UPDATE.....Could my power pack be failing?

[Don Gibson]

POWER Is not reacing the motor. The is a 'chain' of connection points, Where do you want to start?

Generally bad electrical connectios are go, or no go. Circuits with electonic components can changd with heat. Those chage value and therefor change perfomance.

TRICK is to Isolate the problem. WHERE is it occuring? THEN what is causing it?

POWER PACK: TRY another power pack. All packs lose power whem load limit is reached. 1/4 volt  drop is negligable and not you problem. DC power packs are UL rated in 'watts', or VA's. Higher means more capacity (better).

*RAIL JOINERS can decome loose and siop passing current. A Voltmeter will detect where.Again, connections are are go or no go.

Dirty wheels and track make running intermittant (go or no go)

DCC and lighting boards pick up electricity from the wheels and deliver it to the motor. It has both components and solder connections,

MOTORS can go bad - demagnetize, but brushes wear with use. Choice of to pay to repair, or to order parts and do yourself.

*Since you have a Volt meter, I would check all track connections first. Replace ALL Rail Joiners second.

[msowsun]

Have you tried an abrasive type track cleaner?

 

[jerryl]

  Let me contribute another point of view. i had the same problem on my garden RR. Clean track & clean wheels helped for awhile,but problem returned. I had plenty of power 5 amps. Finally checked the track gauge & FOUND it was tight, for some reason, the heat exagerated it. Once this was corrected all was well.  jerry

[dinwitty]

let me just make a case in point. The club I was in demanded solid operation. It WAS reliable, they stuck to good standards. This meant practically every section of track got a feeder wire.  Even if it was coupled with rail joiners. The joiners were more to hold the tracks together.

If you dont want to extend feeders to all your tracks, do the next best thing, short pieces of wire soldered to the next piece. Prototype railroads don't rely on the rail joiners to make continuity, the rails are bonded with heavy wire. I'm not going to trust the soldered joints very much, they may heat up and resist continuity.

 Electronic components in throttles if they heat up will degrade their performance, when they cool they will come back. The small Bachmann throttles wont take heavy useage. 1 amp or better for multiple locomotives, maybe 5 amps.

I had a radio years ago and and I turned it on and the sound got distorted, I opened it up,  put my finger on some components and OUCH, one transistor was hot! I went to an electronics store and found a heat sink to fit on the transistor. Voila!! No more noise!

 

[cacole]

Check the connections at both ends of the feeder wire, and check that the wire itself is not broken inside the insulation.  That particular feeder wire may not be feeding anything at all, and may even be shorting out your power supply because of a poor connection or wires touching inside the jacket.  Disconnect that feeder wire from the power bus and see how things run without it.  If your rail joiners are soldered at one end of the flex track, that should provide sufficient power from the previous feeder as long as your soldering is good.

For the dirt problem, if you're pulling rolling stock with plastic wheels, check them for dirt buildup. 

[selector]

I think R.T is right.  It's as if there is a resistance impeding the voltage or current, whatever resistance does, right at that spot.  I don't see why the engine should perform better on all other parts, and slow down at this soldered set of feeders.   It would probably serve you well to remove that one section of track and substitute another with new joiners.  I wonder if the previous user soldered wires to bad metal in an attempt to correct what he felt was a serious voltage drop right there.  So, replace the section if you can and you will probably find that you are fine.  Although, I amp is not much current.

[R. T. POTEET]

Mike, what you are describing is a classic example of a bad connection. If this is so erratic I would check inside the power supply; most likely, however, you are experiencing either a cold-solder joint or a bad rail joiner. It doesn't take very much heat for metal to expand and therefore break electrical contact somewhere; when it cools off - maybe as little as 4/10ths of a degree can do it - the metal will shrink up enough to reestablish contact. This is why we crimp our rail joiners - or should anyway - and solder our connections - or should anyway.

In the 1950s the Japanese were so sensitive about MADE IN JAPAN that electrical components were subjected to a continuous temperature of 50º C for six hours and had to function perfectly at the end of that time; this was a check for cold solder joints on electrical connections. It didn't matter whether these things were headed for Baffin Island or Timbouctou. I don't know what kind of quality control is being exercised by the Chinese Communists so there is always a possibility that your problem could be inside your power supply.   

