FASTRACK SWITCH TRACK ISSUES

The metal rod is not functional. It just represents the prototype connection. If you have no recourse on returning them, the best fix is to buy the switch stand from Lionel or a dealer. I have changed 3 LEDs, but it's not easy. The switch stand is.

Order the 6102045126 from Lionelsupport.com. (LINK HERE) They are having 50% off parts through midnight tonight. I already ordered 2 of these for the same reason.

Here is how to change the led. Here is the switch stand

Its the one thing I hate about Fast Track switches. Have to dissemble trackage to get to switch to repair bad LEDs. Wonder why they didn't just make it a drop in from top? Maybe that was to easy. Had to pull up a lot of buildings and wires for the lighting inside them and a lot of trackage to get to 3 switches lights that had burned out, (one was a bad factory cold solder connection).  Now I just let them stay out.

What happened to the warranty? This should cost you nothing.

Thank you for all of the responses.  I have read that the rod is not functional and have been told to order new switch stands.  I have also read that these LED's go out all the time.  On the subject of the metal rod.  In the case of the two that don't work at all, it's not the rod being absent but that the switch stand is bad?  In the case of the lights, it's just easier to order new stands and install them?

According to Lionel, parts such as bulbs are not covered.  If I can get Lionel to respond to my email, I may ask them if I can order the switch stands I need to fix the ones that are not working free of charge.  I'll keep you posted on that one.

LED not warrantied? ....Boo! Hiss! 

Worthy of a nasty letter of reprimand and shying from purchase imo.

I'd convert MTH or other dwarf signals and photograph it to drive it all home 

   It's not an "oh well" issue to me when they choose the lamps and install them not to be replaced reasonably when they likely could have.

(Nearly as bad as as $1,200 automotive headlamps... Yep! $1200 each)

That's ridiculous! Do you hear me Lionel; RIDICULOUS !!!

The rod is for show only and a real pain to put back in. In my opinion, it is much easier to change the stand. In the PDF above , it tells how to check for voltage to make sure the led is blown

John from upstate, thank you, that explains volumes, and may I ask, PDF?  Am I missing something.

Oh and to Leo, I agree, that is ridiculous.  I may have read that wrong, but I am almost sure things like bulbs and traction tires are not covered under warranty.  Even at that, so they aren't a warrantied item, at least have the decency to replace defective parts out of the box.  And based on what the person told me in reply prior to this, for Lionel to even dream that the bulbs are expected to last the lifetime of the product is like saying we at whirlpool believe that our washers and dryers will never wear out so don't expect us to fix anything for free because our policy is clear, they are indestructible and it must have been your fault.

Keeping with the main theme of this thread, but having another question i'd like to field the forum, so as not to start another thread, have any of you ever had a problem getting your Lionel Locomotive programmed to work with DCS?  I watched Eric's Train video on YouTube that covered this step by step, did what he said, but for the life of me I can't get that lionel locomotive to respond to the remote.  It is supposed to work like or as much as it can, like the MTH locomotives, right?  I can't even get mine to start.  I appreciate all the help with the switch track.  In case you are new to this and like me have to take forever to get to the train track portion of your layout, understand that owners manuals leave stuff out.  I may have missed it, but Eric, not the DCS manual told me that I had to switch the locomotive from Run to Program (run to pgm) in order to get this ball rolling.  Then Eric, not the manual, told me I had to switch it back to run the train.  So if you have time and ability to test this stuff early, do so.  Stores frown on returns after 30 days.

In the fourth post of this thread I posted a PDF file on how to change the led. In that file are instructions on how to check voltage to the led. It's highlighted in blue.

I have 24 fastrack switches on my layout, never had a single issue with LED’s.  I would question the fact so many don’t work.  It is over exaggerated they go bad all the time. Perhaps your switch stand is not installed correctly and causing poor contact.  Also they have a year warranty, so why not contact Lionel?  

I have 22, and 5 went out. If they don't work even after I take them off the switch, I figure they are bad. I never said they go bad all the time, but some of us have had problems.

How are your switches powered?  Track or external Direct wiring?  Perhaps that is the cause of people with burned out LED’s? 

‘Mine are all powered by track (default).  Are people overpowering their switches?

Mine are 5 years running

Sean

Thank you.  As for the warranty thing, the switches are warranted, but I read the bulbs, traction tires and something else along those lines, are not covered by warranty.  I have contacted Lionel but no word yet.  Thank you for the information, I will check the switch stands as you advised.  Good to know that someone out there has had good luck with their switch track.  I have 18.  I was surprised by the outages as well.  I too power my track pieces using track.  One terminal hooked to the TIU in my case, I run remote, and then what looks like a never ending line of straights, curves, switches on switches, and more straights and curves until I finally have a complete layout.  Distance doesn't seem to be the problem.  I have four switches on one side of my ovals, and all four work true to form.  On the opposite side, four switches, only one has a working lamp, but all four switch correctly.  I have two switches in one area that don't work at all, but the remote lights work.  I love model railroading.

