Ballasting turnouts causes DZ-1000's to flip-flop

Yep. had the same issue. There is an electrical contact happening. Check the machine to make sure the wires going in and out are not making contact. Also check the rail gaps you cut, still have a gap, or did the glue fill the gap...

I found my wire harness to have small spots of insulation that came off and made contact later on. Had to rip them  out and start over.... 

So  I guess you're saying the the "glue" is a conductor.  I'll check the wires and gaps, per suggestion.  Thanks.

JD:  Were yours, like mine, working perfectly before ballasting?

OK; I've checked gaps & wires.  Nothing there that I can see. I scraped the ballast from beneath the gaps.  No help.  What's ESPECIALLY strange is that the problem showed up for just 3 of the 70 turnouts that I've ballasted!!!!

Dennis Zander is also stumped, but I'll try a suggestion of his & report back......

I had the same problem, my cause was with the isolated section of the switch not being fully isolated.  I had to cut the rail since I used an insulated pin instead of cutting the rail.  

Try sliding a small piece of paper through the gap.  A small piece of stranded wire can sometimes lodge in the gap, and the paper will remove it.

Has everything dried thoroughly? If still wet, the liquid could be conducting.

Do you have a meter? Check resistance across the gap.

Thaddeus:  Are you sure that your problem is the same as mine?  Please re-read my initial post.   I. too , have insulated pins.  I, too, shall cut them & see what happens.

Prof C:  OK; I'll measure..... B 4 and after cutting the insulated pins. What resistance is GOOD?  ACCEPTABLE?  BAD??

What type  of glue did you use? If it's water based it might not be dry .( grab a  hair  dryer)

I had a set of  crossing gated do the same thing with insulated track section and a mixture of dry wall mud for the road crossing. .... Gated were always down until the mud finally dried. It took a long time to completely dry.

Phil, 

yes, mine worked fine then acted up after ballasting and screwing the switch down.  Same situation where the switch would rapidly flutter back and forth when a car would roll over the section.  I cut the insulated pin out and then everything was fine for my switch.  

if you can, check the continuity over the insulated gap, it should tell if that is the problem.  

I'm not as lucky as you.  I cut the fiber pin & verified that the gap was open.  BUT, it still flip-flops.....

Does your problem only occur on a particular side of the switch, i.e. The straight side or the turnout side?  

No; it occurs either way.

We had the same problem> I would try this:

Wet  ballast adhesive will definitely cause a short. Use a hair dryer and wait overnight. If that doesn't fix it I would ask, did you nail your track down?  Ours was probably over nailed so we disconnected all power to the tracks and disconnected the non derail wires and the common and zapped them with 120V, Of course you have to be careful. Took a extension cord, cut off the socket end and split the wires. Then fastened them to two wood sticks with about 1/2 in of insulation removed. Touch the wires to the two insulated trigger sections.  If there is a nail or wire making contact this will usually burn the short out with no damage to the track other than a spot where contact is made.  If you get a spark there is/was a short if no spark something else is wrong.  Have a helper do the plug/unplug of the 120V while you touch the track with the hot ends.

Can you disconnect it any  place  for testing   ?

One other thing to check, take a very close look at the pins that hold down the rails as they meet the turnout.  One of the issues I also found with mine was two pins coming in contact from opposite rails.  Just remembered that part during my problems

One more thought. Watch what kind of ballast you use. We have found some with a bit of iron in them that will definitely cause a short through a small gap.