[armchair]

   Thanks for all the tips.  I did install a new 1 amp power supply yesterday. I cleaned the tracks and loco wheels, and installed the new power supply, I turned on the trains and it ran well for about half an hour and started the same thing again, but not as bad.

  I did one thing differently however, instead of using the LifeLike cleaning fluid, I got some 91% alochol and cleaned the track and wheels with it and it seemed to make all the difference in the world, I was thinking I was cleaning the track but what I was doing was putting some gunk on the track that wasn't supposed to be there.

   The problem seems to be in a section of straight Atlas flex track that does have a set of feeder wires attached to the rails and the rail joiners have all been soldered before I ever did the balasting, although the lights don't flicker nearly as bad after using the alochol, when the loco comes to the section that gives trouble the train will slow down. After a while it will keep slowing down a little more each time it passes the track in question until it will almost stall out.

  As I said before, I have cleaned all the metal wheels and have NO plastic wheels, All rail joiners are soldered, and have a #12 buss wire and smaller feeders to the rails.

  When the loco started to act up last night I cleaned the track in question with alochol again and it helped a little but not much. I then cleaned the loco wheels with the alochol and it ran perfectly, about 70% on the throttle!

  For some reason the loco wheels are getting dirty really fast and it seems to affect it's running in one certain spot so I am thinking this is the problem.  The locos are P2Ks and are a little over a year old but do have consederable running time on them.  

   Any more suggestions?      Thanks     Mike
 

I'm sure You ment 10 amp,not to be critical. I've had very good results with Railzip cleaner as I used to model in N scale. Those little katos & atlas engines ran as good as any Ho I've seen! Good luck.Hope this helps................

[mikesmowers]

   Thanks for all the tips.  I did install a new 1 amp power supply yesterday. I cleaned the tracks and loco wheels, and installed the new power supply, I turned on the trains and it ran well for about half an hour and started the same thing again, but not as bad.

  I did one thing differently however, instead of using the LifeLike cleaning fluid, I got some 91% alochol and cleaned the track and wheels with it and it seemed to make all the difference in the world, I was thinking I was cleaning the track but what I was doing was putting some gunk on the track that wasn't supposed to be there.

   The problem seems to be in a section of straight Atlas flex track that does have a set of feeder wires attached to the rails and the rail joiners have all been soldered before I ever did the balasting, although the lights don't flicker nearly as bad after using the alochol, when the loco comes to the section that gives trouble the train will slow down. After a while it will keep slowing down a little more each time it passes the track in question until it will almost stall out.

  As I said before, I have cleaned all the metal wheels and have NO plastic wheels, All rail joiners are soldered, and have a #12 buss wire and smaller feeders to the rails.

  When the loco started to act up last night I cleaned the track in question with alochol again and it helped a little but not much. I then cleaned the loco wheels with the alochol and it ran perfectly, about 70% on the throttle!

  For some reason the loco wheels are getting dirty really fast and it seems to affect it's running in one certain spot so I am thinking this is the problem.  The locos are P2Ks and are a little over a year old but do have consederable running time on them.  

   Any more suggestions?      Thanks     Mike
 

 

[bogp40]

I'm with checking the track voltage at all the feeder sections first, but ultimatly I think it's time for a new power suppy.

[Phoebe Vet]

When a problem begins after a long term of continuous running and gets worse with time my first guess would always be heat.

Power packs, and decoders can both overheat. Heat is the deadly enemy of solid state electronic devices.

For a first step, try blowing a small fan across your power pack. Make sure the room in which your layout resides is temperature controlled. When you install decoders, don't wrap them with electrical tape.

Next time it acts up, turn everything off for an hour and see if it gets better.

If you continue to operate overheated electronics, they will fail. Electronic devices can be victimized by thermal runaway. That is when they reach a critical temperature, above which the hotter they get, the better they conduct electricity, and the more electricity they conduct, the more heat they generate. It is a death spiral for the device.

There may be a current limiting circuit in one or more devices that is kicking in to protect the overheated device. At first glance that could look like an intermittent failure.