I would call Lionel as I noticed the e-mail response is super slow.  I know they are lights but technically not bulbs, they are LED’s .  Also tell them they were dead on arrival.  They should be covered.  Also check the copper contacts where switch stand connects to switch, just to verify they are actually bad and not just a bad connection.

Mine are powered separately by a Type V transformer at 14 volts, while the track is at 19 volts for DCS. I will say that once I fixed the bad ones, I haven't had any more trouble in about 4 years.

Were they bad right out of box or died later?  I wonder if right out of box are bad connections?

May I say that I am grateful to both of you for your sound advice.  As both of you know from experience, having a problem with your train track is not the same as having a problem with your furnace or your satellite dish.  I can call my furnace guy or Directv and get those repaired or maintained, but I'm on my own when it comes to the track and in most cases, shipping and handling becomes the only way to contact your guy to fix it.  At least in this case I have found a pool of people who can help me decide what to do.  Thanks to all of you for your advice, and record straight, I like Lionel and MTH equally, but I've had bad experiences when trying to return items or get broken items repaired, and Lionel sort of got grouped into the mix as being a possible candidate.  I'm going to troubleshoot first and then go the order the new stands route.  I will call Lionel as suggested. 

Bad right out of the box, never lit the first time.

An actual bulb or tire is a bit different. They are expendable.

An led is a component and a more permanent piece than a lamp.

  I assumed you knew for sure their stance (bad news bears) Placement has a lot to do with opinion here too. Reasonable replaclacement is the real point on warranty for me here. A lamp is a large part of the visual allure and is very much part of overall funtionality of the piece. If I can fix it for two bucks ok. If its more I think they should cover me.

My rant is unfounded if you assumed too.

Yardmaster96 posted:

May I say that I am grateful to both of you for your sound advice.  As both of you know from experience, having a problem with your train track is not the same as having a problem with your furnace or your satellite dish.  I can call my furnace guy or Directv and get those repaired or maintained, but I'm on my own when it comes to the track and in most cases, shipping and handling becomes the only way to contact your guy to fix it.  At least in this case I have found a pool of people who can help me decide what to do.  Thanks to all of you for your advice, and record straight, I like Lionel and MTH equally, but I've had bad experiences when trying to return items or get broken items repaired, and Lionel sort of got grouped into the mix as being a possible candidate.  I'm going to troubleshoot first and then go the order the new stands route.  I will call Lionel as suggested. 

If you don't have a local dealer that will stand behind their train product sales, then, calling the manufacturer should be your first move, especially if something doesn't work out of the box.

SandJam posted:

 

Mine are 5 years running

Knock on wood.

The information I am getting is helping.  Thanks to this thread I know now where to find the replacement parts, that the rod is just for show, and, I didn't know this and thank you, the LED's are not bulbs and as I was told, the lamp is an important part of the switch so the lionel warranty should cover the problem.  I have a pretty good idea of how I am going to proceed from here and it is thanks to all of you for your advice and input.  I'll let you know what happens.

John

There is a flaw in many of the command Fastrack switches that cooks the LED's in the switch,  This flaw may have been in the non-command ones as well, I can't say.  I replaced a bunch of LED's in my command switches before I found out why they were dying.  The fix is, of course, a new LED and also a series resistor to limit the current.  Apparently, they were pushing them too hard.

I have replaced a number of surface mount 220 ohm resistors which are in series with the LED(s). There are two of them in the earlier FT switches and if they don't pop, they do sometimes look overheated.

Chuck, change them to 470 and the LED's will last longer.

Gunrunner John

Good information for me to use when or if I finally call Lionel about this.  I hate to think that something so expensive would have such a blatant flaw.  I just emailed a service tech at a train store I have dealt with and she said voltage overload is a killer of LED's.  My track is connected using 16 gauge wire to an MTH TIU.  I used 16 gauge because another train store guy told me that's what he uses in his layouts.  Another said he was using 22 gauge on his and had no issues with dead spots or power bleed.  Only one track piece, the specifically bought terminal track that is more expensive than the regular 10 inch track because of two lousy 22 gauge wires, is the only track piece that is "wired for sound" as the saying goes.  One piece is wired to the base 1L box that i'm not sure is working correctly either.  But I have no blocks of wired track that lead back to anything to account for distance or weak links in the chain.  Could it be that my wire of choice is overloading the system?  And to anyone else reading this reply, I'm new to this stuff.  This is my maiden voyage into electricity and train track. So feel free to not only dumb down your explanations back to me, if you want, stupid them down.  I need to know if what I am doing is correct or over the top or not enough.  I've spent 6 months building the train room for my layout and now the train and track are serving up all sorts of problems, and I don't have a furnace guy or an appliance guy I can call to come look at it.  It's up to me to research this and figure it out on my own.

