How do you run your modular exhibition layout?

Here's a couple more pics.

Hi Dave,

I don't know much about the issue you're having, one thing I learned from the guys on this forum is sometimes too many power drops can cause a problem. But you will need the pros to confirm this. 

      Anyway I just wanted to say hello to you, hope all is well.

Thanks, Alex

Dave,

 On our modular railroad, The River City 3 Railers, we've experienced similar command problems. Its two loops using Atlas track, Ross switches, 14 AWG wire with power drops to the track on each module, bus wiring (as versus star wiring), and Molex connectors between modules.

TMCC/Legacy works great except in one venue - a large metal Butler building. I don't know if we don't have a good building ground (doubtful) or just all the metal in the building somehow interferes with the signal. I can put my hand above a Lionel engine and the engine responds fine. Take my hand away and and the engine either doesn't respond or takes off. We've pretty much given up trying to use TMCC/Legacy in that building. From your picture it looks like you may be in a metal building.

Last year we used a Rev I3 TIU and its operation was problematic. Good signal strength in some places, bad in others and no pattern as to where the signal was good or bad. Engines would run fine sometimes, other times they wouldn't respond or features would be disabled and the engines would have to have a feature reset done. I chalked that up to not using MTH's recommended star wiring technique, but that would be real difficult to implement on a modular railroad. We have purchased (but not installed yet)a Rev L TIU and I'm hoping the improved signal strength from the Rev L will help.

Ken

Our Modular group has been together since 1998. Our largest set up was at York 20x110.

we run TMCC and Legacy all the time and it works Great at every show, I run Conventional most of the time and TMCC. We have drops on every module.

DCS Good Luck getting it to work on a modular layout.  I would stay with TMCC or Conventional.

We did use 4 MTH Z4000s  but we now use one Lionel ZW L Transformer.

We also use Gargraves track and Ross switches.

Here is what we use for our club and we have no problems yet.

 we use atlas track two main lines.

We have stright sections that are 50 plus feet long per side.

 We use 12 gauge wire as bus wire and 16 gauge for drops. 

 this seams to work well.

 big thing is not to forget the earth ground wire that is a must.

Thanks to all who have posted. There seems to be a consensus in the way we wired it. I actually suspected as much, I think we might revert to running conventional. The new remote Thomas however, performed perfectly for 3 days and was a huge hit with the kids.

Just to add to the comments above; our club [which has been inactive for over a year] Liberty Hirailers had very little problems running conventional or TMCC/Lagacy big answer there is ground wire. When it came to DCS we had the problems, BillP which I haven't seen on here lately was trying to come up with an answer and every time he tought he had it, I think in the end, it failed, some things he tried worked better than others but I don't think we ever hit a complete solution. I have heard BillP was working with the North Penn guys see hah3 above 

Fctt-Hirailers have had similar experience. TMCC/Legacy is fairly trouble free. DCS not so much except for our smaller layouts (<20' x30'). We run 12 gauge wire under the modules with every module having at least one feed from the buss. We also run 120 v plug strips daisy chained under every module for lighting, accessories, etc. This gives us a ground wire under every module. For staging yards which might not have this 120 volt line we run a separate wire tied to earth ground. 

Problems have occurred when the earth ground wire is not used. Also we have run into Legacy problems when used in a building with a strong Wi-Fi signal. Apparently the 2.4 Ghz signals can interfere. In those cases reverting to a Command Base has allowed running in TMCC mode.

One last thing to make sure of is to plug your Legacy and/or Command bases directly into house power and not into a plug strip that has a surge suppressor. Surge suppressors will kill the TMCC signal.

Pete

The Independent Hi-Railers, Mid-West Division has had some "signal strength" issues with DCS. Surprisingly the larger the crowd around the layout, the worse the issue is!

Those "bags of mostly water.", all with cell phones, seems to play havoc with both TMCC/Legacy AND DCS. 

