hi
so i finish cleaning tracks and two locomotives wheels cause i was having issues of locomotives stailing or restarting in consist. i would have two locomotives pulling 20 car train and one of them would restart when going around my layout. so i clean the wheels and all the tracks on my layout and ran both engines together and both ran great. but when i hook them up to the 20 car train again they still have that issue of an engine restarting when moving. so i was wondering dose pulling long train increase the amps of the locomotives decoder to point that it restarts in areas of layout? now both locomotives are athearn sd70aces. also i have been looking at type of wire as well to fix issue cause for my bus wire i useing 18 gauge wire and my HO layout is 11x15 feet. and i reading that 12 to 14 gauge wire is somewhat recommend for layout that size.
Yes pulling a train causes the locos to draw more amps, but not that much. The lowest power common DCC system is the Bachmann EZ Command, at 1 amp, and that should have no problem with 2 sound locos. If you have something alittle more sophisticated (a little, he says....) like the NCE PowerCab, that has 1.7 amps of output and EASILY will run 2 sound locos without straining.
Now, on an 11x15 layout with #18 wire you probably are getting some voltage loss, however it shouldn;t be enough to make the sound restart. More likely, you simply do not have enough feeders and there are too many places where the rail joiners are the only power source for sections of track. Take a screwdriver, adn where the engine stalls, go to the rail joiner at either end of the track section where it's stopped and touch it across the rail ends connected by the joiner and see if that starts it up. If so, you've found the problem. You can colder the rail joiners, but i don;t recommend soldering all of them. If you are using sectional track, you could do something like solder 3-4 sections together, with a feeder connected somewhere in that section. Then an unsoldered rail joiner, then the next 3-4 sections soldered, with a feeder. The power for any section of soldered joiners should come from feeders attached directly to that section, never through the unsoldered rail joiners. You can also solder small jumper wires around the rail joiners, and leave the joiners unsoldered. That is a bit more tedious but it also allows you to take the track apart at some point in the future just by snipping the jumpers. If you use flex track, the same thing applies, there should be feeders to each piece, never power through the rail joiners, or you can solder two sections together, attach a feeder to that, then leave unsoldered rail joiners, solder the next two pieces, etc.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
So I use #22 on my home layout and it runs two sound locos just fine. Changed from DC.\
Our club was DC with common rail and fourteen blocks using #24 telephone wire. We put in an NCE Power Pro five amp system. Turned all the blockxs on and could run two or three locos. We knew we needed more so we started adding #14 speaker wire and using the #24 feeders, about six to eight inches long. Very flexible wire.
You can use an auto light #914 light bulb in the proper socket from an auto parts store for substituting a loco. I have seen old timers many years ago that did very well with a light bulb for trouble shooting.
The below meters are cheap and great for model railroading. I have used them a lot over the years.
They are sold on ebay and Harbor Freight. Suspect made in China by one company with different colors and slightly different fronts. I have some with different fronts and the old transistor checker socket.
You really need a meter in model railroading many times.
http://www.trainelectronics.com/Meter_Workshop/index.htm
http://www.trainelectronics.com/Meter_HF/index.htm
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
What decoder is in the loco that is having the problem?
well both athearn sd70ace have factory install soundtrack decoders. and dcc system i'm useing is bachmanns dynamis command with probox. i'm also use ez track and i have terminal track at both ends of layout. but i might look at adding more terminal tracks at other areas of layout. i don't want to go overbored with track power.
Add track feeders. One at each end of all that sectional track is not enough.There is no way to "go overboard" with track feeders.
Martin Myers
EZ Track in particular definitely DOES have issues. I had a simple 4x8 fitting oval set up for a while using EZ Track and despite have 4 sets of feeders at equal points around the loop, trains would still noticeably slow even running on a DC power pack. And that's just one loco, no decoder, no sound, running free - modern locos, not old power hogs.
so this is drawing of my layout in paint Program.
