I recently finished building my first layout since the early 80s. Instead of using rail joiners I soldered every joint. The problem is, even with a new DC transfomer the motive power doesn't run. I checked the engine by touching the power leads to the wheels and the engine ran just fine. I put it on the track right at where I had two power leads and nothing. Any idea what's happening?
Hi there. Have you checked with a voltmeter?
Simon
What track system are you using and how is the leads connected to the track?
Shane
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
Sounds like you might have a short somewhere in the trackwork.
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
Okay, so they're all asking:
Is this a simple oval or circle of track, or does it have some additional trackage and a turnout or six?
Are you sure all abutted ends have metal joiners and that the joiners are properly mounted onto the foot of each pair of rail ends? No misses?
How many feeder pairs of wires to the trackage, and if more than one pair, where are they mounted relative to your track plan? If more than one pair of feeders, the other(s) isn't/aren't crossed up, meaning you're shorting the rails?
Does the voltage dial up, read via meter set on correct scale and voltage type, when you rotate the control dial? At the output terminals? On the RIGHT output terminals? Not the 'accessory' or AC terminals if they are present?
Are the rail tops clean? Wiped with 70% alcohol or kerosene, and then scrubbed with a clean/new 1" steel washer?
Okay, I'm stumped.
You are going to have give us more information, your post is like saying “my car wont run, what’s wrong with it”. Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
My guess would be a short.
RealGomer, You say the engine ran fine when energized by the power leads. (that's good).
You put the engine on the track where you had two power leads and nothing. (did you reattach the two power leads back to the track)? Had or have.
Any chance you have a "return loop"? (engine goes down the main track, though a turnout/switch and circles (return loop) back though that same turnout/switch and on to that same main track and go's back the way it came from)?
Hey, I had to take a shot in the dark.
And instead of use rail joiners, you soldered every joint (like butt soldered the ends of the rail?) No rail joiner + soldered every joint + cracked solder end of rail joint = no current flow.
The very first thing he should do is procure a functioning multimeter. Even one of the el cheapo Harbor Freight specials will do for the purpose.
He needs to MEASURE the voltage between the rails as he adjusts his powerpack or speed control from 'zero' to 'full' and then report what the resulting range is.
He can then put alligator-clip leads on the two rails, and touch those leads to the locomotive treads in just the way he did when he got the engine to run 'directly from power' -- if he has measured voltage, he should get motion.
He can then put the multimeter in the clipped circuit to determine the current draw as he adjusts the control from zero to full with the motor running -- and again, report that range of current here.
That (or comparable diagnostic procedures) will guide any further advice or troubleshooting attempts here much more rewardingly, I think.
The very first check... put an automobile tail light bulb across the rails and see if it lights up bright.
I prefer this test to a voltmeter, because it also verifies you can get enough current flow to run a locomotive.
In any case, more detail will be needed.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
If he has an extra peice of track he could wire that up and place engine on it to see if it works, once had an engine that worked great with testing off track but nothing on, on that one something was binding if I remember.
LastspikemikeIn short, you have a short.
You are assuming a lot. We do not know he has a short, and the OP has not supplied any additional information.
All we know is that the train will not run when it is on the track. This condition could be caused by countless problems.
He stated that he soldered all the rail joints, so I doubt there are any power blocks.
A shorted circuit is possible, but maybe not.
Until we get more information from the OP, it is an unknown. I would love to see the track plan to know if a reverse loop is included and causing the problem.
LastspikemikeA multimeter is very nice for checking that you actually have power connected and at full voltage but that's what a locomotive will tell you. Using a multimeter to find a short is like trying to remember a two digit combination lock code by starting at 00, 01,10,11....using a locomotive is more fun.
He claims he has voltage across the rails, but a locomotive placed on the track doesn't run. What we first verify is that his power supply is delivering variable voltage -- and at what range, zero to full. That can just as easily be done with Mel's 1157 trick, of course -- I just keep forgetting it. And the 1157 trick also reveals if substantial amperage is going across as the voltage increases, which is the 'next' thing you find out with a multimeter (e.g. he has an SCR in the powerpack for speed control, and it's bad so there's no delivered voltage into a load even though the meter reads fine testing across the chip).
One problem with using a locomotive as a test instrument is that a number of potential failures may put excessive voltage or current across the test leads. I don't think he has engines with decoders, but there's expensive and not very satisfactory-smelling magic smoke in those things that can be as excited as any genie at the prospect of getting out and causing trouble for the one who rubbed them the wrong way, as it were. Light bulbs are cheaper and nowhere near as finicky most of the time, and connection to them is more positive than sliding contact to upside-down wheelrims...
The OP seemed to be trying to indicate he didn't have an obvious 'short' -- that would have been the very first thing he would test for, and it wouldn't take much testing to determine. What I think we're waiting on is the 'detail data' about what he observes in the first few stages of troubleshooting.
