC side of my MRC powerpack. All the LEDs came on but no flashing and smoke came out of the controller. I didn’t hook up any of the sensors because I was just interested in having the lights flash when the powerpack is on (I have a small but detailed layout). Do you have to hook up all the sensors to get it to work? And why would the controller smoke when it’s hooked up to the AC side? Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Ross
Smoke usually means something in the electronics got fried and it could be too late. What do the instructions say about allowable input voltage to the controller vs the AC voltage on your power pack?
Also the controller may need the load of the detectors to protect the electronics. The detectors may provide a voltage drop that the controller needs. This would be similar to adding a resistor in the circuit of an LED to drop the voltage to the 1.5V that the LED can typically tolerate. Look for WARNINGS in the instructions.
The controller lists input at 19 Volts AC and on the back of the powerpack, the output voltage is listed as 18.5 Volts AC so I’m still puzzled…
Ross
Sounds to me like the unit was defective. Simply applying input power with no output should not cause a problem.
Call Walthers. My guess is, they’ll ask you to return it and send you another one. If you bought it at an LHS, take it back.
I’ve seen others complain about that controller being defective. Walthers is usually pretty good about replacing them.(so I’ve heard)