So I just finished wiring a control panel for about a dozen switch machines. I use Peco twin coils (no problems with them but in hindsight I’d probably use Tortise) so I run two 22 ga power wires, one to each coil, and a single ground wire. Well when I powered it up, nearly half of them didn’t work. Since neither coil of each of those didn’t work, I immediately thought it had to be the ground wire. Well that didn’t make sense because other machines on that same ground wire worked fine… checked my soldering… fine. Checked the 3M connectors… fine. Then, since five of the non-working machines were at the end of the ground wire, I cut and spliced in a new wire thinking that I may have broke the wire some how… nope, still didn’t work. I distribute power to each machine through a Miniatronics 24-pin distribution block which is split into two rows of 12. I noticed that the machines that didn’t work were all connected to the same row of 12. So I tied them to the working row of 12 and presto, problem solved. I was kinda mad afterwards though because the block costs 25 bucks! For that money it had better work right! So what wiring problems and frustrations do you guys have?
It could be a defective block
Well of course it’s a defective block!!! I’m not THAT stupid you know!
My wiring frustrations, huh?..I hate breaking looms trying to trace a short. Adding a line to the looms under there is a close second. [(-D]
Some barrier strips are not connected together electrically. One row would be electrically isolated from the other row. By adding a jumper from one side to the other, it will connect both rows electrically.
Rotor
I guess my theory on shorts is to let it go… once the fire starts you’ll know where to look.[:-,]
Yeah, I kinda had the same thought… I’m gonna try that tomorrow. Should work just fine.
Whoops, I thought this was a call for help.(Doh!)
I found I could use a reversing loop control to make it a toggle to switch from track to track. It does work a little odd though. You have the Engine A/B switch, and then the direction switch. You flip the engine one, and you have to do it in a pattern every time