TMCC Signal issues

Think of the TMCC signal as two parts - one comes into the loco from the rails via the wheels, the other comes in from the antenna (handrails on steam, copper strip inside the shell on diesels).  The signal to the antenna is radiated via the house wiring around your train room.  The green ground wire in house wiring carries the signal which is why we refer that part of the signal as the TMCC "ground plane".  When you have multiple levels, the signal radiated by the rails in the upper level(s) overwhelms the signal from the house wiring.

The solution is running a "ground plane" wire on the underside of your upper level and connecting the wire to the ground prong of a 3-prong electrical plug, or to pin 5 of the DB-9 serial output of your base.  The size of the wire does not matter ... or you can use conductive copper or aluminum tape and stick it to the underside of the upper level.  The best results come from running the ground plane over the lower tracks so the loco's antenna gets a strong signal.  If you have metal truss bridges, you can insulate the bridge from the track and connect the bridge to the ground plane.  Make sure (using a multimeter) that your ground plane wires (tape, etc.) are not shorted to the track rails.

John gave good advice.  The very first thing you should check is the TMCC Command Base power supply.  The 3-prong wall wart needs to plug either directly into a grounded house outlet or into a plain power strip without surge protection.  If the wall wart is plugged into a power strip with surge protection, you can get poor TMCC performance from that problem alone.

I had to add a ground plane a while back. I went to a jewelry wire site. They treat copper differently than the wire guys and sell it by the pound. I ended up getting 16 gauge which turned out to be something like 165 feet. To make it clearer,  for instance with 12 gauge you would get a lot shorter spool of wire, still weighing 1 pound. It sure seemed a cheaper way to go. Just a thought

Charlie

You can use #30 wire for the ground plane wire, it works just as well as #12.

Can i attach my ground plane wire to a water pipe??  My house has old wiring.  We don’t have 3 prong outlets

Bring it back to the command base and tie it to pin #5 of the serial port or the outside of the power barrel connector, either of these is earth ground.

However, if you don't have three prong outlets, you have a whole other and much bigger issue!

The command base needs the earth ground for proper signal propagation, if you don't have grounded outlets, where are you connecting the 3rd prong of the command base power brick?

I just added a ground to the outlet by grounding it to my cold water pipe.

No changes

One reason the green electrical ground wire works on houses wired to modern code (i,e, 3-prong outlets) is the wiring is everywhere in the walls and ceiling and the TMCC signal gets broadcast from all that wire.  Water pipes only go to baths and kitchens.

You have to build your own ground plane witing.  This can be a wire run around the layout room and connected to the TMCC base signal output as GRJ noted: pin 5 of the DB09 serial port, the outside of the power supply's barrel connector, or the ground pin of the wall wart plug.  I have a 3-prong outlet that I can connect to 2-wire house wiring.  The TMCC wall wart gets plugged into the outlet, and a long 3-wire extension cord plugs into the other socket.  The extension cord gets run around the room (or in my shows, under modules).  Easy to build with a trip to the hardware store.  If that works, you can go to work on more permanent ground pane wiring on the layout.

I will try the extension cord plugged into the same outlet and will advise

I give up nothing seems to work, do i need a new command base

@rocket posted:

I give up nothing seems to work, do i need a new command base

No real way of knowing without being able to test the old command base.

Perhaps build this test circuit to verify the base is outputting a signal?

Dale Manquen's base signal strength test

If it all worked prior to your hiatus and now it doesn’t then yes, I would replace the original command base. I had to do that early on cause I lost the ability to control my SC2’s. It was recommended by Lionel. It solved the problem.

How difficult would it be to take the system to another location with modern wiring and try it.  Or find someone else in your area willing to swap components to see what's bad.

Ordered command base today will see if that fixes the issues.  I am not an electrical engineer and didn’t think i needed to be to run trains.

I had good visit with a local expert on Lionel trains with a large layout.  After describing my problems and the solutions i have tried he said that many command bases do not operate properly.  I am going to take the problem locomotives to his layout and see what happens.  The problem seems to be confined to early Atlas locomotive with TMCC and Weaver locomotives with TMCC.    The more current Lionel locomotives seem to be OK.......i have ordered a new command base and will test this too.  The bright side is my MTH PS2 locomotives have come out of hibernation and run great.

i think i am on the right track now.  

it seems like this is limited to the early TMCC units from Kline, Atlas, and Weaver.  My newer Lionel units work great......i completed the install of the new command base and remote and it really didnt change a thing.   So i continue to trouble shoot.  The ground issue is fixed too.