Fastrack -wiring switches to separate power source

Specifically, what trainsformers are you using for main power and power to the switch?

 

If either of them is a CW-80, please provide the date of manufacture. Is it a 4-digit numeric, or a 5-digit alpha-numeric?

I'musing an MRC AH601. It has dual power and an independent fixed voltage output.  Rated at 270 watts.

 

It sounds like you have created a dead short-circuit or some other kind of serious overload somehow. My only advice would be to try two straight sections of track and one switch, and see whether you can make that work. I have no experience with your MRC transformer. Sorry.

 

Anybody else?

The MRC is similar to a ZW.  There is a short, but I don't know how to find it.

 

The switches work perfect.  Not very exciting without a train running through them 

Agreed. The most efficient way of isolating a short in the track seems to consider a simple oval -- merely as an example. Divide the oval into two halves by separating two sections of track at each end. If one half of the oval works and the other doesn't, you have learned something. Take the non-working half and separate it again into two halves. Repeat test, etc., until you've found it. I'm the first to admit that it is not easy to do with large, complicated layouts, especially when screwed down, but the principle is sound and it's better than simply going section to section and trying each piece in turn.

 

Are you absolutely certain that you haven't got the wires connected power to power, or power directly to ground? With the early models of the CW-80, (Not the "G" versions) this was extremely easy to do.

 

At the early stages of my trouble-shooting, I use an old postwar illuminated caboose which I push along the track by hand to check for faults.

 

 I'd be interested in how this turns out. Good luck.

Remove all of the connections to the "AUX GND" terminals on the bottom of the switches and report back.

To simplify, I'm using two switches and a short powered section.  After removing the Aux Ground under the two switches, it works.  Why?

Your "common" grounds are at different potentials or you have mistakenly, somewhere, switched power and ground.

 

It really does sound like at least one of the switches has the ground wire meant for the "AUX GND" terminal connected instead to the "TRACK JUMPER" terminal, or the  "AUX GND" and "AUX IN" connections are switched on the bottom of the switch.   When you use common ground, and just a one-wire connection for auxiliary power, it's more difficult to make a mistake.  In that case, the switch wired wrong just doesn't work.

 

With the bottoms of the switches being mirror-imaged, it would be easy to make such a connection by mistake.

Do you recommend I just cut them under the table or pull the entire layout apart again to find the one that is switched?

There has to be something you can do less rash than willy-nilly cutting or tearing up the entire layout.  Do some diagnostics at the power supply end of your connections first.

Did you keep the ground on the same side of the track throughout. If you switch back and forth in the tabs underneath that may be your problem.

Wait don't you establish the ground through the track?  Don't you just need to use the hot connection?

I have the switches working.  At lotodd extra work, wire and connectors could have been saved though.  The solution was to remove every AUX Ground wire.  I am assuming that the only ground necessary was the original track ground.  Thanku for the advice.

 

Not so fast!

 

I picked up a couple of O-36 remote control switches from my local distributer last week.  I tested each on a test track to verify that they light up and work.  I then flipped them over to re-wire them for constant voltage.  When I went to remove the factory installed track jumper, I noticed that the jumper was installed in the wrong position.  It was in the AUX GND to AUX in slots, not the TRACK JUMPER to AUX IN slots.  Oh well, I proceeded to wire them for constant voltage, installed them on my layout, and got immediate high current overload from my transformer and no operation from the switch (see the first post in this thread).

 

After a great deal of fumbling around, it was apparent that the switch was not assembled correctly and/or the AUX power slots were mislabeled.  Finally, I hooked up the my wiring as ACCESSORY POWER to AUX IN, and ACCESSORY GROUND to TRACK JUMPER.  Everything worked!

 

Would you believe BOTH switches were this way??

 

Even though I use a common ground, I chose to wire both AUX IN and AUX GND.  Had I used only the AUX IN connection and the track for ground, I don't think this problem would have surfaced.

 

Mine work as documented, you got Monday morning switches.