This morning, while attempting to wire that layout for Great Falls Model RR Club, I nearly tore my hair out. I have wired layouts many times, and generally have no problems. I have a scheme: white to the front rail, black on the back rail. Simple, right? I have used this scheme for 4 layouts thus far, and it hadn't failed me yet. Operator error? That's what this story's all about. My layout in Cheyenne, WY was around the walls, single main with long passing track, and a few crossovers. In the process of wiring the main, and the crossovers, I reversed the white-front/black-back scheme. Took me an entire evening to find it! Drove me nuts!!! I had connected the bus lines to the feeders I dropped, and used my favorie wiring item, 'tap splices' to connect it all up. I got the connections done in a half hour, and crimped on a spade terminal to hook to my power pack, to test it. I set my new IM F7's on the track, and nothing. I KNOW they worked, after a short test last week, using the 9V battery method. What's the deal? I thought I had a bad pack, so I tried another MRC pack. Still nothing, and the overload lite came on. What the crap is going on?!? I checked and rechecked my wiring, checked the engine, rails are clean.. I don't get it! Tore the house apart for a different pack, the Z scale pack, also MRC. Third times a charm, right? Nothing. Dangit! GRRRRRR!!! Grabbed the multimeter, no juice at the terminals, but juice at the accessory terminals. What on earth?? Engine swapped out with a different one I know works; set on scrap track, set track right on terminals. She runs. Back on the layout. Nothing. ARGH!!! I rechecked my wiring, this time, checking polarity of the rails. On on return loop, although the wires underneath were hooked correctly, polarity on the rails made a short. Yipes! I even had the white/black thing correct. The thing I didn't take into consideration was, the main loops around over itself. The outside rail on the same track is now the inside rail on the return loop. No reverse loops here, but close to it. Just a folded dogbone. You dumb cluck.....
I did exactly the same thing four or five times while wiring my layout. Finally adopted the one wire at a time method, as I just couldn't keep inside and outside rails straight.
Hemi, I did exactly the same thing on our club layout a few weeks ago. One of the HO guys gave me a real handy tip to solve it though. He had a box of push pin type thumb tacks that he had painted red. We started around the layout and placed a pin next to the "red" (your color may vary) rail every few feet until we made a complete loop. Sure enough, dead short. Not hard to fix once you find it. The push pin method works great for keeping track of which rail is which when dropping feeders. Sorry this is posted a little too late to help you with your layout, but maybe someone else might benefit. Happy railroading Jim
I use a red "Sharpie" marker to color the top of one rail. I just run it over the top all around the track work. It does not insulate the rail and will wipe clean with a track cleaning block.
hemi it makes me very happy to see that i'm not the only one with this kind of experience.... did exactly the same thing. double-track mainline loops over itself. same thing with inner rail becoming outer and messing up the colors of the wires used.
Wow, we are not alone? Hahaha! Each time we set up our club layout, we have shorts. Wires connected in the wrong way, colors mixed up, wrong pins...... And at home, you always run out of the right color wire, on sunday..... So I use another color.... And risking shortcuts, of course....
In my wiring of the G and G I have not screwed anything up but I have checked it after almost every lead since my soldering is so bad, (pics to follow some day). I still have a long way to go and I refuse to hurry. I tend to "Check 3 times, Solder, Then Check" Um, actualy I have melted a lot of foam to the point I have a fan in the window drawing the air out.
I check the wiring after wiring each section of track. It's much easier to do this way. Mistakes in wirng can easily be caught using this method. Stay cool and run steam.....
i just once had a short. ripped out all the wires and started allover. since then i always turn on power before doing any wiring. my digitrax command station will buzz as soon as i create a short. this is the easiest way to avoid shorts.
