Electrical Short

Try your Volt meter between the 2 Z-1000 zones... (  for now disconnect the lionel transformer)  I'm assuming you have an insulated center rail joint separating both zones... Measure hot rail to hot rail with your volt meter . There should be very  little or no  if the transformers are in phase, If they're not in phase you will get a high  volt reading around 38 or so. 

 It's possible the same power supplies from the same company are not always  the same.

On my way to do that now. Thanks

If you have a lighted toggle switch powering the future yard, some switches will go to ground when bridged with the switch off. With the siding powered I never had the problem.

Kris3914,

   Both these gentlemen are giving you good advise, also make sure your wire connections to your Transformers and the TIU are tight, I use Gold Banana plugs to assure the wire will not come loose as time goes along.  

PCRR/Dave 

Okay touching center rail block 1 to center rail block 2 Im getting a reading of 39V

Now what? I used the ground jumper as described by Lionel in the video. How are they not in phase?

Switch the banana clip leads from Tranformer Z1000 number 2 into the TIU?

Turn one plug over, mark both, and you should be good.

 That's a good question, but they're not in phase and the fix is to turn one of the plugs on the z-1000 180 degrees  at the wall outlet...

Now you're thinking  I  can't t do that because the plugs are polarized and will only plug in one way. 

 Perhaps  a trip to the local hardware store where you may be able to purchase an adaptor plug so that you can reverse the plug on one of the Z-1000..   Unfortunately you're not the first with this problem...  good luck.

Turn one plug over? From transformer to the 110 outlet? 

Ha ha ha ha read my mind. Would not reversing the banana clips do the same thing?

Kris3914 posted:

Turn one plug over? From transformer to the 110 outlet? 

Yes ..  Pull plug  from wall outlet on one z-1000  and rotate 180 degrees however   y ou still are  probably going  need an adaptor.   (personally I'd file the  thicker   plug blade down a bit )    Some may take a dim view of doing this.

The thought of a file crossed my mind. I did reverse the banana clips red to black and the black to red in port two that has resolved the issue. Nothing went boom. 

Thank you all for the help.

Kris3914 posted:

The thought of a file crossed my mind. I did reverse the banana clips red to black and the black to red in port two that has resolved the issue. Nothing went boom. 

Great. However the red must go to the center rail from the tiu output else no dcs signal.

Hopefully you have it straighten out. 

Is it possible that the wires going to the female banana plugs are reversed inside the z1000 or do you have to phase the bricks. Thanks Tstark

You can't rotate the wall plug, because it is polarized -- one prong bigger than the other.  Just switch the outputs to the track.

Jan

If it is the case that the power bricks themselves are out of phase, rather than file the blade you could also open the brick and reverse the wires soldered from the cord to the transformer.  

The case is held together with 4 small allen head screws, or at least, mine was.  

While your at it, if you are using the 'Z-Controller' at all, I highly recommend opening the controller up and making sure the nuts are tight on the connection to the banana plugs.  It seems these suffer from the same lack of tightening that the TIU jacks do, or again, that was the case in the one I took apart, right out of the box.

JGL

Jan posted:

You can't rotate the wall plug, because it is polarized -- one prong bigger than the other.  Just switch the outputs to the track.

Jan

That doesn't work.

You can still find a few two prong adaptors. that would allow for the polarized plug to be reversed.  Worst case you may have to grind-down the large prong on the two prong adaptor to fit the smaller vertical slot of a standard polarized 120 volt outlet.   Reversing the polarity at the outlet does work.