High Pitched Hum

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

I have a moderately large layout of n scale Kato Unitrack. I’m using an NCE Power Pro 5 system. Everything works great, but there is an annoying high-pitched hum, which seems to be coming from the turnouts. Switching a turnout makes no change in the noise. The turnout switches are powered by a Kato power pack not the NCE system. Even so, the noise only happens when the NCE system is on. The folks at NCE felt it was a Unitrack issue. Haven’t heard back from Kato yet—unsure if I will or if they’ll just say it’s an NCE issue.

Anyone else have this problem or heard of anyone having it? Any ideas how to eliminate it?

Thanks

Bob

2

are the turnouts controlled by dcc or by a switch board? If it’s dcc, then you might want to try a different brand of trackside decoder

3

Read his post. Controlled by Kato power pack.

Rich

4

I assume these are twin coil machines.

Have you got a turnout you can try on the work bench?

That is a strange one right now.

Rich

5

A short can make a high pitched sizzling sound, it’s one way to track down a short in a DCC system. If it’s just some poor contact causing the short, it might not draw enough to trip the breaker.

–Randy