Frustrating Electrical Problem, HELP!!

If I am understanding your post correctly here, if you are reading 20 volts from one common to another, I think you have a wire crossed somewhere. Common to common should read 0 volts. Hot to common should give you 20 volts. 

I am not familiar with the Ross 4 way switches though?

rtr12 posted:

If I am understanding your post correctly here, if you are reading 20 volts from one common to another, I think you have a wire crossed somewhere. Common to common should read 0 volts. Hot to common should give you 20 volts. 

I am not familiar with the Ross 4 way switches though?

Sorry for the confusion.  I get a 20 VAC reading when I have the hot "pen" of my multi-meter touching the center rail on my "dead" yard lines and I touch the common "pen" to a known grounded rail (which happens to be the main line).  I'm not testing common to common.  What I know from this is that the third rail of my two "dead" yard lines is definitely hot, but my grounded rail is most certainly not grounded.

Here's a horribly notated pic of what is working and what isn't.

I would run a separate power and ground to each spur. 

Rod Miller

Basil posted:

rtr12 posted:

If I am understanding your post correctly here, if you are reading 20 volts from one common to another, I think you have a wire crossed somewhere. Common to common should read 0 volts. Hot to common should give you 20 volts. 

I am not familiar with the Ross 4 way switches though?

Sorry for the confusion.  I get a 20 VAC reading when I have the hot "pen" of my multi-meter touching the center rail on my "dead" yard lines and I touch the common "pen" to a known grounded rail (which happens to be the main line).  I'm not testing common to common.  What I know from this is that the third rail of my two "dead" yard lines is definitely hot, but my grounded rail is most certainly not grounded.

That makes more sense. I also agree that some of these things are difficult to put into words!

I would try what RoMiller49 suggests with the extra power and common feeds to each spur. That is how I have all of my spurs here. I have only regular old switches (no 4 ways) and each hot rail is isolated at the switch going to the spur so I can kill power to each spur separately and keep my MTH engines from running up the clock while sitting idle. That is, if you remember to turn off the power after you park, which I sometimes forget to do...

My thought on powering each independently is "ugh".  All of the center rails are hot already. I'll do what I have to do, but I was hoping to avoid that.

So, center rail is hot but common rails not connected? You could try to run a wire from the "good" outside yard tracks to the dead ones and see if that works.....

I did that, too.  I had them all daisy chained together on one line that then got spliced into the ground wire.  I'm going to try running a wire from the two that are "dead" to a different ground wire that is nearby.  We'll see how that goes.

I don't have anything wired for non-derail so I haven't had much experience with that one either. I have all Atlas track and switches and the switches are spring loaded which has worked well for me so far.

Without being there and seeing the wiring it's a bit hard for me, but have you tried testing with your volt meter between center rail and common rail back to where you do get 20 volts? That may tell you where the problem starts and offer some insight on what to do next? Just a thought here. Also maybe a picture showing where your connections are or a wiring diagram may help trouble shooting? 

Maybe some of the more experienced will be along soon with more and better advice.

Solved it!  I was about to redo the whole mess and so got underneath to remove the tap splices. Lo and behold, the metal teeth in the splice didn't cut through my wire. So I cut the insulation and reattached the tap splice and voila, power!

Glad you got it fixed and it was something simple! The simple ones are sometimes difficult to find though... 

If your referring to the plastic do hicky's that you squeeze together to make a splice in my opinion they belong in the trash

to many times I've had loss of power guess what the issue was!!

so now either a wire nut or a terminal strip for connections nary a issue since then.

but your welcome to use what you like

Since you had a meter, a continuity check down the length of rail at each joint would have showed that.

Cape Cod Northern posted:

Since you had a meter, a continuity check down the length of rail at each joint would have showed that.

I respectfully disagree.  From the switch, I have two 36" pieces of Gargraves and two 30" pieces with 6" extensions.  The switch itself is not grounded,  which is why I had to add ground.   I ran my meter up and down those tracks.  What it took was learning that those tap splices are, like StPaul says, trash worthy. I won't use them again and will rely on terminal blocks instead. 

Strip and solder all connections. Then wrap with heat shrink tape. The connections will outlast all of us.

I use one of these strippers   It can separate the insulation in the middle of the bus wire.  I then wrap the feeder around and solder.  I use this to coat it after wards.  

Brendan

Basil,

Sorry I am late to the game. The first switch before the 4-way creates the rail with no common. The 4-way, then needs a jumper between outside rails.

What happens is the non-derail insulated rail flips on the left switches in the 4-way. That is your bad side.

Using voltage to test the center rail to the outside rail, the rails with green dots should have a connection.

You may have insulated the wrong rails on the bad side for non-derail on the left legs of the 4-way , which would have left the spur tracks with no common.

So, jumpering in common to the bad side spurs solved the power problem, but it still didn't correct the wiring error in the switches or insulating pins.

Diagram from Z-Stuff and one I created are attached. Ross instructions expect that one would use a 3" straight as the non-derail trigger track. You can see the common track jumper labeled G.

I prefer continuity testing ( Ω / Ohms setting on meter) with no power on. Test with one lead on the outside rail of the mainline through the switch complex and find the common path when you get a reading or a sound (if meter has that feature)

Thanks for the input Moonman.  For all of my non-derailing, the insulated rails are the interior Y of the switch, like the diagram.  I think the issue here stems from my layout being set up for two switches off the main that are connected with the second switch being the switch that then leads into the yard, so it goes switch, switch, yard switch.  On top of that, I didn't jumper any commons on any switch, only the hot.

Basil posted:

, I didn't jumper any commons on any switch, only the hot.

There's the issue - when it flipped for half of the 4-way (bad side) the common was not there.

I always like to jumper the mainline outside rails together in a few locations, also.

If the jumper to the spur(s) is on the rail closest to the mainline, then you are feeding back into the switch complex from the spur side, which is good.