Model Railroad VLog: Wiring: Part 3

Good point. I was making do with what I had on hand at the time.

E

Hmmmmmmm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Have you tried using a grounding bar instead of that terminal deal? You could leave putting in a jumper wire between each terminal out of the equation. You could get a bar for hot and one for neutral.

Another true statement. Hindsight is 20 -20. If I had to do it over again I’d take the casing off. . .

E

why not separate your “house wire” and have some more flexibility and easier access to the wire for attaching your feeders and whatnot? Seems like you are making it hard on yourself.

It’s possible the joiners that connect the sections are dirty and aren’t letting the power through. Is it all sectional track or are you using flex track/

E

the tracks dosen’t come with a road bed its just a track that i think it is the kind you have or whatever.

. . . with isopropyl alcohol and a Q-tip. That may restore power to the section.

E

Try setting the engine down on the track that has the two feeder wires running to it and see if the engine will run. If the engine runs until it hits the next section of track. if it stops there then there may be problems with the connections between the sections of track. What kind of track are you using? Is it sectional track (like Bachmann EZ track) that comes mounted to the roadbed? If so the contacts between the section so track may have gotten dirty. You could try cleaning the contacts. .

Thebige61 remember you told me to clean the tracks? i did what you said and it works, after a few days the train wouldn’t move again so i cleaned it again but still wouldn’t move. then my dad try to test it out but nothing happend. later he took the train of the tracks and use the 2 wires that power the track and placed on the two wheels, the wheels were moving very fast. but why wont it move on the tracks can you tell me whats going on?

waht are bus and feeder wires?

thanks i’ll try that.

Take a paper towel and set it on the track. Wet the towel with some isopropyl alcohol(but not soaking wet). Put the engine on the track with one set of trucks on the towel and the other on the rail. Hold on to the engine(but don’t press down hard on it). Turn on the power and let the wheels spin in place. The truck on the towel will spin and get cleaned off. Once the wheels are clean flip the engine around and repeat the process for the other set of wheels. Hope this makes sense.

E

I just have a normal HO model trains that i got in a train convention, well its not those fancy computer controled ones. its sort of like those model train kits that you could buy at a hobby store. and could u tell me what can i use to clean the wheels? thanks for the tip.

I got a couple of questions.

Is your layout DCC?
Did you try cleaning the track and the wheels on the engine?

E

hey thebige16 im having a bit trouble with my HO layout, because my model train suddenly just stops in the middle of the tracks and dosent move, when i give it a push the train starts to move then stops again. can u tell me which video could help me, or is this the video. please reply back

Yeah It probably would have. I had already run the cable through the layout and around the room so I didn’t have much slack to work with.

why didnt you just pull that cable out and then do it. it would have made it a whole lot easier

The black wire.

which wire is the hot wire? The black or the white?

It’s solid wire, not stranded. I had some left over from re-wiring the house so that’s what I used. From what I understand it’s better to use a heavier gauge wire for the main bus to prevent voltage drop especially if the bus is pretty long. Not that there would be a huge drop in voltage but the stronger the signal you can make available to your tracks the better.

Why don’t you cut the plastic coating off of the house wire to make it more flexible???

there probaly won`t be any power loss in a 4×8 layout