That doesn't mean he doesn't have a short and that your advice is correct, just that the jury is out a bit longer to be sure of the facts. It is not lost on me that the consensus so far is that he has a short.
(You bring up a salable product, in the general vein of a geek-cool version of the Pet Rock -- does anyone make a gag 2-digit binary combination lock? It would be very funny, especially the 'deluxe' version with tamperproofing via a small Tesla coil that triggers if you try to click it open with the wrong combination...)
LastspikemikeErgo, the OP has a short somewhere in the layout.
Or... an open in the wiring to the track.
Or... accidentally attached the track to the AC output.
Or... there is an issue with the power feeder connection.
Or... when the power pack is moved back to the layout it is plugged into a malfunctioning outlet.
Or... and so on... and so on.
As far as we know, no troubleshooting has been done. We need more from the OP before this conversation is continued.
We do not have enough information yet to determine mode of failure, much less make a root cause diagnoses.
LastspikemikeThe odds of all the feeders being faulty are infinitesimally small.
Odds are a dead short is in there somewhere.
My father was an extremely good microsurgeon -- his training included stitching onion skin sideways with #36 Vicryl without the stitches coming out of either face. So when he called me at college and said a cat had chewed through one of the stereo speaker wires, I did not think there would be much of a splicing issue.
However, I came home and ... no sound out of that speaker. I looked at the terminal connections, at the speaker connections ... not the amplifier, not the speaker, it had to be something in the wire.
Now the splice was a true thing of beauty: carefully overtaped with layers of carefully mitered electrical tape burnished down, and inside -- very lovingly, very perfectly, all four sets of copper strands were carefully interwoven and laid straight against each other, spiraling in a perfect massive cigarette splice. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen done with wire ... and it was a massive, utter, complete short, on a scale that still boggles the mind a bit, like a solid piece of copper equal to four 16-gauge stranded conductors...
If that could happen, it wouldn't surprise me to find all sorts of soldered joints where gaps or reversing loops should be.
My money is on the pliers or hammer lying on the track
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
BigDaddyMy money is on the pliers or hammer lying on the track
Henry, you have obviously been model railroading for a while. I think we all do this eventually.
I too have made this bonehead mistake after working on the layout, and wasted time troubleshooting instead of picking up the pliers off the track!
BigDaddy My money is on the pliers or hammer lying on the track
I think they should make track gauges out of some non-conducting material.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
How much track was soldered together before you put power to the track? Every once in a while, someone gets overly ambitious and does a lot of trackwork without periodic testing. Then, it's hard to find the inevitable short because it's hard to pull things apart and take the "divide and conquer" route.
Get another section of track, and connect only that section to the power pack to verify that works. After that, look carefully at the track plan to look for reverse loops or other fault, but you may have to start unsoldering connections to find the problem.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
In my case it as a scale ruler. Murphy never sleeps and Occam's razor is sharp.
I'm also going to guess that the OP was trying to tell us that he wasn't depending on joiners to provide conduction, not that he didn't use any. It would be an irritating job to build a layout without joiners, unless you were hand laying track.
RealGomer Instead of using rail joiners I soldered every joint.
You mean you just butted the ends of the track and soldered them together with out using rail joiners ?
RealGomerI put it on the track right at where I had two power leads and nothing.
You don't have a good connection between the wires and the track.
Mike.
My You Tube
BATMANI think they should make track gauges out of some non-conducting material.
No kidding.
I have several three-point gauges that are so easy to leave on the track.
Been there with you.
I'm looking forward to hearing back from RealGomer.
Rich
Alton Junction
LastspikemikeYou should really be asking yourself why you are obsessed with contradicting me...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xuRXR5Ji5s8
To be honest, the 'greater' point lastspikemike probably thought he was making does have validity: if you have spur-gear-driven axles that are 'located' by stub axles in 'bearings', you won't want to indiscriminately ream out a bearing 360 degrees just to let an axle 'drop down' to the others' level.
The specific situation here is that the center axle is slightly high, but there was no indication it was 'walking' or otherwise showing signs of instability, just turning in what appeared to be a slightly, inexplicably 'cocked' position. The suggestion I made, of slightly relieving the bearing in just the direction, and the extent, necessary to relieve this 'cocking' technically should have been matched with a suggestion to restore good effective 'concentricity' of the bearing surface in the metal portion of the sideframe, perhaps by shimming or carefully bending out the edge with a small hook tool or similar instrument. I thought the potential gain from such a procedure relatively small, and the risk of damaging something unintentionally high enough, that I did not make that suggestion then. Since the situation with the raised axle seems to have 'relieved itself' upon R&R, no actual tinkering with the bearing is required after all -- but we know how to proceed if it should at some point recur, or a similar problem is observed in future in a different context.
Overmod I think you are in the wrong thread