I have a few questions dealing with voltage drop.
Say you have 5 feet of straight ho scale track. You add 5 more feet and 2 sidings that are five feet .at each siding you have a gap in the left rail and its all wired as dc block control using a Bachmann controller.
You have one engine you have the block on with the engine the other blocks are turned off .The engines runs great.then you turn on all the blocks and the engine runs slow. Turn the blocks off engine runs fine. Obvious a voltage drop ive checked all the wiring thats fine do i need to solder all the joints and/or install feeder wires on the right rail in each block.
Thank you
Mark
Just confirming:
You've got a number of blocks.
You can get your engine to run in ONE block when the other blocks are turned off.
While that engine is STILL IN THE ONE block, if you turn on the other blocks, it slows down.
Right now, it doesn't sound like soldering all the joints and adding feeder wires will fix this.
First, do this experiment and report back:
Try your loco in EACH of the blocks you are talking about. With all the other blocks turned off. Does it run fine in each of those blocks (how many are there?)? Or does it run slower in one or more? Remember, you should have only one block "on" at a time with this experiment.
Ed
Is there anything drawing power on the track of any of those other blocks? Light lighted cars or anything? What you've describes is common rail wiring, with only one rail gapped and fed through toggle switches to cut the power. If you only have 1 wire going to the rail that isn't gapped, I would add more, especially out towards the ends of each siding. These all connect together and then go to the power pack.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Ok i will try it tomorrow when i get home thank you
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Hi here is the track plan with electrical blocks copy and paste the address.
I was going to hiijack your pic and post it where non-Facebookians could see it but.......The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may be broken or expired, or you may not have permission to view this page.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Ok this is what i found out with suggested testing.
I have 2 atlas selector switches controlling 8 blocks.
The first (original) selector is blocks 1-4
The second one i bought new off ebay during april. Those are blocks A-D
It turns out the problem is when i have blocks A and B on where ever the engine is the engine power drops even when all other blocks are on the engine runs fine flip on either A or B or both the power drops turn them off power resumes.Im thinking it has to do with the selector switch itself.
Switches can go bad or be born bad. It sounds like a reasonable assumption.
Back when I learned to SCUBA dive and there were still Mike Nelson double hose regulators, a tank pressure gauge was considered an option. It seemed obvious to me that knowing was better than guessing.
A $6 Harbor Freight meter can eliminate a lot of guessing
Easy enough to test if it is internal to the switch itself - disconnect the wire ont he switch going to Block B. Put the locoo in Block A and turn it on - should run normally. Then turn on the Block B switch. If the problem is in the Selector, it will slow down. If nothing happens - it's in the layout wiring somewhere.
Don't forget to check coupons, sometimes the HF meter is free. Or $1. But even at the full $6 price it's a decent deal and perfectly suitable foor model railroad purposes.
I have used HF meters for some years. I think they are about six dollars today. They may not look like this one but I suspect they are made in China for different distributors.
Mine still have a socket for testing transistors.
http://www.trainelectronics.com/Meter_Workshop/index.htm
FYI, if you ever switch to DCC, they show about 14 to 16 VAC.
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.