I have a cross-over between two power districts that is causing my locos to short when they cross the gap and I am now almost bald because of pulling my hair out trying to find where the problem is. Hopefully someone here can help me with this.
I have four power districts, controlled by two boosters, set up on my layout that is currently under construction. The layout is basically a double track oval with a few switching areas inside of the oval. The four power districts are; outer track on the oval with yard, right side of the inner oval track and right side switching areas, left side of the inner oval track and left side switching areas, and the switch machines.
DCS100 (5 amp) connected to a PS-2 circuit breaker (Tony’s Trains) divides power between the left and right sides of the inner portions of the layout.
DB200 (8 amp) connected to a PSX-2 circuit breaker (DCC Specialties) divides power between the outer oval with the yard and the turnout machines.
I have an opposing switch on each track that forms a cross-over from the inner to the outer track. All turnouts are Peco electro-frog powered by a Hare-Tortoise combo. I have double gapped the rails in between the switches and the gaps are offset by 1/4 inch
When I run a loco across this gap I am getting a short. If the loco is run from outer loop to inner loop the DB200 shorts, if run from inner to outer loop the DCS100 shorts.
Just to clarify: Were the new power districts installed/in place/tested when everything was “wired to the DCS100 on a common bus and with this arrangement all worked fine”? Or, were these added after testing your wiring with the DCS100 but prior to the addition of the DB200/circuit breakers? Since you say that your problems didn’t start until you installed your new booster/breakers, logic dictates that’s where you problem lies.
Tom, how big is your layout? How many locomotives do you plan on running at a time? The reason for asking is that, to me - you’ve got a horrendous amount of amperage powering an N-scale layout. Even 4 power districts and operating turnouts, your 5-amp booster should be quite adequate for the job.
I’m no electrical guru but…is it possible that the 8-amp booster is tripping the 5-amp booster when the train is crossing the gap? Does each booster need to be the same amperage?
Do you have an electrical test meter? If so, set the meter to AC volts at whatever scale range is above track voltage (maybe 200 or 300 volts). Connect one lead from the meter to the track on one side of the gap, and attach the second lead to the same rail on the other side of the gap. You should read zero volts. If you do, that means that both rails are in phase (or have the same polarity if you will) and your problem lies elsewhere. If you read a voltage across the gap, you have a track connection swapped.
Checking this one item will eliminate a common culprit.
I have a cross-over between two power districts that is causing my locos to short when they cross the gap and I am now almost bald because of pulling my hair out trying to find where the problem is. Hopefully someone here can help me with this.
I have four power districts, controlled by two boosters, set up on my layout that is currently under construction. The layout is basically a double track oval with a few switching areas inside of the oval. The four power districts are; outer track on the oval with yard, right side of the inner oval track and right side switching areas, left side of the inner oval track and left side switching areas, and the switch machines.
DCS100 (5 amp) connected to a PS-2 circuit breaker (Tony’s Trains) divides power between the left and right sides of the inner portions of the layout.
DB200 (8 amp) connected to a PSX-2 circuit breaker (DCC Specialties) divides power between the outer oval with the yard and the turnout machines.
I have an opposing switch on each track that forms a cross-over from the inner to the outer track. All turnouts are Peco electro-frog powered by a Hare-Tortoise combo. I have double gapped the rails in between the switches and the gaps are offset by 1/4 inch
When I run a loco across this gap I am getting a short. If the loco is run from outer loop to inner loop the DB200 shorts, if run from inner to out
No, the boosters can be of different amperage. I have 2 - 5A boosters and an 8A booster running just fine. What he does need to do is tune the breakers so that they trip out before the boosters. Also the Digitrax boosters have an option for 1/8th second or 1/2 second shutdown. I set mine for 1/2 second. If I were him I’d find ths s
Swap the track A and Track B output wires from one of the Boosters. The DB200 would be my choice. Use the steps that maxman posted to test with a meter.
I know, I know, the red and black wires are each connected to the same outputs but some where along the line, either Digitrax didn’t get the message and some of their boosters are swapped internally to others or you have a loconet cable that is reversed Swapping the outputs on one booster will solve it.
We have three at our club and one of them has been reversed from day one. We ordered themat the same time and received them the same day.
do you have the ground wire connected to the boosters? when using multiple digitrax boosters the ground connection needs to be made between them to put them into the same phase.
Ground wire won’t put them into the same phase but it’s a good idea to add a larger gauge wire between the two ground wires on the boosters. There is already a common connection through pins 2 and 5 of the loconet cable. Relying on those two very small wires to carry the load during a short circuit is not the best practice.
The boosters should be Loconet-ed together, no cab plug ins or anything between them. Pretty much making a separate Loconet between the boosters. From the DCS, one plug should go to the other booster only. The other plug can go to all other Loconet devices. A heavier gauge ground wire also helps.
Try hooking the other booster flipping Rail A-B. If that doesn’t work, maybe some of the connections out of the circuit breakers might be out of phase. When hooking up PM42s on the old club layout, there were 3 out of 8 blocks that were out of phase. Took a little trial and error to get it figured out.
