Signal Problems Inside Tunnels Made From Chicken Wire

You need to connect the chicken wire to earth ground. i.e. a water pipe.

The same thing applies to metal bridges like the Hellgate for example.

 

Regards

Nick

Attach a wire from the chicken wire to a earth ground like a water pipe. Worked for me.

 

Dave

 

Connect it anyway.

 

My copper ground rod is at least 50 feet from half the stuff inside my home, but all of it is connected to it.

 

Ground is ground.

 

Good luck!

In that case you connect it to your electrical ground. The simplest way to do this is to use a medium to heavy gauge wire going to the ground connection on a 3 prong plug, and then simply plug this into your wall outlet. Then you can always un-plug it if you need to move things. Alternatively you can wire it straight to the centre screw on a grounded wall socket. 

could i use just a plane copper ground rod and stick it in the ground

You could, but it may not work as well as hooking to the ground wire on the outlet. You would have to keep the rod moist and it would have to be driven into the ground several feet deep.

 

The house/garage electrical system really has the best ground for the purposes of TMCC reception. Is there a reason you don't want to use it? Is there a problem finding the ground wire? Does your garage only have the outlets wired with two prong sockets? Even if it is only two wire, it might have a metal box enclosing the outlet. And that metal box might be grounded - at least it is supposed to be.

 

The best ground connection is the third/ground wire in a three prong outlet - the little round hole. The second best is the screw in the center of the outlets that attaches the cover plate - if the electrical box is grounded.

 

I am sorry that I can't help you, but I really like your layout, and especially the mountain!

Yes you can use the earth ground of your electrical outlet. This is what I use. 

 Just make sure that there is no way your wires from the tunnels could touch live terminals in your outlet. 

 This goes double for me as I live in the U.K. And we have 230V instead of 120V.

 

I use the same type of wire I use for track feeds. You could make up a ground bus and connect all 3 wires together and just run one to the outlet. Maybe Dale will chip in here to confirm this is OK. It appears to work in my case.

 

Regards

Nick

I'd probably get a 3 wire plug and just wire to the ground.  It's just as effective, and you're not taking the outlets apart.

It is also important that the chickenwire is not connected to the track at any point. The TMCC needs to see two things, the track and a nearby earth ground.

would it be safe to use the same nonmetallic cable as shown in the picture of the outlet for the tunnels

would it be safe to use the same nonmetallic cable as shown in the picture of the outlet for the tunnels

you are making an antennae, not wiring a house or building

I used a 16 gauge stranded automoblie wire.  being I am in the basement with my layout I was about 30 feet from the ground wire on the 200 amp power circuit box.  The wire went from the box to a cheater (3plug to two plug) that was connected to 3 wire extension.  Connect the ground wire to the tap on the cheater and then the extension will be grounded to the best ground you have.  Plug in your power supply to the extension and no more ground problems.

If you house is all wired with 3 wire ground connections it should be right in the outlet your have in the garage.

My house is older and no 3 wire installed so my system was necessary to ge ground.

This Is Where My Train Setup Is At Inside This Building

 

what about running (16 gauge wires) from tunnels 1-3 on my layout to the green grounding screw of the 3 prong outlet

You can do it but that means you are adding up to 3 extra wires to a point designed for 1 wire.

I would do as suggested above;

Daisy chain the 3 tunnels to each other or bring them to a common point. From the common point or last tunnel, run a  wire to a replacement 3 prong plug. Wire to the ground (round) pin. Plug it in. Done and easy to move to a new socket as needed.

I don't think your "earth" ground wire has to actually go into the earth. If you can connect the wires from the tunnels to the third prong on the command base wall plug you should be ok. I sometimes run my trains using a 12v battery and inverter while operating in TMCC. The command base gets plugged into a powerstrip which is plugged into an extension cord which is plugged into the inverter. The trains run just fine and no wire ever goes into the ground.

Is this signal issue with Lionel Legacy?

 

Check out this video, go about 9 minutes into the video. You getting cross talk and need to make a ground plane between the different signals. see the video, make sure both outside rails have common to make the signal broadcast correctly.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...=channel&list=UL

 

 Watch  the whole video.

A very easy way to check to see if the problem is the above mentioned ground problem is to plug in a three wire extension cord (one with three prongs on the plug) and lay the cord next to the track in the problem area. This means next to the track under the chickenwire. If there is a ground problem the train should run OK. Nothing needs to be pluged into the free end of the extension cord.

Flemming, I would suggest you visit youtube. Look up thr channel "lionelcs2011" i have posted a video that explains "tmcc/legacy signal basics. This will help you understand and ultimately solve your problem. Thanks, Mike Reagan Lionel

Here is what I did:

 

Scoll down a little on this page.

 

http://www.liberty-hi-railers....rge_layout_tmcc.html

 

Just took Wire Yourself plug and connected to the ground pin only.  

 

I just plug that in the wall outlet wherever I set up.

Got the problem fixed for now