I installed a Rail King crossing gate signal and it doesn’t work. Here are some photos of my install.
Yes i did do that. I bought a couple of small pieces that were supposed to do that. It's been 5 years and I can't remember if they ever worked. I guess I'll have to watch some old YouTube videos to see for sure.
I just watched a video of the last time had my display up and I was using the old Lionel crossing which drove me crazy because of the scale.
As in, plastic track connector pins? One outside rail has to be insulated from the rest of the track. The train wheels connect the two outside rails and complete a circuit to activate the accessory.
I could have sworn that I bought a special fastrack piece for that, but I don't see anything like that so I'm sure I modified a couple of small pieces and not sure if it was pins. I just checked it with my multimeter and they are all connected so I'm going to have to take it apart
I verified that the west outside rail is isolated inside my crossing area from the east side rail. When I short out the two outside rails within my crossing area, the horn blows and the arm does not operate so I'm confused. I'm only using one crossing arm. Do I have to have both connected for it to work?
I wouldn't think so. The diagram shows them wired in parallel, so they should have no effect on each other at all. I suppose they could have designed it so you have to have both connecters plugged to get a complete circuit, if its all modular. That's easy enough to check. Plug the other one in. Did you definitely connect the green wire to the isolated section of rail? You said the horn blows? What horn? Do the crossing signals have a horn instead of a bell? If so, part of the accessory is working and part isn't, meaning part of the accessory is broken. Try substituting the other signal and see if it works.
OK, I just checked the voltage from the accessory output on the transformer and it was very low. So I changed power supplies and now I can hear the contractor click in for the crossing arm, but the crossing arm is not moving and the light comes on if I press on the arm just a little.
The horn on the locomotive was blowing, but it quit as soon as I changed power supplies. It look like the green is connected, but I'm have trouble climbing under to check for sure.
The green wire is connected to the Bridge rectifier and does activate the relay when the train wheels cross over so I'm pretty sure the rectifier is working. I'm now wondering the arm itself is stuck. I'm afraid to push on it too hard and I guess at this point It doesn't matter if I break it.
I had an unconnected red wire with a wire nut dangling down so I lifted the entire layout so I could get under there to connect it and it made no difference at all. So I'm quitting and pulling it out. I really want a crossing arm, but the MTH crossing arms look more to scale and I don't know what else is availbale. I don’t want to use those awful Lionel ones that look like skyscrapers.
