New layout wiring troubles

I run a buss wire for both Hot and Ground and connect every 3 to 4 feet, (probably over kill). Then again I run conventualy and I hate slow downs or dead zones

@Big Ken posted:

I run a buss wire for both Hot and Ground and connect every 3 to 4 feet, (probably over kill). Then again I run conventualy and I hate slow downs or dead zones

At the moment I have the feeder wires roughly 5 feet apart. I may add several more and bring the spacing down to every 3 feet as you have, as I'm not sure what else to do at this stage.

While it is possible for electricity to jump from one conductor to another, what you describe is not possible.  You cannot have a dead section of track and the rest of it is powered with no additional feeders. I suggest you remove the offending section and switch it up with the section that remains powered and see if the same phenomena happens.  As for fluctuations, what is the severity of them? Depending on your track connectors, soldering and condition of the track, you could see minor voltage drops but 8' is not that long of a run for anything significant.  Again i would verify the condition of your track and connections (both on the track and your wiring).

One thought that comes to mind is to bypass the TIU and go straight to the power supply and see if there is power in the stubs. Another thought is to take 2 wires (red and black) and connect alligator clips at both ends and connect the stub to the main that way (rail to rail) and see if there is power in the stub. Also, what kind of rail joiners did you use. The kind with the dimples on the bottom or the very early ones without (throw those away). Finally, I have lots of spurs on my small layout and these are all heavily wired and isolated to I can turn them on and off. Switches (especially early Atlas) have power connections on all three legs and in some cases soldered into the rails connected by the tiny crappy wires the early switches had. I have a bus bar loop that goes around the main perimeter. The BBs are spaced every 2 feet or so. Everything else comes off the BBs. All that said, I recently did something during a change to the layout that caused a dead short in the power loop that blew the diodes/fuses in the TIU. I found the problem by disconnecting and checking each wire off each of the BBs.

Keep us posted.

Start with the basics - buy a decent digital volt meter - they're inexpensive and invaluable in this hobby. Then disconnect the TIU and Legacy base from the layout wiring and simply power the track with the Z4000 to the bus and trackage and measure voltage all around the track.  If you have bad track pieces or connections, you should be able to locate and eliminate them pretty quickly. Once that is good you can add the TIU and Legacy base one at a time back into the wiring and see if problems develop.

@Farmall-Joe posted:

While it is possible for electricity to jump from one conductor to another, what you describe is not possible.  You cannot have a dead section of track and the rest of it is powered with no additional feeders. I suggest you remove the offending section and switch it up with the section that remains powered and see if the same phenomena happens.  As for fluctuations, what is the severity of them? Depending on your track connectors, soldering and condition of the track, you could see minor voltage drops but 8' is not that long of a run for anything significant.  Again i would verify the condition of your track and connections (both on the track and your wiring).

Exactly my thoughts, I cant wrap my head around how its behaving that way. I assume there is something going on Im missing. The segment in question is on a joint between two boards. Its very flat between the two, but there is an ever so tiny differential, perhaps enough to lead to motion between the straight and switch that is leaving the electrical connection open until something presses on the next peice of track on the stub, closing the connection? Something Ill figure out while testing I suppose.

Ill wire that dead segment to the buss and see how that impacts things.

I wired the other two stubs to the buss after work - now they work perfectly, and that seems to have fixed the main loop, it now shows the same (and consistant) voltage all the way around on both the old meter and the new one I picked up today. The fluctuations were ranging from 0-13 volts most of the time, a few spikes above that, nearly never hitting the 17.4 volts I was reading off the the Z4000, TIU and buss. But as I said, not one fluctuation since wiring the first two stubs.

Update: third spur wired. Not exactly working perfectly yet, but it has power on the perviously dead segment, now that feeder wires are run directly to that peice of track.

Main issue now is with one of the switches. The switches are all brand new, O54 Atlas. Two of them are working fine, the third however still has a large dead zone. So large even my largest engines (MTH premier C&O Greenbrier, MTH premier N&W J class) stall on it no matter the direction of travel, direction the engine faces, and switch alignment - while they make the other two switches just fine. The switch in question is a right hand. The other two that work perfectly are one left, one right. Feeder wire is connected to the straight track immediately after the switch with the dead zone, then both spurs that come off that switch lead are also wired, working fine, and the switch on that lead has power.  This is my first forray into Atlas switches, so aside from exposure through an O scale club I am a member at which uses Atlas O72 switches, I know little.

New Atlas switches should be better than the old but even for the new ones I solder wires to rail joiners and make connections to all three legs of the switch. So 6 outer rail connections and 3 center rail connections. I make sure the rail joiners fit really tight. Enough to have to wear a glove pressing them on. On some of my older switches I soldered directly to the isolated center rail that is SUPPOSED to be connected to the other center rails by wires under the switch. I have 4 switches in series on one section of the layout and all of my engines pass through that section without problems. Before I learned how to wire Atlas switches this way nothing worked. It was a mess.

Also, be sure you have rubbed off the dark finish at the top of the center rail. MTH sold a track cleaning block that is a bunch of really fine bristles at the bottom. I don't use it that often but when I get a new switch or piece of track I bear down and go back and forth with the block until the center rail has a shine to it and the dark finish is removed. After that, clean the tops of the rails with Deoxit 5 or a similar product.

@Scott J posted:

New Atlas switches should be better than the old but even for the new ones I solder wires to rail joiners and make connections to all three legs of the switch. So 6 outer rail connections and 3 center rail connections. I make sure the rail joiners fit really tight. Enough to have to wear a glove pressing them on. On some of my older switches I soldered directly to the isolated center rail that is SUPPOSED to be connected to the other center rails by wires under the switch. I have 4 switches in series on one section of the layout and all of my engines pass through that section without problems. Before I learned how to wire Atlas switches this way nothing worked. It was a mess.

Also, be sure you have rubbed off the dark finish at the top of the center rail. MTH sold a track cleaning block that is a bunch of really fine bristles at the bottom. I don't use it that often but when I get a new switch or piece of track I bear down and go back and forth with the block until the center rail has a shine to it and the dark finish is removed. After that, clean the tops of the rails with Deoxit 5 or a similar product.

Thanks for the insight! I'll try removing the black finish from the center rail first - I will attempt to wire the isolated center rail next assuming the finish removal doesn't solve the issue. I think the joints are good, I made sure they were tight when I first installed the switch, and did solder the joints. Not to say I couldn't have messed one up along the way, I'm perfect by no means. Thanks again!