With modular layouts you have a buss wired system.  The Engineered Filters were designed for buss wiring.  They're easy and inexpensive to make and install.

see Engineered Filter for MTH-Controlled (DCS) Model Train Layouts
http://www.slsprr.net/technical/filter.htm

Filter Materials

I generally agree with what has already been said here.  I've been a member of the Lionel Modular Group of Plano, TX since 1997.  Our modular layout is buss wired.  We've had pretty good success with TMCC, Legacy, and using TMCC to control track voltage with Powermasters and TPCs.  Some of our track joints are poor, and frankly we have more problems with voltage drops than loss of signal!  If we ever had command signal problems, it was due to a poor ground, inappropriate use of a surge suppressor, excessively long power cord coiled up, etc.  

We've tried DCS several times and always struggled, except once in a compact configuration where we didn't use all of the modules.  I'm not sure we ever got to the point of troubleshooting strength of the track signal.  We had enough problems just getting the DCS remote to communicate with the TIU.  The only robust solution was to tether it.  I always wondered if it was possible to connect two DCS remotes to the TIU via phone wiring in a parallel tethered arrangement?  Thankfully MTH locos with PS2 run very well in conventional mode, so we run them with the Lionel handheld and TPC.   Good Thread!!  -Ted

Hi for the MTH TIU system we had put the filters in the layout.The filters were put at the end of the runs.

 You can not let your system be looped.

You should have one modula unpluged. The farthist one from your power on your loop.

That is were you split your loop. unplug two moduals from each outher and plug your filters in at the ends so you do not have a compleat loop back to power.   

 We have the MTH TIU as a single wire hook up for each power zone.

Like the Lionel Legacy system.

This seamed to work the best for us.

I am not surprised DCS is not working for you.

DCS talks to the engines over the rails, not via radio like TMCC or Legacy.

This is why DCS needs blocks with only one power drop to the track per block.

The signal will reduce in power as it travels down the rails, so there is some slack in the following but one thing is paramount, Only one power drop per block !!!

FIX:

Make your modules connect by isolating the center rail at both ends of each module. Then Add Susan's filters to each power drop or even better to both ends of each module. They wire from center rail to outside rail. They use no appreciable power at all and are small enough to hide in the ballast between ties.

Also use all 4 channels of your TIU, they each have a signal generator so you get more signal that way.

One channel per track will serve you well.

Now, You can have up to 11 joints in the track in one block. This is because the signal drops a lot at each joint, too many joints means no signal. Therefore if you have some modules that are not isolated, disconnecting the power drops to all but one in each group will make DCS work better. I recommend you power the middle one in each group.

WHY: DCS sends a digital signal composed of Hi and low volt pulses, the pulses run down the wire to the power drop, a copy goes down each power drop to the track where it again splits and goes both ways down the track.

IF you do not split the track into blocks these signals then cross each other over and over racing around the track. This means the engine is getting many of them out of sync at the same time, The Highs and lows from different parts of the signal get mixed going into the engine and it cannot understand. It's the tower of babel.

Now, with Blocks you will get the signals running to the end of the block and bouncing off the end of the track, these are weaker but still can interfere in some conditions.

The filters snub the signal out. In the case of one filter per drop, they keep the bounced signals from going back into the buss and mixing with others.

Also, A rev L TIU with PS3 engines will make a lot of difference, the signals between them are much stronger.  Rev L with PS2 is improved as well but not as much.

Good Luck and feel free to drop into the DCS subforum for more help.

Thanks Russell, some great info there.

Ted, this explains to me why it has worked in our clubrooms with reduced modules.

Thanks Susan, we'll try this.

I agree with the recommendation to use blocks and filters. 

We run 2 conventional  and 1 DCS mainline on our modular layout.   Not surprisingly, we started having signal problems as our buss wired layout grew.  We were able to resolve the signal problems by placing insulated track pins  in the center rails to divide the layout into 6 "blocks" and then wired magic filters across the farthest point in each block and one across the TIU output.  We are now running 26 modules including a yard and an early model (unlabeled) TIU with NO signal problems.

 Bob

We use the Deats filters as well. The problem for us is every layout is different and range in size from say 12 x 15' to 60 x 140'. With only a limited time for setup, finding the ideal location for the filters is rarely possible. DCS doesn't lend itself to modular layouts easily.

Pete

Your trackwork really looks nice Dave!