PAD R8247 Systemic Port Failures

[x_and]

Hi

A few years ago I bought 2 PADs and 8 surface mounted point motors and I finally got around to using them on my Elite controlled layout. One of them works fine with 4 motors (61-64) but the other was fine on ports 1, 2 & 3 but port 4 would fire but not with enough juice to throw the switch. It then started passing a continuous current (14v) through the positive terminal and nothing at the negative terminal. I tried the motor in port 3 and the exact same thing happened. At this point ports 1 & 2 were fine so I left it at that. A day later port 2 failed and a day after that port 1 failed so I have a completely dead PAD. I've circuit tested the motors and 3 are fine with the 4th (originally on port 4) only completing a circuit one way (it's now in the bin). I've also tried resetting it by writing value 8 to cv 8, which it accepted and then back to 65 which it accepted. Is my PAD doomed (£50 for a new one makes me choke on my tea) or can it be recovered/fixed?

Many thanks in advance for any replies I get.

[Chrissaf]

Consider it faulty. If you have electronic component soldering skills you could try replacing the eight MOSFET output semi-conductors [ZXMN3A06] on the circuit board. But these components do not normally fail for no reason. So any repair implemented by trying to change them might not actually work or be short lived if the cause of the failure is further back in the circuit.

[96RAF]

As you mention address 65 I immediately think Select controller, not Elite.

If it is a Select then please check the firmware state by observing the number sequence on start up.

i would put money on it being 11-30-03.

If so then you have damaged your R8247 by way of a known bug in the Select v1.1 firmware.

If not v1.1 then we shall look elsewhere.

If it is an Elite - again observe the firmware state on power up - v1.xx.

You say there is a standng positive on the R8247 C ports - that is correct and all C ports are commoned within the device.

The + and - terminals are not pos and neg but switched negatives, one for each solenoid direction.

[x_and]

Hi

It is an elite controller. Have I carried out select programming by mistake (61, 65)? The elite firmware is updated to the latest version (1.4X), I did this last week. Thanks for the info on the port setting. I'll reconnect it and carry out tests again as I may have drawn the wrong conclusions re the voltage readings and the broken point motor.

[96RAF]

With the Elite you can bring your point numbers down to any number you like, as you are programming them as accessories, whereas the Select effectively programs them as locos, hence address brackets for locos and address brackets for accessories.

Elite knows when you program points that they are accessories and not locos because you select ACC not LOCO during the programming procedure.

Hence you can begin your addressing at Group 1 (ports 1-4), go on to Group 2 ( ports 5-8) for the next module and so on.

If you wish you can leave your points as addressed (Ports 61-64 and 65-68 = Groups 16 and 17).

[x_and]

Great, thank you. I'd better take another look at the Elite manual! Further testing of the PAD started fine with ports 1, 2 & 3 having 14v, port 4 dead. As soon as I triggered a switch all 3 working ports dropped to 0.8v and stayed there. It's now in the bin and another one ordered. Thanks for the help everyone.