Hopefully with help from experienced people.  That's why I am here.  I need help.

Thanks to all who have helped and taken the time to give the information I currently have gathered.

While 14 gauge wire would be preferable, you should not have an issue with 16 gauge wire to power your track, assuming everything is wired correctly and you are running at the correct voltage (18v for command control). Since you're running your switches off track power they should only "see" the voltage that you are putting into the track, unless you have a short or something not wired correctly. I don't think you said what transformer you are using, but I assume it is set for the correct voltage.

Not having power drops should also not affect the switches - in fact, just the opposite, in that they may not be getting enough voltage without power drops around the layout.

You talked about using a TIU, but also a FT terminal strip which uses a barrel connector. It might help if you could explain how everything is wired on your layout; i.e., what goes into what.  

One thing I would do is invest in an inexpensive digital volt meter (dvm), which will allow you to test for voltage around the track and at the switches to see what your layout is doing.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Chuck, change them to 470 and the LED's will last longer.

Good idea. I’ve lost more resistors though than LEDs. Either one is better off with 470 ohms though. 

Running the switch on auxiliary power is probably a great idea however. Maybe down around 12 vac they would still work well.

Richie

All good points and thank you for the advice on the wire gauge.  You mentioned explaining how I have the track and the wiring set up.  Actually I'm glad you opened that door because I am, even with the issues I've been having, quite proud of my rookie layout for what it's worth.  I have 3 oval tracks.  The outer most is a main line the middle is a main line and the inner most oval is a yard track where I have set up 5 tracks that turn left or turn right into the center of the room and act as drop tracks for the engine and its rolling stock to sit while other engines pretend to pull freight to fictitious destinations as they continuously go around and around over and over again.  I have 5 locomotives representing the five class 1 railroads in the US.  I read about other railroaders hooking up each track to the TIU separately so as to be able to control each track individually.

In my case I have interconnected all 3 ovals and the parking area tracks as one giant daisy chain of track that ultimately form the ability for any engine to use any track or parking area and return to the main line tracks going either direction.  This being the case I have used on 10 inch straight piece, again the store bought terminal section that costs more because it has the wires attached, discarded the factory wires, assembled my own red and black 16 gauge wires, and painstakingly managed to run them from the terminal track to the TIU fixed out 1 ports.  Behind the OUT port 1, is of course the IN port 1.  Hooked to that set of holes is the 180 watt "brick".  I had to do some creative engineering to be able to do that, but thanks to Joey at Nick Smith Trains, I was able to cut off the special plug it came with, find the red wire equivalent, which is the one with the writing on it that requires a microscope to see, and wired one of those "banana" terminals to the end of each split off wire.  So to answer the question what transformer am I using, my TIU is not powered to a transformer, it's powered by a brick unit directly.

From the TIU computer port I have my Base 1L Lionel box attached.  Until I figure out these switch track and get them working correctly, I have yet to wire those to the two AIU units I had to buy.  The AIU units are attached to the TIU and each other, but no SW stuff yet.  I plan to use 26 gauge wire for that since the ports are so incredibly small.  Other than that, I have one wire, a white one, 16 gauge, that runs from the U connector on the Base 1L box to the ground rail on a nearby 10 inch track piece.  That's all there is to it.  Due to how I have to switch the trains from one oval to another and space available in a 20x20 room that has four columns holding up the garage floor, that's right, my train room is under my garage.  Not in my garage, under my garage.  I did have to get creative with how the switches are connected.  I have left hand and right hands working in close proximity making sure the train has the ability to cleanly get off one track to another to another before it has to park.

No really, it's under my garage

Well it sounds like you have a brick going into Fixed 1 on the TIU and then out to a terminal section of FT, which should be fine; although with 3 ovals and ?? feet of track, I'm not sure how much power is making it's way to the outermost points of the layout. In addition, that brick has a very fast acting short control, so it's unlikely that's where your issue is. It's not clear to me whether the AIU's are hooked up or not, but I would leave them out of the equation for now and just control the FT switches using the manual switch controller and track power until you get them straightened out and find out why the switch LED's are blowing.

Get that dvm and check your voltages on both sides of the TIU; at the terminal section; and around the track and at the switches. That's a good way to find out if excess voltage is burning out the LED's. Also, run your hand all around the FT track surface of all 3 ovals and make sure there are no hot spots.

Richie

I agree with you that all issues with the switches should be worked out before attaching them to the AIU's.  As I mentioned, they are hooked to the TIU, but no switch is hooked to the AIU's.

