Last week got quite frustrating when I started having DCC problems.
Everything was working on Wednesday, the control panel was changing the points, the LED's illuminated correctly. I switched off, went to do something else, came back and couldn't get track power. The handset was illuminated in standby mode, but as soon as the track power switch was turned on, the display went out and no power. No warning bleeps, nothing to indicate the problem.
Several hours later, after reading the manuals again, and searching the net, I found out it was the command station back up battery ( now 4 years old ). When this goes flat, it can't keep its memory, and resets its memory to a condition where it won't provide track power. It is meant to bleep 7 times at power on to indicate a flat battery, but it didn't. May be the battery wasn't quite flat enough, but with the unit not being regularly powered up, the drain may be too much between power ups for the near flat battery to cope.
All seemed well with a spare, partly used battery I had ( until I can get a replacement ) and it worked again. It is meant to beep 7 times at power up to indicate a flat battery, but it didn't make a squeek!
Then on Friday, the control panel wouldn't initialise all the points on power up. All the LED's just flashed and it wouldn't talk to Loconet. Several more hours later, I traced that to a setting that had changed. Whether this was as a result of the battery failure, I don't know. It had changed the control panel PCB into Slave mode, where it wouldn't do anything until it was re-programmed from the laptop.
Who was it that said DCC just needed two wires to the track?