This may be a little long winded, but I want to make sure you have all the info.
I have an HO layout (atlas TT-10 plan) which is a spagetti layout. I have a MRC railpower 1370 providing power. The plans in the atlas book call for terminal joiners (16 in all) spaced around the track, only on the power rail. The trains do find most of the time, but occasionally will lose power at a turnout. I have the terminal joiners (which are atlas code 83 terminal joiners) connected to the track but the wires leading from them are just hanging under the benchwork. I read an article in MR about running bus wires under your track and hooking these terminal joiner wires to them. I decided to give it a try. I ran a 14 gauge bus wire under my benchwork and hooked all my terminal joiners to it. The bus wire was hooked to the MRC 1370 where the red wire would normally be hooked up. THE TRAIN WOULD NOT MOVE, and if it did it moved very slowly no matter how far I turned the speed knob.
Possible problems:
The 14 gauge bus wire is stranded wire not solid copper.
One end of the 14 gauge wire is hooked to the red wire connection on the MRC, not sure where the other end of the bus wire should be hooked.
Should I run terminal joiners on the opposite rail?
Sounds like you have a short. Check that one rail is connected to one dc terminal of the railpower and the other rail to the other terminal. Also check that all the feeders connected to the bus are on the same rail.
You have one red wire connected to all the power feeders (terminal joiners) on one rail. It should just dead end at the last feeder connected to it.
How do you have the other wire connected to the track? Is it just one wire connected to one location on the track? If it’s only one wire at one location, you will need to add additional feeders to that wire, the same as you did for the red wire. You may not need as many, but it will help even out the flow of power over your whole layout. 14 gauge stranded wire is fine for buss wiring in this application. Solid wire would not solve the problem you are having.
You might try disconnecting the terminal joiners below the layout. Re-attach them one at a time and test run an engine in that section. If it works, go on to the next feeder, re-attach and re-test the engine in that section, etc.
Hooking all the red power feeders to one buss wire means the whole layout is one electrical block. This may be fine for DCC, but is very restrictive when using regular DC. Being able to isolate different areas of the layout will allow you to run more than one train at a time on DC.
I forgot to mention that the loss of power at the turnouts may be a different problem entirely, depending on the turnouts you are using. With many turnouts, especially Atlas, the frog is plastic and short wheelbase engines may lose power at the frog. Other turnouts, including some Atlas, have frogs that need to be powered with additional feeders.
You have a boring, tedious job to do to check all the wiring and connections and power through the turnouts. It is boring but necessary to find out why you are losing power.
Also, the point rails are fed by wipers under the rails at the rivets. Dirt can collect under there deadening that section of the turnout. Had it happen too many times. No more Atlas turnouts on my layouts. No more problems.
Thanks for the responses, first the black wire connection is connected in just one spot, will run terminal joiners on the other rail. second, I do have atlas switches so I will have to check for the probelms you mentioned Jeff. Thanks again
Craig