I have one passenger car that causes my whole consist to slow or even stop after I cleaned its sticky wheels with 91% Alcohol. I replaced the wheels below their foil electrical pickups but it seems when this cars light goes out everything on the track stops. Is it causing a short? I was only able to use this car by removing the foil electrical pickups from both trucks, but then the car doesn’t light. I can restart the train by gently nudging the bad car but it doesn’t get too far. Could my problem more likely be the electrical pickups connection with the wheel axles or could I have damaged the metal wheels with the alcohol (taking the top coating off the wheels so that the wheels aren’t picking up enough electricity)?
Cleaning w/ alcohol will make the contact improve, possibly causing the path for the short to be worse. The cleaning should improve the wheel surface, not damage it.
Sound like the electrical PU are definatly shorting. If the truck side frames are metal and the insulated wheelsets are not all installed w/ the isolator on the same side this will cause a short.
Another place to check is where the power from the PU enters the car itself. To have the light work power from each rail needs to reach the bulbs, so I would track down the source of the short from the wheelset to the lighting arrangement itself.
It certainly sounds like a short circuit, and it sounds like you reversed one (or more) axles when you re-installed them.
You don’t say what make or model of car it is, or what kind of electrical pickup it has, but many passenger car trucks have metal sideframes, and the axles have one wheel insulated. All the wheelsets are installed the same way on one truck, and the reverse way on the other truck, so that one truck picks up all axles in one truck from one rail (only), and the other truck picks up from all axles in it.
So if just one wheelset is installed backwards, you’re going to get pickup from both rails on one truck, causing an instant short-circuit.
If you can’t tell by looking closely at the wheelsets, I’d try installing only one axle in each truck. If the lights won’t come on at all, reverse one of the wheelsets. If that works, then install the other wheelsets, one at a time.
p.s.: if by “foil pickups” you mean some sort of wiper that contacts the axle, the problem (and solution) could be the same, as one wheel is insulated from the axle shaft.
Thanks a lot bogp40! My trucks are all plastic, but I reversed one of the wheels and this immediately corrected the short. This put what I believe to be the isolators (black plastic piece on one axle end) all on the same side of the car, but the light didn’t work. I reversed one pair of wheels in one truck and now everything works like a charm. Thanks for helping keep this car out of my junk box.
I recall seeing other cars with black wheels on one truck side and silver on their opposite axle end, with the other truck the same but opposite colors. Can someone explain to this newbie what the different colored wheels might mean?
Pondini - These are Bachmann Plus passengers. You are correct, reversing the wheel sets did the trick.
the black wheels were probably the insulated ones (maybe plastic?), and as others ahave said, one truck assembly would be electrified by the right rail, and the other assembly would be electrified be the left rail. Wires would be attached to the trucks or a wiper that is against the trucks, and would then be attached to a light(board).
The insulated wheels keep that wheelset from shorting out the layout/power block, because if you had two metal/conductive wheels attached to a conductive axle, there would be nothing to keep them from shorting out - hence the use of a plastic wheel on one side, or a plastic axle, or some other form of isolating the wheels from one antohter.
If you continue to have future issues with these wheelsets, you should change them to JB, IM or Kadee. I might have left out some others Rebox etc, but any decent 36" wheelset with a metal axle will work.
bogp40 - i think you misread my post. I made the statment that if a pair of (conductive) wheels were connected with a conductive axle, you would have a problem - hence the use of plastic, or otherwise unconductive material for the axles (and/or wheels).
All my wheels are (currently) P2K or Intermountain (can’t remember which), along with some Kadees and plastic ones that I haven’t gotten around to swapping out (the plastic, not the KD)… granted the cars they belong on are still in about 50 pieces [8D].
You still have a potential problem there. (OK, any of you double-E’s out there get the pun?)
Typically, one truck provides power from one rail, and the other truck gets it from the other rail. The wipers (another name for the foil pickups) usually connect to both wheelsets of each truck. If you have different-colored wheels as viewed from the outside, chances are the silver/brass ones are the electrical side, while the black ones are plastic and are insulators. On newer wheelsets, the wheels are all metal, but there is a small plastic insulator at the inside junction with the axle on one side. You want to have both of those insulators on the same side of each truck. For powered cars, the two trucks want the insulated sides on the opposite rails.