Pipe ground vs rod in the ground ...

Under most Electrical Codes, the gas line and water line metal pipes are also connected to electric ground somewhere in the house.  This is to prevent the pipes from getting AC power in error,  and not tripping a breaker.  You do not want to have 110 volt AC in your shower handles.

The pipe might work and it might not. Too many variables to know for sure.

You can try it and if it doesn't work, use the electrical grounding rod.

 

 Does the pipe surround your layout room?

How big is your layout?

 

The "earth ground" is noting more than an antenna for the TMCC signal. The more antenna you have surrounding your layout, the better you signal will be. Thats why

the electrical ground is preferred because usually your electrical wiring surrounds your entire house.

The ground rod is the official way to do it(national electrical code) but any metal object in the ground is also "earth ground" for the purpose of grounding an antenna and frequently a better ground for an antenna.

   I'm not sure that it will help TMCC, It may change the antenna patern in an undesirable way.  Don

 "The problem is" that you need to bond the water pipe to ground to make sure it's up to code.

You could find that the house starts over-using your connection, as it's a better ground than you may have elsewhere.

Joe, I don't get the "bonded to earth" part.  Isn't a pipe, rod, or other metal object buried in the earth "bonded"?

 

Another thing I find interesting about this TMCC issue is the references to TMCC needing the added signal from all the house wiring to work.

 

If I set up a large TMCC layout in an open field, without a house with wiring or a rod in the ground ground, it should not work at all.

 

And we know that's not the case.  It would work just fine.

 

Right?

It's the ground that makes it work, so if you have "ground" all around, it should work.

 

I've ran my TMCC trains with power coming from a 12 volt deeper cycle battery and a DC to AC inverter. Trains ran great. No signal problems and not a single wire went into the ground.

I've wondered about the folks who have large outdoor layouts, TMCC, and no problems.

 

Seems like with a couple of my problems it might be related to the antennas in specific locomotives.  Some don't have any problems anywhere on the layout, a couple have a slight stutter at two short spots of track, and one for sure has a major problem most everywhere and I'm working on that one, looking at the antenna next and seeing if it can be improved.  Phil brought over a pair of Lionel locomotives that ran fine except for one curve next to another one where they went nuts.

" PAGING DALE MANQUEN"..........

Should mention none of my locomotives had a problem at that spot, just Phil's.

The one with problems everywhere, I'd suspect either the antenna or the R2LC.  I ran across my first "weak" receiver, it worked on the bench but running a large loop it had big problems.  A new R2LC and all was well.

 

 

I use a inverter but it is powered by a 230V AC to 12V DC power supply. The earth ground is transferred through from the inverter earth point down the negative lead to the power supply which has the negative connected to earth ground internally and then to the UK wall socket earth. 

 

 It all seems to work ok. My only thought is that the UK uses a ring main wiring system so in effect the earth is a loop in which both ends of a earth circuit return to the consumer unit which then has it's earth bar connected to a earth rod.

Not sure how this could effect things in certain cases.

 

Had my first issue with our Hiawatha recently. Has a problem going through the **** gate bridge. I have the bridge connected to earth ground, all other locos are fine.

It worked with no problems in the past. If I take off the earth ground wire all

Legacy/TMCC locos stop in the bridge as expected.

 

John, your comment is very timely. I was thinking handrail antenna.

Possible weak/bad R2LC? Did not think of that. 

 

Nick

 

 

 

 

 

Boxcar Bill on the forum here will sell you one at a discount off the Lionel price, and his shipping is cheaper than Lionel as well.

 

Before replacing the R2LC, I'd swap one out of another engine and see if it changes the symptoms.  Don't forget to do the full reset on the R2LC when you change engines.

 

I ran across my first "weak" receiver, it worked on the bench but running a large loop it had big problems.  A new R2LC and all was well.

Is there a way to test an R2LC for "weakness?"

 I shouldn't have mentioned that above. It's more for safety than propagating TMCC signal. I'm just guessing that some guys with older houses are not up to code. There's plenty to discuss about it but not at all model RR related. I'm not an electrician.

Joe, if only one locomotive has the problem, I doubt it's a house wiring issue.

 

Rex, the "test" for an R2LC is to substitute a known working one.  If you don't have spares, you can take one out of another engine as a test.

