Just a quick follow-up on my last post. Contacted Digitrax about possible repairs to the DS-64s and they said to send them back to see if they could be repaired. As the repair cost is only $20.00 each, I figured it was worth a try.....

  Well Digitrax couldn't repair them, but since they were still under warranty (I sent a copy of the receipt with them), Digitrax replaced all 3 units..... for FREE!

  Kudos to Digitrax for excellent customer service. The units should be back in operation this weekend - with the correct connections for AC power this time!

DC vs AC = Poooof

Well they say sometimes you have to learn things the hard way! 

    Jennie was off to Cleveland for the weekend courtesy of a Continental Airlines travel special ($99 round trip), so a whole weekend to work on the layout. Time to move on to laying track for Neuhemsbach. 

     But first let's wire up the rest of the switches for Enkenbach to their DS 64 controllers. Knowing that I will have a lot of these and the power supply I had wired up to this point only puts out 1500 milliamps, I purchased a 5 amp power supply to wire into the bus supplying power to the DS 64s. No problem, cut the bus line, wire in a terminal block and then attach the new power supply - a quick 5 minute job. Turn on the power and....

   Now as a European modeler you would think things like the difference between DC power and AC power would be something I would notice right away. Ok maybe working in N scale give me an excuse, but still. There are three different places you can supply power to a DS 64. Using the modular power plug, to the track A and B terminals, or to the AUX 1 and AUX 2 terminals. I had wired mine via the AUX 1 and AUX 2 terminals, to the accessory bus (black and blue wires). Ok so far. Except that the old power supply was 12-15 volts DC and the new power supply was 15 VAC........

   Snap, crackle, pop and what is that smell!!!! Oh no, quickly turn off the power. Yep, three fried DS 64s. Stream of not so nice words and frantically look at the DS 64 instructions again. Seems there are two places that you can feed AC or DC power and 1 place that will only take DC power. You guessed - AUX 1 and AUX 2 are for DC power only! 

  Tried hooking the old DC power supply back up but no go. No nice green power light, nothing at all when I try to switch the turnouts. :(

  Quick email to Digitrax Tech support and the verdict is...... send them in for repair. Might be covered by warranty, might cost me $20 each to fix. Well at least that's cheaper than all new ones.

 Really killed the mood for anymore railroading on Saturday. By Sunday I did venture back in and laid the foam base for the rest of the layout to Langmeil and some roadbed through Neuhemsbach. Even laid the flex track up to the first switch in Neuhemsbach. Sketched a few scenery ideas onto the foam and called it a weekend.