Geez, I almost forgot about this thread, but I see that the OP is still having problems.
I totally agree with Randy that, if the quarter test consistently shorts the system on every piece of track, the problem is most likely dirty track. Take a bottle of household rubbing alcohol and a cloth and wipe down all of the rails.
As far as the wiring is concerned, for the size layout that you have, the size and type of wiring is adequate. I do not solder my track rails together except on curves to avoid kinks. But I do put feeder wires on every end of every turnout. I solder the feeder wires to the bottom of the rail joiners.
Rich
Alton Junction
thanks for responding,
all the feeder connections are attached to the BUS wire. when I did the quarter test, the quarter was not laying flat on the track, it was sideways touching both rails.
on the layout there is a mix of sectional and flex track as well as the switches. should I jsut continue to add more feeders to the track?
secondly, I will clean the track, it probably is dirty and since using some flux probably has left some residue, even though i used sandpaper and the fiberglass pen to clean the area before and after soldering
I will get back to you
The real quarter test is to just lay yhe quarter on its side across the rails, no pressing down. The system should trip everywhere you place the quarter. The idea is to simulate more closely what might happen with a dereailed loco where a truck skews sideways, or maybe the leading ot trailing truck of a steam loco - not much weight pressing down on it. It's a high resistence short instead of essentially zero ohms when you press down, or put a piece of wire across the rails. This is the sort of thing that causes problems - if the breaker doesn't trip, you cna be pushing the full booster power through a few ohms, which is many watts of power. This is what heats things up enough to melt plastic. So, clean the track (ditry track can make the quarter test fail too), then just set the quater across the rails in various places and verify that it all shuts down. if not, you probbaly need extra feeders near the spt that it didn;t shut down.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Hard to say if you need more feeders or not.
Start first with a good track cleaning, i.e., the rails, and see if that solves the problem.
Thanks guys!! good advice- the track needed a massive cleaning, was very dirty, once I did that, the loco motored right around and all over the layout, I added a couple more feeders around turnout locations just to sure up conductivity to loco passing through to avoid slow downs, only area giving me trouble still, is the atlas 25 degree crossing, I have a 4 axle GP-35 DCC, that seems to stall right on the crossing- should I add feeders at each of the four access points (which have connections on other side of rail joiners heading to the crossing), or connect wires instead the crossing to the rail areas protected by the insulated plastic rail.
You could add feeders to all four ends of the crossing and then see if that solves the stalling problem.
A GP35 should be able to traverse a 25 degree crossing without stalling. If adding feeders doesn't solve the problem, check to make sure that both the front and rear trucks are powered. Apply power to the loco on a straight stretch of track and then lift the front end. Is there still power to the rear trucks? Set the rear trucks back down on the tracks. Then, lift the rear end and check if there is power to the front trucks. I have had issues on occasion with only the front trucks or only the rear trucks receiving power due to faulty pick up wires. Crossings will expose that problem right away.
While it's not a bad idea to check voltage to make sure it's the same all over the layout, in itself measuring the voltage doesn't really prove anything other than that there is SOME power source available. Here's why. A multimeter measuring volts is (hopefully - but yes, even the cheap HF meters meet this) a very high impedence 'load'. The idea ot to have as little effect on the curcuit under test as possible. As a high impedence load, that means very little current flows in to the meter. Perfect for measuring voltage of a circuit - if the meter drew 10 amps you can see how that would affect the voltage measurement. bad for determining adequate feeders though. Say there's a questionable rail joiner. With almost no current flowing through the poor connection, the voltage reads the same as it does ont he other side of the joint. However, put a significant load, say a locomotive, on the far side of that joint, and the resistence of that poor joint makes itself known as a voltage drop (and thus a slowdown or stall of the loco). Witht he quarter test, you are creating a short across the rails, although not a zero ohm short like putting a piece of wire or holding a screwdriver across the rails. This means the quarter across the rails (do not press down on it) draws prettyt many amps but not the 'infinite' a 0 ohm short would be. Combined with the cumulative resistence of the bus wires and any rail joiners and feeders between the quarter and the booster or circuit breaker, this still should be greater than the threshold to trip said breaker. Add in a poor rail joiner where there might be a 2 or 3 volt loss at a 4 amp load, and now the current flowing through the quarter and the bad joint and the rest of the wire isn't enough to actually trip the breaker.
Re-arranging Ohm's law, at 15V, to get enough current to flow to trip a 5 amp breaker, the resistence of everything fromt he source to the point of short has to be no more than 3 ohms. If there is, say 10 ohms of resistence in the track and wiring, the 'short' will only cause 1.5 amps to flow at 15V, and the breaker should never trip, it seeing only half the current it is set to trip at.