Hi everyone, I just purchased a Digitrax SE8C Signal Decoder and am in the learning/testing stage before I install on my NTRAK modules. So I followed the instructions to hook up the 12V power supply to Pins 3 and C on the card edge. The green LED on the board as well as the 2 red LED's on the signal mast came on. Then I plugged in the LocoNet cable from my DCS 100 Command Station. Then my DT400 throttle and typed in the first switch to test the signals. Switch 257 according to the manual and hit Throw and the signal stayed red like it should. Hit Close to turn it green......and nothing. So I tried the switch numbers for the phase B/C, 259, in case the signal was in backwards and still nothing. I checked to make sure the cable was plugged into the board right and it was. Next I fired up JMRI to test it that way and same story. The red Option LED blinks like it should when a loconet command is sent. So then I tried a board reset through JMRI's SE8C configuration panel and appeared to succeed. But still no response from the switch commands. JMRI reads the board ID as 1. I tried to set the board Id to 6 like I need it for the modules but that doesn't seem to work either. I get into ID mode and throw switch 6 on the throttle or JMRI and nothing seems to happen. How long does it usually take to reprogram all the switch id's? The last test I did was to run the LED exercise pattern through JMRI and then the signal does something. Both signal heads cycle between yellow and flashing yellow. I programed the 4th aspect to the 3 others (Flashing Red, Flashing Green, and Dark) while still in the exercise pattern mode and they all worked. I tried the throttle test one more time and still nothing. So I am a bit confused and am hoping someone has a simple duh answer for me! Or maybe its broke and I need to contact Digitrax about it? Thanks for your time!
Since this worked, you do not seem to have a Loconet cabling problem. I would bet that you are looking at the board upside down and so using the wrong switch addresses to control the signal. The reason I say this is because that is exactly what I did. I could not get the signals to do anything with the addresses on the connector that I thought I was plugged in to, and I was SURE that I was looking at the board correctly to identify the connector. I started cycling through all of the default addresses until I found one that operated the signal and sure enough, I was looking at the board wrong and was plugged into DRV8 instead of DRV1. To be clear, the ends of the Loconet cable should not be reversed, pin 1 on one end should go to pin 1 on the other end, pin 2 to pin 2, etc. When wired correctly, if you lay the cable out flat, then the connector on one end will be flipped(You could say this is just a case of semantics, but reversed connectors is usually refers to reversed pinouts, which we do not want). On the SE8C, however, it doesn't really matter because either one will work.
Flipped or reversed, I said ends, not wires! I was tring to explain that when you lay the cable out the end are reversed, if you crimp them on the same the cable will not work for some cases.
I checked the LocoNet cables and no problems. The blue wire is on the same side on all of them. They also check out with the LocoNet tester. I will try DRV8. I was going off the picture in the manual to figure out which was DRV1. Maybe Digitrax has it listed wrong.
Well no luck with trying the other switches. I even tried a bunch from the other board id ranges. I submitted this to the digitrax tech support and they said to send it in. They are pretty sure it is faulty. Thanks for the ideas!