I have the identical setup, my DCS100 and DB200 each feeding a Tony’s PS-4gang circuit breaker for a total of 2 power districts, 8 blocks. When a train would try to bridge between each power district I would get a short. I tried everything, even bought another DB200 and it did the same thing.
The solution, for me, turned out to be setting the DCS 100 option switch 03 from “t” to “c” cancelling out the auto reversing function of the DCS100.
Page 115 in the Super Chief manual, or section 28.0. Try it and let me know if that works. I made this option switch two years ago and never had a problem since.
Actually, OpSw 3 set to CLOSED is turning ON the autoreverse function. The table show what a particular OpSw setting does if set to ‘Closed’
Unless your booster is directly powering a reverse loop with no additional downstream reverser units, it should NOT be set to autoreverse. If you have to set it to autoreverse then there is either an autoreverse in the next power district that is failing to function, or there is a reverse loop you’ve missed in the track layout. Having a downstream autoreverser AND the booster set to autoreverse, or having any combination of two autoreversig devices feeding track on opposite sides of a gap will be nothign but trouble as the two reversing devices ‘fight’ one another to be the one to set the polarity correct,
That darned Digitrax manual can be a bit ambiguous at times. Anyway, by changing my op. sw. 3 to “c” fixed the problem for me and I do have two PS-Revs downstream that function flawlessly for me…
A blind squirrel does find a nut every now and then.
My guess is that you don’t have your PM42’s set to trip fast enough or at a low enough current and the booster was shorting out before the PM42’s could flip. Changing the booster to autoreverse allows it to flip and ‘solves’ the problem but at this point the PM42’s are probably doing exactly nothing.
WOW - thanks gang for the loads of feedback. Let me take these one at a time;
tstage - I would agree with your logic. DB200 and circuit breakers were installed at the same time, after testing of wiring with DCS100 only. I have maybe 20% of the planned track installed at this point and wanted to install all wiring before I finished installing all the track. My next plannned test was to de-install the DB200 and breakers, rewire the DCS100 in and see what happens.
The layout is a 24’ x 5’, going to be a steel mill. It’s one long rectangle at the moment but am planning on a whole basement eventually and wanted to do it right form the start as far as power districts go. I am planning on the DB200 powering the rest of the mainline which should be another 200’ +. There will be 67 turnouts on this portion of the layout alone, all with Hare/Tortoise combos, 7-10 locos running at the same time ( many MUs) with another 15-18 idling in the yard plus 4 automated locos (ore larries)
I asked Tony’s about the diff amps and they said no prob.
maxman - No electrical test meter. Can you suggest a brand and where to get? Please be specific as I don’t know what one of these is/does besides the obvious; testing electricity?
jbinkley60 - Tried reversing various wires to no avail. I use the loconet cable that comes with the Superchief set to connect the two boosters directly. It has always worked when I had it connecting my UR91 to the DCS100 so I assume it is working now too. I’ll check for flippage tonight and try other cable too. I have the UR91 connected but not inbetween boosters.
mfm37 - I’ll check tonight by reversing DB’s wiring, thanks, never would have thought of that.
river eagle - ground connection between boosters? Yo
Similar can probably be found at Sears, Home Depot, and Lowes. The two above are analog meters. You have to read a scale on these, but instructions come with the meter. There are also digital meters out there. These will flash a value on a screen. All a matter of preference.
All the advice you received from the other posters is good. However, I still say that if your problem is occurring at that particular location the first thing you should do is check the phasing (or polarity) as I described above. As someone pointed out, even though you think you have everything wired correctly there is a possibility that something is swapped, either internally or inadvertently. The problem with randomly swapping this or that wire is that you may correct one problem and create a new one.
If you have a Harbor Freight near you, you can get a digital meter that is more than good enough for model railroad work for $5. If you want to do precision electronic work you’ll need a much more expaensive and fancy one, but for checkign your layout, the $5 variety is plenty good.
Just wanted to say thanks again to all who are trying to help me with this.
The wifey had to work last night so I had kid duty which means no time for trains but I did manage to snap a few pics so we can all be sure we are talking about the same things. Here goes, let me know if you all can see them;
The crossover in question, upper track in the pic is the inner loop and lower track in the pic is the outer loop. The little green lines on the track are the gaps I have cut.
DB200 connections
This thought occured to me last night, can the “ground wire jumper” being put into the wrong spot cause this problem. The instructions that come with the DB200 state that “all units are shipped with a grounding wire jumper installed”, well go figure, mine didn’t come with one. I emailed Digitrax and their Tech support emailed me back saying just “Simply cut a piece of wire…20-24 gauge is fine and put it between the Config A and Ground terminals”, I used 18ga wire. You’ll notice on the pic that there is no Config A port so I connected the Sync and Ground ports(left). There are 2 ground ports, a left and right, could connecting the wire to the right side ground port make this go away. I have the ground wire from the Magna Force power supply in the right side ground port.
I’ll try to work on some wiring scenarios tonight and get an electrical test meter.
Please see pic abpove. The green wire jumper I installed is connecting Sync and Ground. My question was do I have it connected to the correct ground port as there are two on my DB200. I guess the second ground port is also Config B ??? I have the ground wire from the Magna Force power supply plugged into the right-hand ground port or what I am assuming is Config B ?
