new railline installation and startup

[swc453]

A brother in law and his 3 year old adopted [severly abused ] grandson received a train set for christmas.  The brother in law has problems with changing light bulbs, so anything electrical?

I agreed to help as I have some electrical experience.  but not with guessing or maybees,  the instructions and prints leave much to be desired.

Involved is an E Z Command controller item 44901,  a bunch of Atlas track, switch stations, ect .  There is no clear diagram how to connect all this.

I did get the controller to put out up to almost 15 volts when on station 10, but the train would not respond.  The instructions indicated a preprogramed operation on station 3 as a factory default.  This station 3 would not put out any voltage at any setting of the speed control knob.

Thereare no indications to what to do,even  though the 8 page instruction is entitled SETUP AND PROGRAMMING INSTRUCTIONS.

Any help would be appreciated
SWC

[SteamGene]

The first question would be:
does the locomotive have a DCC decoder.  I'm thinking it does not.  If that be correct, that is your problem.
Gene

[Guilford Guy]

The EZ command only changes the tracks voltage for adress 10. 10 is used for analog locomotives. The other addresses are to select different locomotives which have a decoder installed. The EZ command tells the decoder in the locomotive what to do, not giving out voltage separately.

[swc453]

The locomotive is DCC

So what tells the DCC locomotive what to do, and if it is programable how is it programed.

The track is ATLAS , the layout is Layout HO 8 .  They show a different controller figuration in this ATLAS book #9 for HO scale.

Could anyone tell me where to install the E Z Controller and will the Items shown in the ATLAS book also be required
Spencer

[Guilford Guy]

The EZ command should have a red wire that plugs into the EZ command, and on the other end a flat black object. If you are using Atlas track you are going to have to cutoff this plug, separate the wires slightly, and solder them to the rails.

[swc453]

The controller is connected to the track with the red wire with two leads and screwed to the two terminals at the track connector, the controller is plugged into a hot wall outlet, and I measured continuity on the track, measured up to about 14 volts when in address 10.
The locomotive was placed on the track and nothing happened, and yes it is a dcc and came with the controller.
Following the instructions, they should be watching the locomotive circle the track at this time, but it just sits. There is nothing in the few instructions that  address the troubleshooting.

Do they take all this up and return to the store and give up on railroading or just look at a magnificant layout and dream.

I thought that if I contacted the builder of the controller I might get some technical help, but to this point nothing of any techincal value.

I hate to give up, but without technical instructions, all that  is is left is jury rigging and that is not something I do.

I would appreciate any technical help. Tje two wires supplied with the controller are connected.  What is connected to the many terminals on the track to operate the switches, and how does the signal get around the many insulators in the track that blocks contunity.

[r.cprmier]

One thing that might come into play is distance between jumpers.  If you have not run a buss system (a pair of [usu]#12 conductors, tapping about every six or so feet to track), then you are possibly getting a voltage drop via a number of possibilities, namely bad connections at rail-to-rail connections.

The other things tend to be internal to the unit; but  I would be inclined to first look at the track connections/wiring.

If you suspect it to be the power unit, take a multimeter on about a 50VAC setting, and check the output at the two leads going to track, disconnected from track, of course.  If you have problems germaine to the power supply output, they will show up at that point.
Do use all of the proper safety rules, both for yourself and the quipments' sake.

[SteamGene]

Have you opened the locomotive and visually spotted a decoder?  I ask this because I have a Bachmann 2-10-2 which should be decoder equipted, but did not have a decoder installed.  Also, can you send a picture of the layout - if you have a reverse loop, this could be a problem. 
You might want to go back to the beginning and build just a simple loop of track and test the locomotive on that. 
Gene