24 Hours & 5 Fuses Later, Short Circuit Problem Resolved

No idea how the engine magically fixed itself but it's great when they do! But the fuses were doing just exactly what they are supposed to do.

Question: Why are you using 5 amp fuses? 10 amp would be fine for the components you describe, and still provide protection when it's needed. JMO

Rod

Does the 5 amp blow faster than a 10 amp ?

I don’t know why the engine healed itself either, but I’m all too familiar with some of the other problems you had.

 I’ve replaced too many fuses and it can be a PITA if you have a hard to find short.  I use 10A mini automotive type fuses.  Don’t know if the 5A fuses are faster, but the 10A are plenty fast.  I added 10A magnetic hydraulic breakers some time ago, but they hardly ever beat the fuses.  Recently I replaced the 10A breakers with Eaton FAZ B type breakers (some 3A and some 4A).  They beat the fuses and the 4 amp breaker didn’t trip when running three trains: MTH Premier Pioneer Zephyr (with incandescent lighting), Williams GG1 (converted to DCS PS3) pulling 7 passenger cars (4 LED lighted), MTH PRR G-5s pulling 8 loaded military flat cars and one lighted caboose.  There is another thread here on breakers.  You might want to look into it.

 Menards cars are a good bang for the buck, but I have found that I have to fiddle with them to get them to run well on my layout.  I’ve adjusted the gauge on most to 27.5 mm.  Axles can be removed from box cars and hoppers.  Usually you can pry the axles out without disassembling the truck.  I didn’t manage to pry them out on some newer cars so I just left them.  The truck sides can be removed by removing the Philips head screws, but I have had a few cars that had bad threads on the truck so be careful.  I fixed the trucks with stripped threads using crazy glue.  Once the axles are removed, the gauge can be adjusted using a Timko puller or equivalent.  The box cars tend to wobble.  That can be fixed by installing a spacer between the truck C clip and the frame.  For hoppers, add weight to get them closer to NMRA recommendations.

Replying to some of the comments:

1.  Selected 5-amp quick blow fuses because a) their spec'd time constant is faster than 10-amp fuses, b) I want to minimize the time that my Legacy electronics are exposed to current/voltage surges caused by short circuit events, c) my consists typically run at ~2.5 amps max for my highest current drawing consist ... incandescent passenger consist.  So, 5-amps have been doing well for me for over a year now.  The only reason I blew the five fuses recently was because it took me a while to figure out what was causing the short circuit.  Now that I've widened the switch track gap, the short circuit due to Menards narrow gauge wheels on my switches went away.  I've only been running Menards rolling stock for a couple of weeks and the short circuit was the first time I'd backed the consist up.  Tolerance stacked up on that and, voila ... short circuit.  That' problem is now behind me.

2.  Ref "Lehigh74" comments about tweeking Menards trucks/wheels to get better wheel gauge and general running.  Appreciate that info.  I don't have a wheel puller (yet).  Will consider in future if/when I have additional issues with Menards rolling stock.  Most of my rolling stock are Lionel which have pretty good truck/wheel tolerances.  I won't be buying any more Menards stuff for now ... what I bought were to experiment on how they look/run ... 2 tankers, 2 boxcars, 2 hoppers.    My modest 14x10 ft layout does not need excess rolling stock to sit around on sidings, etc.

Regards,

Tom