Hello Craig

Have you got CS2 60214 or CS2 60215 ?

A friend of mine cannot get the 6088 module working with the 60214.
It operates perfectly well when the CS2 is in 'STOP' mode, ie, you can see the yellow lights light up in the display area when the circuit tracks are activated, but when in 'GO' mode, all of the lights go red.

Regards
John

Hi Craig
I have 7 of these old style 6088 and 60880 and my experience is:
- the cable issues (bad contacts and broken cable) happened many times
- when using with my CS2 there where possibilities of plugging the cable the wrong way.
- any module may be plugged the wrong way (the arrow must point towards the CS or Link88 unit).
- now with a CS3 I started using a link 88 and all my problems disappeared on 6088 and 60880.
- I never observed a hardware failure on those 6088 modules (some of which are much more than 10 years old).

Cheers
Jean

Hi Craig
So it has to be the cable between unit 3 and unit 4.
Remove it gently and inspect the contacts (possibly with a thin screwdriver, bent the contct inside to force a stronger contact force, use contact spray) and for possible a broken wire (it may sometimes be almost invisible).
Also make sure that nothing is connected to the 6088 "ground" (the upside down "T") with the only exception of local floating contacts like Reed contacts.
All in all, these contacts readers 6080 are temperamental and this is why many including me moved away from this towards towards 60881 and CAT5 cables.
Cheers
Jean

Hi Jean and kiwiAlan,
Don't know what say. Fired up the layout today, and all is well. All of the s88s are reporting properly. I did try swapping out the ribbon cable between 3 and 4 the other day, but that did not seem to help. But, now all is well today. Maybe I inadvertently made the connection better somehow when I was working with the cables.
I will take your advice to heed if this happens in the future. BTW the CS2 shows all of the S88s.

My question now is: I have to add another S88 to the layout, I do have a 6088, but I know its cable is broken. Rather than buying a replacement cable, I am considering buying a 60881. Question is, “Can the 60881 be the 7th S88, or does it have to be the first one?” I know the S88s are self addressing as they are connected. Would I be able to configure the 60881 to be the 7th one, since it will not be directly connected to the other S88s as it requires to be connected to the 6017x port of the CS2. The 6 existing s88s are connected via ribbon cable to the S88 port on the CS2.

Thank you for all of your help,
Craig

Littfinski has Kabel s88 in 0.5, 1 and 2 m lenghts for 12.50, 14.50 and 16.50€. They are not flat cables but have the same connectors. The round cables are not as sensitive to interfearence as the flat ones.
https://www.ldt-infocenter.com/d...for_the_s88-feedback_bus

IIRC LDT also make an RJ-s88 cable adapter.

Hmm, I thought they did, but I can't find it. They do have cables though.

They do have s88 modules that take either type of connector, with 16 inputs. You can also have it with 16 opto-isolated inputs or 8 track sense inputs for 2 rail systems. See their product page for further information.

Ok

I do note that latest (2020) documentation https://static.maerklin....23402d40f81604050833.pdf
has the statement "Important! Connections to 6088/60880 cannot be made"

I can only say it works for me.

Hi Craig


When you connect a M88 or S88 to a CS2, using the flat cable connector from under the CS2 all units are self numbered depending on the order you connect them to the CS2
- first unit (connected directly to the CS2) has the addresses 1 to 16
- second unit 17 to 32
- third unit 33 to 48
- etc

So it is convenient BUT you cannot insert a unit between other without changing all the units downstream.
Here is a small table to help you with input numbers for the CS2 or CS3
Each line represents one S88 or M88 with 16 inputs
So for the seventh unit (S88), the zone in yellow, shows you the addresses of its inputs 1 to 16




This is the reason why I selected to have a Link 88 with 2 busses going in different directions
There the addressing is a bit more complicated
- inputs 1 to 16 of the lik88 have the addresses 1 to 16
- inputs 1 to 16 of the first module on Bus 1 have the addresses 1001 to 1016
- inputs 1 to 16 of the second module on Bus 1 have the addresses 1017 to 1032
- ................................................................................................................
- inputs 1 to 16 of the first module on Bus 2 have the addresses 2001 to 2016

For the tests, it is best to create a testing table
It goes like this



Note the bottom of the screen where a Link 88 is combined with old 6088 modules with flat cables (daisy chain) originating from the CS2 bottom.
Cheers
Jean