Have 4 of the 3 ft sections, all have been polished and cleaned. When hooked up in series and power added one piece gets power about half way then engine goes dead. What gives?. If i make it the first track on my test bed it is ok but after that 12" in or so the engine stops. It is one continous piece of rail so i am baffeled. Any suggestions?
alco's forever!!!!! Majoring in HO scale Minorig in O scale:)
What do you mean, when you say they are hooked up in series? They should all be hooked up in parallel. Positive one rail, negative other rail. Loose rail joiners, no rail joiners. Add feeders to your other sections and add them to your beginning feeder.
Frank
Bachmann makes a 3 foot straigh section of EZ Track in addition to the more typical 9" straihgt peice found in HO sectional track. When the OP says "series" I'm sure he means he has all of the 3' sections connecte together to make one long straight track.
Now the slightly confusing part - if feeders are connected at one end of the super straight and no where else, I would expect there to be problems, however, on ONE PIECE of 3 goot track, there should be no issues. Power shouldn;t stop halfway along a continuous section or rail.
Not having one to examine, is it truly a 3' length of rail on each piece, or does Bachmann splice pieces together> Would seem silly to be spliced but you never know. No idea how else to explain complete loss of power along a continuous solid conductor.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I figured that is what he meant by series, but you never know now a days. The other part about loss of power, got me also. Maybe if he put a feeder, on both ends of it. Yeah! Now it stops in the middle.
I know they have shorter sections that ARE gapped in the middle, they have connections underneath for two of their power feeds, and a set of hook closures that can short the halves together. But the item illustrations for that clearly show this, there is no idication that the 3 foot sections have anything of the sort.
Yes sorry all track is hooked up in a straight line as a test bed on my workbench. As i have no layout i string 2-3 pieces of this 3 foot track across my workbenches for test runs of locos. Now here is the particularry odd deal. I have 2 of the double track crossovers hooked togehter with 2 pieces of 3 ft track off each so i have a long double track line. I have my nce clipped to one line only. I get power through all track( i know amazing in itself but i have polished each and every connection point and made sure they are all good connections.) except in that one piece. Now you would say well that track is not getting proper power but like i said the loco stops half way down, and if i swap another piece in it works just fine. The faulty piece if track is indeed one solid piece of rail, when hooked up all by itself it works fine. Puzzled by this
for sanity sake, have you tried measuring the voltage with a voltmeter moving both probes down the entire length of track. Of course it would be better to do something like this using trucks to make the electrical contact.
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
no I have not. Did not even cross my mind.
This is just insanely wierd. So you take the problem section of track, let's call that section A. Clip wires to it from your system, and it works perfectly fine. Take Section A, and add additional sections B, C, and D, and now suddenly the loco will stop halfway down section A? But what about if you push it past the dead spot, will it run further along the connected track sections? And, are you feeding the power at teh same place with just the troublesome section attached as you are when powering the whole works?
you are correct on your description Randy. And if I push it farther along track A it is still dead. as far as feeding power I currently use alligator clips on the rail at the begining section of track abcd. Track A gets the same hook up whether seperated from the group or all hooked together.
Not a particular engine either happens in the same spot with all locos when it happens.
So, once you push it to track B it runs? Are doing yet another AF's joke? Come on, fess up!
Mike.
My You Tube
You have no voltage to the dead track once the train stops. Solder the track together and you won't have problems.
You're missing his point - this is one solid 3' section of track, no joiners. Nothign to solder. ANd the trains tops halfway down it. Same as if you clip leaded your power supply to ONE piece of flex track and the train ran halfway down it and stopped. I still can't understand this, unless Bachmann made some of these sections like their special insulated section and it really is gapped in the middle with connectors underneath that can be closed to make it one solid piece or opened to make an insulating gap.
I. Know right randy. It is really strange. This is definately a solid piece of rail on both rails. When you mentioned the break in the track earlier i scoured it with a magnifing glass and made sureit was one piece of rail.
rs2mikedouble track crossovers
I use/used Kato double crossovers (N-Scale) and I discovered I had to power each leg of the track coming off the crossover. Power did not go through the Kato Crossover. It was powered through a Digitrax stationary decoder (DS52 I think).
Another thing that comes to mind is check and make sure there is not a dent in the rail. A small dent may lift the power pick-ups off the rail enough to interupt the power pick up.
Modeling a railroad hypothetically set in time.
That's a possibility, a kink in the rail. The crossover power issue may explain a lack of power in any of the other legs of the crossover, but still doesn;t explain a loss of power halfway along a solid single section of track. A kink or crimp in the rail COULD cause contact loss.
rs2mike you are correct on your description Randy. And if I push it farther along track A it is still dead. as far as feeding power I currently use alligator clips on the rail at the begining section of track abcd. Track A gets the same hook up whether seperated from the group or all hooked together. Not a particular engine either happens in the same spot with all locos when it happens.
So track A works by ityself, but not when connected to tracks B, C, and D, right? Have you tried B, C, and D wihtout A hooked up. Also, do you have anything hooked up to the track other than the aligator clips mentioned? I'm thinking maybe a short that is not drawing enough current to trip the circuit breaker. As the engine starts out near the power source it runs fine, but then looses power as the voltage drops closer to the short.
I've been following this with complete bewilderment !
Try applying power to the end of the offending piece of track. Wire up a bulb to two pices of three foot wire. Attach one wire to one rail where your power is connected. Run the other wire along the opposite rail until it goes out (or not). If not, repeat with the opposite rail. As soon as the light goes out, you'll be able to pinpoint EXACTLY where the so-called break is and inspect that point with a magnifying glass.
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
All in All, just another brick in the wall.
You do not need power on to test. Do a continuity test, one rail at a time. Clip neg. to one end of rail, other end of same rail with pos. probe, IF you have continuity that rail is OK. Try next rail the same way. If you don't get continuity, slide pos. probe accross rail until you do. Then cuss and swear and throw it against the WALL.
Have Fun!
Some good suggestions. I am going to do the bulb test just to check.
l
Did you do a resistance check on each rail from one end to the other?
This may sound too obvious, but have you tried swapping track section "A" that has the dead spot with one of the OTHER track sections to see if the same thing happens with them?
yep did that and it did not follow with the replaced track sections. still a mystery to me. still can not figure it out.
oh weill
Is there continuity through each individual rail from one end to the other?
Is this problem with only one of the pieces of flex track or does each piece of flex track have this problem?
I understand they are not hooked together.
To be honest I never checked the continuity of each rail. This is not flex track it is the 36" straight piece from bachman. I use it for a test track across the work bench. I can get almost 3 across, with some constructive stacking from my other work bench I can get all three.
Just the one piece has this perculiar problem