As for distance, I can't even answer ?? feet of track.  The room is 20x20 give or take.  It was an old water cistern under the garage but we finally got city water to the country and abandoned it.  I was able to use all but about 12 inches of space out from each wall except for the back of the room where I built the cabinet in which I set my operations center, (TIU, AIU's, Base 1L, Grandson's train transformer, Brick).  So 20 inches of space is not tracked back there.  Four 15 foot straights connected by curves, so at the most the most distant part of the layout is 15, 16 feet from the TIU and terminal piece.  Two sets of four switches are maybe 12 feet from the terminal.  The switches in the front of the room near the entry door are 15 feet from the terminal.  But, two active switches in the back of the room where the cabinet is located, are working, but have dead lights.  The set of four on the left side of the room as you face the back of the room are all working and lit.  The set of four directly across the room, same distance from the cabinet, all work, but 3 are dead lights.  The two that don't work at all, one doesn't have the cosmetic rod, the other, the rod fell out and I don't think I got it back in correctly.  But, I have been told the rods are cosmetic and don't have any functional use.  Not all of my track is connected, due to distance issues and parts on order to remedy these issues.

As I have eluded to, this is still a work in progress, but, due to circumstances I have been able to finally test some train related issues...….many train related issues.

Well, you are in deep now, so, there may be some backtracking to do.

The first issue is that you'll have to adjust the track plan/connections to isolate the center rail for DCS blocks. You have three loops at an estimated loop of 60+ feet. I would say that you could break each loop into 4- 15' blocks. The best way to do this with FasTrack, is to use the 1 3/8" piece to create the blocks by removing the center jumper wire. There is also a 5" Block track that has removable jumper for both hot and common. So, it depends on what will easiest for you to retrofit these tracks. Adding one at each end of the straights will do this for you.Then, each block will get its' own hot wire at the beginning of a block connected to one of the terminals under the 1 3/8" piece. (4 per loop) The MTH terminal block board provides a way to get all of these power drops. The terminal board then connects to the TIU. One of the 50-1014 at each side of center of one 50-1020 in the center will work.

Secondly, most that are running both command systems connect the common wire of the Base 1L to the TIU common (black) out at the TIU.

Finally, while you eliminating electrical issues, it is a known issue that FasTrack switches can create interference with the DCS signal. Replacing the track power jumper with a choke will eliminate the possibility of this happening. This one should work

Now, back to where you are now. Rolling a lighted car around should help you find if and where you have power issues. These can be track related and are sometimes easily fixed by taking out a 5" or 10" piece near the dead spot and turning it around and reinstalling it.

Having only one power feed (terminal track) on each loop shouldn't be a problem to test track connectivity and switch operation or run conventional and Lionel command.

So, power up the layout and roll a lighted car around and see what you find.

Moonman

Tons of thank you for the information.  One thing you just did was inform me that the smaller track pieces are for more than just those nagging issues of "how the heck am I going to fill this gap."  I have several spots on my layout where after I used all the 10's, and inserted a switch or two, the track was 1 3/4 inches away from completing a full oval. In some cases 6 3/4 inches, and in a couple of cases because I'm completely out of 10's right now, I had a 27" gap and a 90 5/8" gap.  I did the math and found my gaps need to be a bit wider to equal out to the parts I have to choose from.  I had no idea those smaller pieces were also block pieces.  I kept reading about blocks on your layout.  I thought they were for the reason I mentioned, you started at one spot and after your finished a complete oval, you were 1 3/8, 1 3/4, 4 1/2, or 5 inches short.  I did wonder how Lionel came to the conclusion you needed those specific measurements.

Also, and this is for clarification.  You recommend I take the white wire I used to hook the Base 1L to the track, and trade hooking it to the track for direct connection to the black wire on the TIU.  Easy enough to do, especially with the way I have the black wire attached to the TIU, but wanted to make sure I was reading you correctly.

I have a lighted caboose.  I know, Flashing Infrared Lights are now put on the last car of every train to tell the signals you've passed the crossings, or maybe something new has been developed, but I use a caboose.  When I slowly push the car around the track, do I watch for flickering or total lights out at the weak spots.  To me, and this is just my thinking, dead spots would cause the engine to suddenly just stop. 

Moonman

Sorry one more question

The terminal block connects to the TIU.  Do I use the same Fixed In port I am already using to attach the brick, or do I use the same Fixed Out port where the track is currently being attached?  Do I use or can I use another attaching point on the TIU?

Please advise and thank you.

Yardmaster96 posted:

Moonman

Sorry one more question

The terminal block connects to the TIU.  Do I use the same Fixed In port I am already using to attach the brick, or do I use the same Fixed Out port where the track is currently being attached?  Do I use or can I use another attaching point on the TIU?

Please advise and thank you.

Yes, brick in on Fixed 1, Fixed 1 out to terminal board, then terminal board to track connections - one pair of hot/common to each point.