Okay, I spent all afternoon wiring my layout and installing insulating rail joiners for my power districts, I made sure my feeder wiresand power bus were sodered (beyond) the insulated rail joiners,in the new power district, I set one of my loco's in the new power district, I did the short out trick and that worked in power district 1, now get this, there's no power in power district 2, I moved my loco back to the first district I have, power, what gives??? did I miss something so obvious that I just didn't see it?? Need help solving this mystery, " DA---- DA---- DA--- DAAAAAAAA" (movie mystery music) , LOL
Thanks guys n gals,
Trainsrme1
Hi trains with no name,
beside an obvious reason like a loose connection, many more are possible. A trackplan with all feeders indicated could help, such as the knowledge if you are using power routing turnouts.
Wish you luck
Paul
HI Paul.
My name is Pete, thanks for the help, I did get pretty tired working on the layout today,and it's possible that I might have a loose connection somewhere, I"m hoping that's the only problem there is, I have a double mainline, now I did install an old Peco curved turnout, but it's only on one of the tracks, not both, it's leading off to a spur, whould that be a problem? I'm not sure if it's a power routing turnout or not,
Thanks again,
Trainsrme,,, errrr Pete
Building a protolance layout, what if the Union Pacific had a mainline running west form Eugene Oreg, CORP actually has a secondary line running from Eugene to Coos Bay Oreg, an Ex SP line.
Have you confirmed that there is power to the #2 District's circuit breaker? If the whole district is down, that's the first place to check.
If power to the #2 circuit breaker is good, what does the circuit breaker's status light(s) show? Often the CB has signals it is sending, which may help with diagnosis. The manual for the CB may have more info on that, too.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
If you don't have a VOM (Volt / Ohm / Milliammeter), get one. A cheap $2.99 digital meter from Harbor Freight is good enough.
Start at your power source (DCC booster) and trace all your wiring between there and district 2.
You most likely have a loose or missing connection in your wiring.
without specific information, such as a diagram and what changes were made, it's difficult to provide specific help.
so here's some general advice:
find out what works and doesn't work. use a voltmeter or 12v lamp to find where you do have power and where you don't. And then try to isolate the problem does to as small a section of track as possible. Unless you know what to specifically look for, at least you know where to look.
good luck
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Learning point:
Don't wire it all up and then test it. Test each section as you wire it.
Have you color coded your wires, one collor always goes to the rail furthest from the front and one color always goes to the rail closest to the front?
If one block has a short and one block has no power, that looks like you crossed your connections to those blocks. Block one is OK and you connected the positive of block 2 to the negative of block 1 and the negative of block 2 to the negative of block 1. That will cause a short in block 1 and dead track in block 2.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
A trick I learned from a model railroad magazine many years ago is to take an old boxcar or reefer and paint a large "+" sign on one side and a large "-" sign on the other.
Push that car around the track every time you go to connect a wire, and make sure you have easily recognized plus and minus wires, either two different colors or, in my case, stranded speaker wire with a white stripe on one conductor, which I use as the negative.
My buss wires are black and white, the inside rail is connected to the white one. So I use and old black undecorated flat car with a piece of white tape down one side, which is originally set up so the tape is on the inside of simple track. That way whichever rail is under the white tape, that rail is connected to the white buss wire. It works for me.
I do not remember who I got this idea from, sorry.
Living in Fernley Nevada, about 30 miles east of Reno, also lived in Oregon and California, but born In Brooklyn NY and raised on Long Island NY
Slowly run a locomotive from the working section to the non-working section and note where it stops. If it stops when the front wheels enter the non-working section, then you have a short. If it doesn't stop until the whole engine is in the non-working section, then you've probably got a bad connection.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Assuming that at least one set of feeder wires from the main bus to the power district 2 exists, and that the soldered connection is secure, you will have power to power district 2.
So, my first question is whether any of the tracks within the power district 2 have power? Any of them? None of them?
How about the track where the feeder wires connect to the rails? There must be power there even if that were the only set of feeder wires within power district 2 and even if all of your other rail joiners are not properly secured in place to carry power from one track to another.
My second question is what brand of circuit breaker are you using? Is it tripped? Would it work if you reversed the circuit breakers on the two power districts?
Rich
Alton Junction
As I re-read the various replies, others have brought up another valid point.
Is there no power, or is there a short? Is power district 2 possibly a reversing section?