My layout is small (81/2' X 111/2'). I have three loops and they are fed by a single continuous loop of 14 gauge buswire. The track is fed by 18 gauge feeder wire every four feet to each loop. all rail joiners are soldered except for a few on the straight sections and those are fed by a feeder wire with the exceptions of the turn outs which are not soldered. I'm new to DCC to be honest and not an elecrtic engineer, but my theory in doing this was that no matter where a loco is on the layout it is never more then 18 feet from the power source and always within 2 feet of a feeder. My track is code 100 flex and the power source is a Prodigy Advance2 system and so far I have run four sound equipped locos and no problems. Also all wire connections are soldered. maybe this is "over kill" but it works for me. Ken
that cool. so i am going to rewire my layout. the buswire i will be useing is 12 or 14 gauge and since my layout is all e-z track i'll buy few more power terminal tracks cause the connections are under the track so you won't see red wires coming out the side. it look neat that way. i won't make it go around the layout like in drawing. i'll re-use terminal strips to spred connections around in somewhat a Y formansioni think. should be fun
Just something you can try, as I had this problem with an Athearn Genesis SD70I. Running by itself, or with a short train, it ran excellent. On a 20 car train, it would occassional stall, then start, stall, start, etc., so when it stalled in front of me, I put just a finger on the side of the loco with slight pressure, and it started. It seemed like pulling a 20 car train, would "tip" the loco just enough that one side would loose power, just for a second or two.
I took the trucks apart, to get at the contact strip that is on each side of the truck, which also serves as "bearings" for the end of each axle. I cleaned them up, including the ends of the axles, reinstalled everything, and with a fine paint brush, I applied a touch of CRC2-26 to the point where the axles enter the contact strip.
It's working fine now. So, if you can restart the loco by appling slight pressure to the top of the loco, you may have the same thing going on that I did.
Just a suggestion.
Mike.
My You Tube
EZ track has a lot of rail joiners. Make sure they are all snug. If one of them is loose it could cause a problem, possibly only when the weight of the train is on it. Loose rail joiners are the reason people use lots of feeder wires. They are the weekest link. I always use new ones. If they wiggle at all I replace them.
j...........
so i finish wiring mainline track and i'm useing 12 gauge romex indoor house wire. then use both sd70ace that has issues befor and did testing around the layout with 20 car consists for 20 mins and both engines did not stall or sound reset. both engines ran amazing. so i think at this point useing 12 gauge wire was big improvement over the 18 gauge wire. also i found out in the bachmann 2016 catalog the dynamis dcc system power suppy is 2.3 amps. so now i have to work on wiring the programing yard area.
so i was doing some testing on my layout and my dynamis for some reson kept losing signal. and then i saw both ir receiver green and orange lights go out. so i remove the probox and hook up the mainline track wire to the dynamis command station and everything was working again. the green and orange lights in receiver where on i got signal back. so i think my dynamis probox has died. so i was looking online for new probox and i saw one for sale for 200 bucks at modeltrainstuff.com then i came across the esu 50300 navigator on there site as well. now i'm thinking about going with esu navigator and i saw back of it and there two connectons one for programing track witch is 3.5 mm jack and one for main track. i have question since i upgraded my layout to 12 gauge wire would 3.5 mm jack handle that much current. i think the navigator power suppy is 3 Amps.
That's a lot of money to spend on a discontinued system. I'd really consider one of the more mainstream systems if you are going to upgrade.
The 3.5mm jack is for the program track, which does not need 12 gauge wire running to it. It looks like there is a screw terminal piece that plugs in to the socket for the main track. Those probably won't take #12 wire either, however short pieces of something smaller won't hurt anything. #18 or maybe #16 are the biggest that tend to fit those terminal blocks, but run it out to a barrier strip mounted right behind the unit and then attach the #12 wires to the layout to the other side. It mostly wasn't switching to heavier wire - it was mostly more feeders that solved your poor performance issues, bypassing the rail joiners as the only power source to large sections of track.
actually screw terminal do take 12 gauge wire but it should be strands or fliexable kinda wire to get really good connection. i used both screw terminal on dynamis and dynamis probox. it works. and i was looking at esu 50300 Instructions and the 3.5mm jack supply up to 0.25A. it not alot witch is good. also there terminal strips from dynamis & probox wire to layout wire. it nice.