03-14-2018, 11:52 AM
faraway Wrote:The ballast may have an iron etc. share and act as a (poor) conductor. I would stick two probes in the ballast and measure the resistance of the new ballast and somewhere else in an isolated old area.
No resistance showing at all for the ballast on any of the layout, old or new. Thinking that the glue used to hold it in place might, at the spots where I tested, be acting as an insulator, I also plunge the tester probes into a container of the same ballast - no resistance at all.
FiatFan Wrote:You mentioned that the section is kill-able. Have you tried Isolating that section? Does the rest of the layout work when that section is isolated? Is it possible to cut gaps in the rails to isolate the new section?
Tom
There are kill-able sections at every town, for most industrial tracks, and in all staging areas. When the newly ballasted kill-able area is live, a locomotive will run on it, but abnormally slowly with a full-on throttle setting, and with the ammeter showing 3 amps (its maximum reading). If I kill that section, (and all other kill-able sections are still unpowered) the loco won't run, but when the throttle is advanced, the meter shows the same high draw. If I leave all kill-able sections off, I can run a loco on the sections that are not killable, but with the same performance: very low speed at high throttle settings, and a 3 amp draw.
I don't know if it's of any consequence, but the layout is wired very simply following the Atlas book, and using a common rail set-up. Immediately before this ballasting (literally minutes), everything was working well, as it always has.
I do appreciate the suggestions, as the electrical side of the layout is mostly a mystery to me...that's why it was done following the simple outline in the Atlas book, and up until this episode, everything worked as it should.
EDIT: It just occurred to me: could the power source (the CM 20) be failing? I just now tried to run an Atlas diesel, with the usual results. Just to see what would happen, I flipped the switch on the CM 20 which switches from N/HO scale to G scale power. The diesel ran in the same manner, but the CM 20 emitted a not-too-noticeable "click" and the loco stopped. In a couple of seconds, it resumed moving, then another "click" and it stopped again. I flipped the switch back to HO, and got the same results, although the click wasn't as noticeable. I've been reluctant to let the locomotive keep running for too long, for fear that it would trip the internal breaker of the CM 20, given the relatively high amperage showing on the meter. I get the same results with other locomotives and on different parts of the layout, too.
Wayne