TMCC Signal loss on upper levels of track (crossing over)

What is the purpose of all the foil. My layout is two levels 27 ft x 12 ft, 8 inch height between the two levels. I run gar graves so I added ground to both outer rails. I have had no problem with signal strength so far................Paul

I run GG also.  How did you add ground?  I heard one could run a grounded wire under the upper level.  can you explain further?  Thanks!!

dave

I am probably the wrong person to ask about tech stuff. Right now I have the Legacy base hooked up. Backtracking a bit I have two Z-4000's. One handle for each mainline. I took all the track grounds on the Z's and tied them into one bus bar for all.  I then ran the Legacy ground wire to there and from there I ran my ground wires to the layout attaching ground wires to both outside rails at each point on the gar graves. Now I also have DCS hooked up and I run the two together along with conventional. I have been doing this for a number of years now and so far I have had no problems. I do have two short tunnels but have never had a problem with signal loss.............Paul

Thanks Paul

I have the old TMCC :   Cab 1 and command base,   2 ZW 's with 4 180watt bricks on each ZW. A couple fixed 18volt transformers for switch machines and signals.  You have much more so I cannot compare systems, I believe.  My layout is 82 feet by 24 feet.  Another 10 years in the building is am guessing

Dave  

Dave,

I have a hidden storage yard beneath the western end of my layout.  It's about 10-12" lower.  I simply ran wires above the tracks, connected them together, and then tied the one resulting wire to the ground post of one of these 3-way plugs you can buy (they come apart for fastening your own 3 wires).  I didn't use foil, but that is possible. 

There's nothing magic about foil vs wire(s).  In fact, just lay out some wires between the tracks prior to any permanent installation and try it out.  Move them around until you achieve an effective ground plane.

George

Thanks George.   Havings 6 tracks wide I just thought a single wire would not be enough coverage for a ground plane?  It would be very easy to just lay foil , connected to a ground pipe,  under the roadbed of all my upper layers so I would cover all possibilities. Is that overkill or too much, I do not know.     Dave

on my 3 levels I ran one wire around the layout between the levels crossing over the lower racks and that worked just fine on one end of my lower level my headlights would flash so over the weekend I extended the wire a little and that fixed the issue no more flashing headlight now I wasn't having issues with the engines stopping all together but I did before I ran the single wire. since I ran that wire initially the engines would stop in my lower yard or worse yet take off in a big hurry after the wire they ran smooth but had a little head light flash at one end of the lower  yard loop so I extended it this weekend since I was cleaning up the wires and now no more flashing headlight.

I have noticed the tw train worx layouts they put down foil tape (heat tape I would guess) under the track plan at least I have seen photo's of it . so I would think the foil would work too.

Thanks Jhainer,

The one wire was under just one track wide or several tracks?  I love electrical stuff and have several relays (DPDT)controlling signals and tracks so any help you need I would be glad to give you.  ROSS has electrical diagrams for just about everything as well.

Dave

Dave, you and I have similar sized layouts. I started mine back in 2003, but took 6 years off due to cancer. I've been back at it for nearly 4 years, and have a long way to go. I must admit that I do a lot of things differently from most people, which makes the whole thing take longer.

Regarding TMCC signal, I have had a lot of problems getting engines to run reliably on parts of the layout. I have two helixes. The first one was built with no special consideration for TMCC. I learned very quickly that this was a mistake, and began to retrofit it almost immediately with foil, metal window screen and wire. This helped, and most trains worked OK. Just this week I went back and put in a new wire, since the old system only went part of the way up.

When I built the second helix, I did a much better job. I applied the foil with spray adhesive directly to the bottom of each plywood segment as the construction went along. Then I connected every segment with a wire to create one continuous ground plane. Every engine works flawlessly.

My layout consists of 3 distinct levels connected by the two helixes. The lowest level is a staging/storage yard 24" above the concrete. The main level is at 42", and the upper level is 72" off the floor. If that seems a little high, I've raised the floor in the aisles 12" to help compensate. Here you can see all the levels very clearly.

The middle level was mostly built before I got sick. That's where the bulk of the signal problems are. When I started back up again, the upper deck was a blank slate, so I decided to try something different. Once the 1x4 framing was in, I put down a blanket of chicken wire, then put the plywood over it. That chicken wire is tied to earth ground via the metal electrical boxes and conduit used for the layout lighting.

Once again, having the ground plane seems to have made all the difference. Almost every engine goes around the upper deck just fine.

I'm not sure where you are in the construction process, but if you still have a chance to lay down large blankets of ground plane, I would do it! If you don't like it, you can always disconnect it from the earth ground source, but it is a lot harder to retrofit.

Fantastic!!  I have some metal screen wire but I think aluminum foil would be easier to use. Congrats on winning your battle and have lots of fun building your layout!!

I too did not work on the layout from 2004 until now.  Am starting up,  have two rooms to finish.