Caution! Turn off the power.

[Yampa Bob]

I don't know if this was mentioned before, but will toss it out for what it's worth.

I have a surge protector power strip with a master switch and pilot light, mounted on the side of the layout.  As a usual practice, I always turn power to my EZ Command off before placing or removing a loco.  Well, almost always, tonight I goofed.

While placing a GP40 on the tracks, I felt a series of buzzes as the wheels made intermittent contact with the rails. (censored).  I turned the switch off, pushed the loco through the rerailer to position the wheels, and turned the power back on.  The loco was on address 1, also the default power up for EZ Command. I turned up the throttle....nothing.  It just sat there. 

I hit F10 and the rear light came on, though the controller forward indicator light was on. I placed the loco on a DC powered track and it ran fine, with lights changing from forward to reverse.  I put the loco back on the DCC layout, and still no response other than the stupid light.

I sat and stared at the thing for about five minutes, pondering the sequence of events.  Then I thought it might be an "initialization" problem with the processor. I changed the address to 3, and the loco took off with no problem.  Forward, reverse, lights changing, cool.  Then I changed the address back to 1, and all is well once again.

This reaffirms to me the fact that intermittent opens or shorts can drive the decoder nuts.  Luckily the decoder was more confused than I was, so I was able to think it out to a logical conclusion.

Final score.....Yampa  1      Murphy  0 

[Running Bear]

I had that happen several times over the two years I used my EZ-Command. I simply turned off the power to to the controller then turned it back on and everything was normal.

[Yampa Bob]

I have done that on a couple occasions, but in this case it didn't work.  At first I tried another loco to verify track power, and the controller worked ok.

It makes me wonder what might have happened if I was using a 5 amp booster, especially if a short was created while placing the loco. 

[Jim Banner]

It makes me wonder what might have happened if I was using a 5 amp booster, especially if a short was created while placing the loco. 

Essentially the same thing would have happened.  A short across the rails, especially an intermittent one, sometimes creates a series of ons and offs that an unlocked decoder may interpret as a valid command.  The amount of current involved has very little effect.  It is the voltage rapidly going from zero to normal and back that does the deed.

If you have trouble believing that a simple short could write a valid command, think of the infinite number of monkeys on an infinite number of typewriters recreating all the works of Shakespeare.

Bottom line - unless you enjoy reprogramming decoders more than you enjoy running trains, shut off the power when rerailling a locomotive or at least use a non-conductive rerail ramp to avoid shorts while rerailing.

[Running Bear]

And people wonder why I still have my layout wired in blocks. It's quite handy for working in one area while being able to run trains in the other areas.