shorts in track!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Hello, i am finding that in certain spots of my terack the train will stop sometimes a whole section will seem as if it doesnt have a good power flow, why is this, im in the process of finishing it so i dont have alot of time to play with track anymore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Don Gibson]

That's because power is shorting or not getting to certain sections of track. Symptoms are the same - everything stops. Howerver, If there is no derailment there is probably no short.

EITHER way, you have to trace down the culprit. The Devil is in the details.

Use a 12v grain of wheat bulb with alligator clips soldered on each end and applying across the track will show you where the power is and where it's not.

Better yet, is a small multimeter ($5 -$10) which has many additional uses.

There are 1001 things that could be causing your problem. The problem is finding WHERE it is. No amount of advice can do this for you.

[BNSFNUT]

You could be losing power to sections because of rail jointers not conducting electricity.
This is not a rare occurance. You said that you were finshing the layout, if you have put down ballast the glue or even dust can get into a jointer and cause a bad connection.
Soldering the jointer or puting a jumper around each jointer. I usualy solder the jointer when it fails.

[Anonymous]

Thats really better than finding tracks in your shorts, sorry I just couldn't resist[:-^][:-^][(-D][(-D][(-D]

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BNSFNUT

You could be losing power to sections because of rail jointers not conducting electricity.
This is not a rare occurance. You said that you were finshing the layout, if you have put down ballast the glue or even dust can get into a jointer and cause a bad connection.
Soldering the jointer or puting a jumper around each jointer. I usualy solder the jointer when it fails.

I agree and you may also want to check your feeders, make sure they're soldered really good, no cold solder joints, also the further away from the power pack these are, you may have to go one size larger in gauge to off set voltage drop. Hope this helps.