DCC Switches

[riff99]

Is there anything good about them??

It seems with only two locomotives and about 10 freight cars in total on our minuscule carpet layout of EZ Track, that these switches always seem to lose their addresses and won't respond unless the power is reset to the EZ Command Controller.  I could understand this if there was 4 or 5 engines on there and/or 20 freight cars, but with two or more they just give up the ghost.  My son seems to think we need the 5 amp power booster, but I figured that was for serious layouts, set up on large boards and such.  I just want to run a couple simple trains for my son and I to view and interact with.  DCC engines are a lot of fun, and we also have a sound 4-8-4 that thrills him.  It's just these darn switches.

Another issue with one of the DCC switches, recently, is that when a locomotive runs over it, the engines quit completely.  We have to move the train past the switch before the train starts up again.  I've looked at the switch carefully.  It's quite clean as we always clean the track before setting it up, track rail endings are even on both sides, manually switching the track appears to not have any issues; yet all engines going over it still die.  Can track become defective that quickly?  We've had them for maybe half a year.  The other DCC switch still allows trains to pass by with no issues...just the address bit is all.  Is there a way to bring this switch back to life?  I just want to know what could possibly be causing the short on this switch.

Any help or advice with them would be very much appreciated.  Thank You!!

[hawaiiho]

My experience has been that the Bachmann DCC turnouts are more problems than then are worth; not to mention their cost.

I have three spots where I really need them do to wiring difficulties and that is where I stopped.

I have a total of 18 switches. All the rest are hard wired.

That would be my recommendation and that is what I have told my model RR friends.