Atlas O track problem

Interesting, I have never had a problem with Atlas O and been using for 20+ years. Try changing out the 40” piece or whatever is going into it. If you have jumpers make sure all the your positive wires are hooked to the center rail. Sounds like it might be a wiring issue. Keep us posted.

As mentioned by poconotrain, sounds like you have a wiring issue.

It’s obviously not that 40 inch section.   Was this previously working.  Was anything changed.   If you have older atlas switches there is a fine jumper wire under the rail that melts and shorts.  You have to do more isolation to pinpoint the problem area

Very likely you accidentally switched the 2 wires (outside rail and center rail) feeding one of your track sections.  Double check your wire feeds.  

Bob

@poconotrain posted:

Interesting, I have never had a problem with Atlas O and been using for 20+ years. Try changing out the 40” piece or whatever is going into it. If you have jumpers make sure all the your positive wires are hooked to the center rail. Sounds like it might be a wiring issue. Keep us posted.

I have never had any issues before this either. I did change out that 40" track and it does the same thing. All positives are hooked to center and grounds are hooked to outside rail. I dont know what else it could be.

@bluelinec4 posted:

It’s obviously not that 40 inch section.   Was this previously working.  Was anything changed.   If you have older atlas switches there is a fine jumper wire under the rail that melts and shorts.  You have to do more isolation to pinpoint the problem area

My first thought to was a switch that has shorted but when I isolated it there is not a switch in the circuit on the one that is shorting out. I also took all the screws out of the track thinking I might have a wire that got caught under the track and screwed down. It is still doing the same thing.

when you try the 40" section out of the layout are you saying it still shorts out?

Just a word of CAUTION!!!! Atlas had a batch of terminal connectors that they solder the red wire to the silver connector and the black  wire to the black connector. Be on the lookout as this happened to me as I was not paying attention and got the same results you describe. CHECK ALL CONNECTIONS AND MAKE SURE YOUR ground is wired to outside and hot is inside. DO NOT GO BY WIRE COLOR ON THE TERMINAL, PHYSICALLY CHECK!!!

@wb47 posted:

when you try the 40" section out of the layout are you saying it still shorts out?

No it works then. That area of track will power up. Its when I connect it to the 40" that it shorts out. The 40" connects to a O54 switch.

@CurtisH posted:

Just a word of CAUTION!!!! Atlas had a batch of terminal connectors that they solder the red wire to the silver connector and the black  wire to the black connector. Be on the lookout as this happened to me as I was not paying attention and got the same results you describe. CHECK ALL CONNECTIONS AND MAKE SURE YOUR ground is wired to outside and hot is inside. DO NOT GO BY WIRE COLOR ON THE TERMINAL, PHYSICALLY CHECK!!!

Ive checked, all of mine are correct and yes the power is on the center and ground is on outside. These things worked fine on my last layout. I moved and set everything back up and having issues now.

@bluelinec4 posted:

It’s obviously not that 40 inch section.   Was this previously working.  Was anything changed.   If you have older atlas switches there is a fine jumper wire under the rail that melts and shorts.  You have to do more isolation to pinpoint the problem area

You may be on to something there. The 40" track in question does connect to a O54 Switch. Ill check it to see. The funny thing is though is that I had this on my last layout it was fine. Its been in a box for a year but was being used prior to that.

@Jnrogers47 posted:

You may be on to something there. The 40" track in question does connect to a O54 Switch. Ill check it to see. The funny thing is though is that I had this on my last layout it was fine. Its been in a box for a year but was being used prior to that.

If it is an old switch the design stunk as that wire is too fine to handle some currents   They fixed it in later releases of switch   You may have not drawn enough current before to melt it but this time you might have   See if you can pull that switch out and connect your wires to that one only

If you are getting 10 amps of current to the rails, Something is getting hot.

Remove all the rolling stock including engines. turn the 10 amps of current on. Feel around for the hot spot. It will probably be very hot. Be prepared to pull your hand out quickly.

It would be a lot safer to use the divide in half and check method, until the problem is isolated. The power wire might be melted down while you're still looking for hot spots.

So I have worked on it most of the day. I took out a switch then connected several of the wires in the circuit. It worked fine. then connected another set of wires on the outside loop and it shorted again. So I unhooked the wires from the switch and hooked them to one isolated curve track(It is the only track in the system at this point because I have a plastic insulator on the other end) It shorted again. I unhooked the terminals to that section and the whole thing is shorting out again. Now I dont know what to do.

I had a similar problem.  My hot lead melted on the connected center rail and was contacting the outside rail as the wire opened during the melt.   Can be very frustrating.  Check all your leads.  Make sure nothing is on the tracks... Good luck

Just to get a better idea of your layout and setup. You mention loops and a TIU. Assume your running in command. How does the TIU factor into your setup. Are you using multiple channels ?  I’m guessing if you are. That’s what the insulating joiners are for.

It was asked in a previous post. You have removed everything off the rails.

@Dave_C posted:

Just to get a better idea of your layout and setup. You mention loops and a TIU. Assume your running in command. How does the TIU factor into your setup. Are you using multiple channels ?  I’m guessing if you are. That’s what the insulating joiners are for.

It was asked in a previous post. You have removed everything off the rails.

I dont have anything on the tracks. I have a tiu connected from mth z4000 to fixed port 1 and fixed output port 1 goes to a terminal board. I had this same connection on my last layout which was much larger than this one and had zero issues.

Okay. Looks like your running multiple blocks off of 1 channel. Rather than rip out track. Can you disconnect wires off the terminal strip and start eliminating things till it goes away. Hopefully get one of your loops  operable and run some trains for a bit before adding things back into the equation. Just to verify what you have running and keep adding to wasn’t part of the problem.

These things can be frustrating. I worked on school busses for 45 years. Get a short in the clearance lights. Your chasing 12 lights and a 100 feet of wire on one circuit. You hoped for a dead short. Easy to find those. An intermittent one and you could be chasing it for a week while you narrowed it down.

@Dave_C posted:

Okay. Looks like your running multiple blocks off of 1 channel. Rather than rip out track. Can you disconnect wires off the terminal strip and start eliminating things till it goes away. Hopefully get one of your loops  operable and run some trains for a bit before adding things back into the equation. Just to verify what you have running and keep adding to wasn’t part of the problem.

These things can be frustrating. I worked on school busses for 45 years. Get a short in the clearance lights. Your chasing 12 lights and a 100 feet of wire on one circuit. You hoped for a dead short. Easy to find those. An intermittent one and you could be chasing it for a week while you narrowed it down.

Thanks Dave, I will give that a shot tomorrow. The thing is I started with no blocks then had this problem so I added some. I do have a half loop that works. Sometimes I can get most of the layout to work then when I add another terminal it will short out and even when I disconnect the one that shorted out they all will short out. I am so frustrated with this.

@Jnrogers47 posted:

Thanks Dave, I will give that a shot tomorrow. The thing is I started with no blocks then had this problem so I added some. I do have a half loop that works. Sometimes I can get most of the layout to work then when I add another terminal it will short out and even when I disconnect the one that shorted out they all will short out. I am so frustrated with this.

I agree with Dave you have to lift them one at a time to validate if that lead is the short.  Just a dumb question have you looked hard at your terminal block.  Sometimes a stray wire could short across some open terminals?  

You might want to invest in multiple terminal strips if your layout has a couple of loops and sidings.  Your TIU has 4 channels. You might as well take advantage of them by dividing the layout up and using them. Problems like this won’t knock the whole layout out. Just the channel the problems on.  Plus your track signal for DCS will have less trackage to cover.