I have a question concerning power and why I did not have any control of my throttle. I am using an old Tech II Railpower 1400 power pack. I was just trying to determine if a locomotive I have worked anymore. I took a pair of those spring loaded clips ( I cannot remember the name of them) and clipped one on each of the two varible DC terminals, then is took the clips on the other end of my wire and clipped one on each side of a piece of test track I made. The problem I am having is that immediately when I turned on the power pack the train started to move. I didn’t have any control so to speak with the throttle to be able to slow the locomotive down or make it go faster. What am I doing wrong or is causing this? The book I have Wiring Basics says it is just as easy has hooking up two wires to make a train run, but why couldn’t I slow it down or stop it? I would appreciate any help on this issue.
Curt,
I’d test the power pack first…put the leads from a voltmeter across the same variable DC terminals and make sure the potentiometer in the power pack is working. Throttle all the way down and you shouldn’t read any voltage. Full throttle = full voltage. If you get full voltage at closed throttle, there’s your problem. Otherwise, double check to make sure you were on the variable DC leads…
Don Z.
As Don Z. says, I would suspect the power pack has gone bad, and is always providing full voltage to the output. As I recall the Tech II is an electronic throttle, so the main transistor could be blown.
Thank you for giving me a nice, easy to understand answer. I still feel like a real rookie at this modelrailroading and I want to learn and get better. I have an HO layout at home that I have working on for several years and now that I look back at that I wish I would have taken more time on it an been more patient in doing some things. It end up just being so fun that you want to get it done so you can see a train run. Well, now I am going to do the Carolina Central layout in N-scale for my classroom as I am a teacher. The wiring part is the biggest issue for me to get over as far as knowing what size of wire to use and if I should use a “bus” line, etc. I am going to take my time though on this layout and do it right. I’m glad that with this power problem it might actually be a problem that I can look into and that I wasn’t just doing something dumb. Thanks again for the help.
For a layout as small as the Carolina Central I would say that one set of wires is sufficient, two at most. A bus would be overkill. Busses are usually also associated with a DCC control system, is that what you are planning to use?