KERRIGAN;  WHICH of my engines was it that gave trouble there?  I'd like to test it here.

John, Does the R2LC have to be the same version? The Hiawatha I have has the C13

version.

 

Regards

Nick

Some years back, an issue developed in my area when the city went though replacing water meters with non-metallic ones. At first they did not realize that they might be creating a safety issue by interrupting the cold water pipe ground. After the fact they went through and installed a heavy copper wire jumper around the meter.

More recently I had our local cable company out to diagnose a service problem. It turned out that the entrance wire was so old, it was porous. Service degraded whenever it rained. When the new wire was run, the ground was relocated from a cold water pipe to the house wiring's ground rod. The installer (a very pleasant fellow) told me it was now code.

It is interesting to note that most water company employees will be using High Voltage insulated gloves similar to lineman's gloves to change water meters.  There is some potential to get shocked/or injured. 

As water systems move away from traditional Copper or metallic systems to less expensive plastic, electrical grounding has gone to driven rods, in most cases at least two 1/2" or 5/8" copper clad steel rods, 8 ft. in length, at least 6 ft. apart. The metallic water system is still bonded/hook to the electric neutral, usually at the hot water tank for a non-metallic water system. Commercial building, the structural steel is also bonded to the electric neutral. 

There really isn't one good answer. The age of your house's plumbing and electrical installations, and the codes that applied at the time, can affect it.

 

Your water line might be metallic all the way to the water co. shutoff (or well head) or it might be polyethylene plastic (PEX). If you have a well, there's a pressure tank in the way which may or may not have a very good ground bond between the inlet and outlet pipes.

 

If you have an older water meter, there might be a nice, big bronze "bridge" clamped to the inlet and outlet pipes, spanning the meter body, which ensures electrical continuity and provides structural integrity -- but those are pretty much vanished in modern installations. The newer meters may have non-metallic housings and rely on the way the plumbing runs to create (or not) a ground path.

 

The electrical panel must have some means of clamping bare copper to a nearby cold water pipe, which bonds the indoor plumbing through the panel's bus to the ground stake. That's the safety ground that ensures your plumbing and the panel are at the same ground potential.

 

While the whole system - building ground wiring and plumbing - should be equivalent as "ground", modern codes direct you to use the electrical wiring ground rather than a plumbing ground for a couple of major reasons. One, plumbing and the connections to plumbing can be subject to electrolytic reactions over time which will change the connection and conductivity characteristics, making their performance as an electrical ground unpredictable. Second, copper plumbing may be replaced over the life of the building, and non-metallic pipe may be spliced in. The pipe you're thinking of using as a ground may not be electrically connected at all with the rest of the plumbing.

For a casual test, you can use a C13 for, say a C08.  For the most part, they're backward compatible.  I know that the C11 had a problem with the ERR boards, but the C08 or C13 worked fine with them.

 

If you have a C07 or earlier, one of the lighting outputs is inverted from the later versions.

 

Whenever you swap the R2LC, you have to do a full reset in the locomotive, and again when you swap it back.  That includes setting the TMCC ID and also setting the type as detailed in this attached document.

 

 

 I heard a story of a guy getting killed just changing a water tank. WOW.

 

 We have to understand that recommending something can have bad effects if it is not handled correctly. A simple wrong wire can lead to bad stuff. Please research and get help when needed.

 John, here is the title "Pipe ground vs rod in the grou..."

I don't know what else to say except,

that sometimes no reply is more valuable than quantity.

 

Thanks for the info. John.

 

I took a good look at the ****gate Bridge tonight. It is the Lionel repro version with the twin O gauge tracks. 

On close inspection, there were a couple of areas where the metal track sleepers (sorry ties) touched metal although the bridge has plastic locators for the track.

 I took some insulation tape and covered the first two ties on each end on both tracks. 

 Now the Hiawatha runs perfectly though the bridge. Strange as my only other TMCC/Legacy steamer a Lionmaster Big Boy ran ok. It did have a bit of head light flicker.

 

As for why this problem recently appeared I think the paint was insulating the track.

 When the paint wore thru the problems started.

As the bridge was connected to earth ground when the ties touched the bridge metal I guess this caused problems for the Legacy signal.

 

Well, that would certainly do it Nick!