[twcenterprises]

I'd suspect loose rail joiners.  Either install some feeders where the train slows or stalls, or solder the joiners.  Track won't get so dirty it won't run in a matter of minutes.

Brad 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I am running a Bauchmann throttle that came with a train set and is a couple of years old.

Ditch the Bachmann pack or use it to run the turnouts as I do. Get an MRC to run the trains. I use a MRC Tech4 280 for DC operation.

[Trynn_Allen2]

When I was running my old 4x8 I found spots like this too, and my MRC wasn't overheating.  As a quick fix I ran an extra set of feeders to those locations and just snugged the feeders into the nearest railjoiner.   This seemed to solve the problem.

 

[cacole]

If you didn't solder your track joints you could have loose rail joiners causing intermittent voltage loss caused by the weight of the locomotive on the rail joints as it goes around the layout.  The black crud is probably coming off of rolling stock wheels, especially if you still have plastic.

[mikesmowers]

   I have a volt meter attached to the out put terminals of the power pack that reads the track voltage, it will drop about .1/4 of a volt when it hits the problem spot. Could the power pack run fine until it raeches the certain spot in the track? At one time last night at a different spot on the track, the loco was running fine and all of a sudden it was like I had quickly turned the throttle off, thus slidding the loco wheels and then continued along it way and went past this point the next round with no problem.      Thanks for the advice, The power pack is sort of ''built in'' so it isn't all that easy to replace.               Mike

   PS   When the problem is there the lights will flicker on the loco, like dirty track, What can be causing my track to get dirty in a matter of a few minutes? There is always black crud on the alochol towel after I clean the track as it were arcing but I have turned the lights off and looked closely and see no arcing.      Mike 

[msowsun]

When a train stops running, check to see if there is still votage on the track, or coming from the powerpack. That can narrow down the problem.

Every model railroader should have atleast a voltmeter to check track voltage when problems crop up. Even better is a combination voltmeter and ammeter. 

  

 

[cacole]

It sounds like you are overloading the Bachmann power pack.  They are very cheaply made, have very little power output, and are meant to run only one locomotive at a time.

[CPRail modeler]

I've actually experienced this myself on a friends layout. The old Bachmann power packs get warm up to the point that the locos stall out. I would suggest replacing the power pack with a power pack from MRC, perhaps a tech2 or a tech4. These packs send out more power than basic trainset packs and some have two throttles in one, allowing more trains on at a time.

Of course, there is also DCC...

[mikesmowers]

  I have noticed the last few times I have run my trains that there is a place or two that the trains don't want to run, and is getting worse.  When I first turn them on they run great, after a while 30-45 minutes, the loco will start to act up as if the track is dirty. I can clean the track and it will run fine for a few more minutes. The longer I run my trains the worse the problem gets. I can run the trains in the opposite direction and it will run fine for a while and then start to act up again. I can change locos and it is the same thing, runs fine and then start acting up. Last night I noticed I could clean the wheels on the loco and it works better than cleaning the track but will soon start to act up.

  Some times it is in a certain spot on the track, but is not necessarly at the same spot every time. I am modeling in HO and run a continous loop. I enjoy letting the trains run by them self while I sit back and watch them as I have a cold beer. I am running in DC mode with a # 12 buss wire and smaller feeders to the track. The places it acts up mostly are on straight sections of Atlas flex track, so I am in doubt about the track but then again maybe so.

   I am running a Bauchmann throttle that came with a train set and is a couple of years old. I have 2 Bauchmann diesels that are mu'ed together and 2 P2K's that are mu'ed together. When I run the P2ks I am haveing to increse the throttle to around 85-90% where they used to run at around the 70-75% mark and it seems the power pack is getting warmer than usual.

   I have cleaned and lubed all of the loco and that did not help, I have also cleaned all the wheels on my rolling stock, all metal wheels ( No Plastic). 

   Could this problem be in the power pack or something elece?  If I end up replacing the power pack I will  go to Dcc, will my DC locos run on DCC until I can get decoders put in them?

    Sorry for such a long thread but I wanted to try and answer some questions before they are ask.   Any Suggestions or ideas?       Thanks.                   Mike