# Problems with both QSI and Phoenix in the same weekend



## JackM (Jul 29, 2008)

It was a great weekend for getting the entire outdoor layout up and running. All the rolling stock is up from the basement and into the "Crystal Train Shed" for the summer. And I had time to replace a few of the last remaining track connectors with real clamps, eliminating a few nasty electrical quirks. (I run Thomas the Tank to help me locate electrical problems. He's light and only four-wheel pick-up. If there's a problem, he'll find it.)

It would've been the perfect weekend except for two things, both sound-related.

1 - My USAT S4 has Phoenix sound that I bought at the 2012 ECLSTS - with the beautiful rickety sound of the switchers I knew and loved as a kid. It's been great until this weekend. I picked it up from derailing at a point that I knew needed to be attended to (an easy fix but it won't stay permanent). S4 still runs, but it's totally silent. I'm hoping it's not permanent, but I didn't have time to spend on it.

2 - Way back in 2010, I had purchased a QSI Quantum unit for my RDC-1 but it turned out to be dead in the water. I sent it in for repair but it wasn't repairable and Norm agreed the board was defective and they owed me a new Titan - once they became available. Like the rest of us, I waited impatiently and in Sept., 2012, I finally received my Titan with real RDC sound. I love that horn! I played with it for a month and then it was time to put everything back in the basement for the winter.

I brought it out two weeks ago and - dead in the water. I pulled the Titan PnP board out and put it into a brand new A/C RDC-3 that I recently bought. Not surprisingly, it's dead also. If the board is dead in two RDCs, I guess I can assume the board is shot.

So there seems to be two mysteries here.

A - did a derailment somehow blow the Phoenix card in the S4 and also the Titan PnP card in the RDC?

B - Did I happen to get two bad cards for my RDC? I do plan to send this card to Norm Stenzel and see what he thinks. He took good care of me the first time so I can expect he'll be fair this time, too. Whether or not he gives me a free Titan again, might be a different story.

It's not like this was the first weekend I ever had any derailments on the layout. The Phoenix board in the S4 got heavy use last summer and its share of mishaps. Why would it suddenly go silent? (NCE system, track voltage at 15.8 vAC - fine for my 500 ft. layout). Why would the second RDC QSI board go bad after only a month's use? Can there be something in my RDC causing two boards to blow? Something incompatible between the RDCs and QSI?

I'm not planning to send these cards to their respective factories until next week. If you have any ideas, I'd sure appreciate your thoughts.

JackM


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Got fuses?


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I'd say you have a wiring problem in your RDC, if you blew several things up and the only commonality is the RDC. I've owned about 40 or 50 QSI's so far. NEVER got one that was dead. I did get a couple that would not reprogram, but they worked. I also have blown up 2 in my lifetime, one by a dead short in a motor drawing 5-10 amps and leaving it that way for 5 minutes... melted... The other was a wiring error on my part as I remember.. 

Likewise, never heard of a Phoenix not working out of the box, but I've only had a few of them. 

See my article on adding polyswitches to an RS-3, same idea: 

http://www.elmassian.com/trains/mot...ips/aristo-motive-power/rs-3/rs3-improvements 

Greg


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Jack, any news? 

Greg


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