Hi, Will.

Found a review for your Frisco 2-10-0 loco by Jim Hediger in the April, 2002 Model Railroader on pages 25 and 26.

Scale MPH   Load    Volts    Amperes

9.5             Free     5.5       0.20

13.6            Free     6.0       0.21

36.9            Free     9.0       0.23

55.0            Free    12.0      0.24

                Slipping  12.0      0.32

                Stalled   12.0      0.51

So, your loco running free shouldn't draw more than 1/4 amp. 

This eliminates my previous #5 possibility. 

Other possibilities:

6.) Short in tethers,

7, 8.) Short in loco wiring or circuits,

9, 10.) Short in tender wiring or circuits.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Hi, Will.

Your pick-up situation looks good.  

Sorry that took so much work.  

But hey, that's what you get for letting me know you had a good Ohm-meter.

Possibilities:

1.) Something is binding in the loco's drive train.

2.) Loco needs cleaning and lubing.

3.) The motor winding is shorted.

4.) There is a weak (defective or worn out) circuit breaker in your Power Pack.

5.) Your loco does normally draw more than 900 mAmps (=13VA/14.4V),

 meaning your power pack is too small.

Can you set up a current test circuit with a dummy load and meter

to pull 600mA, 700mA, 800mA, then 900mA to see if the power pack's

circuit breaker holds?

Thanks.

Joe Satnik

Edit: Eliminated possibility #5, as new research shows much lower loco current draws.  

Rich,

Please re-read, as I have made clarifications and corrections.

The Back-EMF of a spinning motor reduces the current (I) it draws, thus making it appear a higher calculated resistance (Rcalc).

(Power supply voltage - BackEMFrpm) / I = Rtot

Rtot is the total resistance of: the wiring to the track,  the track,  track to wheel interface, wheel to pickup interface,  loco internal wiring and motor winding.  

With "ground" at the Power Pack (-) terminal, here is the circuit:

G----(-)PPK(+)---Rtot----(+)BackEMFrpm(-)------G

What you are seeing is:

Power Supply Voltage / I = Rcalc, which is higher than Rtot.

Hope this helps.

Joe Satnik

Edit: Changed Rcalc to Rtot in 3 places.
         Added Italics

Union of Missing Limb Operators.  (UMLO)

Initiation dues:  An ..   (No, I can't say it....)

Joe

RW,

My question about your power source was to determine if the voltage was

too low (too weak to move the points over completely),

or too high (so strong the points bounce off the stock rail). 

If you like the EZ-Track manual turnouts, I suppose you would have to wait til some come up for auction. 

Another way would be to buy the track packs and sell the rest of the track pieces to others. 

Hope this helps.

Joe Satnik

Hi, Wincoll.

I was expecting 9 ohms or so, but 6 Ohms is not out of the question. 

I suspect your power pack circuit breaker may be faulty (trips too soon), and/or something is binding or needs lubrication in your loco.

Just to be assured of your electrical pick-up situation, please take these readings:

1.) With the loco and tender off the tracks and connected to each other, touch one of the 6 Ohm wheels with a probe.

Take a resistance reading with the other probe to all other wheels on that side of the loco and tender, one at a time, non driven wheels included. 

Keep readings in order, front to back of the loco-tender consist.

2.) Repeat for the other side.

Thanks.

Joe Satnik

 

RW,

What are you using as a power source for your turnout controllers and solenoids?

Thanks.

Joe Satnik

Dear Wincoll,

My "lazy" answer would be to tell you to take both your loco and power pack to your hobby shop and let them trouble shoot them.

Digital, or old analog Ohm-meter?

What range is your Ohm-meter set to? (Should be on its lowest setting.)

How many Ohms just touching the two probes together? (For meter and probe "zeroing".)

With the loco off your track, How many Ohms do you read touching a left, and a right drive wheel? 

If you want to continue, take a reading across every L-R pair of wheels on the loco and tender, with the tender harness plugged in.

Thanks.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Dave,

On the login screen, there is a settable time limit just under your password that defaults to 60 minutes.

I add a 0 (zero) behind it to change it to 600 minutes, then click the "login" button.

This gives me 10 hours before time out.

If you find yourself timed out previewing a post, click the "back arrow" button in the upper left of your screen,

highlight your entire message (left click, drag and release), then ctrl-c to copy. 

After you log in again, go to the thread and reply, then left click in the message area, then ctrl-v to paste.

Hope this helps. 

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

White Pass is 3 ft. Narrow gauge,

Alaska RR is 4'-8.5" Standard gauge.

Big float operation to Whittier (ARR).

Not sure if there is anything floating to Skagway (WPRR).

Dave,

Great troubleshooting tips and explanations. (Paper under the wheels on one side of the truck.)

I'm so used to using an Ohm-meter, I can't think of ways to troubleshoot without one.

Thanks.

Keesu,

Follow Dave's latest "paper" troubleshooting tips to the letter. 

These will help you find your loco's bad pick-ups rather quickly.

Turnout theory and troubleshooting:   

Crossovers are made up of 2 turnouts, and have 2 frogs, 2 wires and 2 terminal posts (blades?). 

Make sure that the left frog's wire isn't plugged into the right turnout's terminal post, etc.

The turnouts have a built-in electrical switch (moved by rack-and-pinion gears, IIRC)

that energizes the terminal post (blade) under the turnout for the frog wire to plug into. 

None of the 4 rails that approach the frog should be touching the metal frog,

so when the frog wire is disconnected, the frog should be

"electrically isolated" (not have a connection to anything).

When working properly, the built-in-switch should connect (energize) 

the terminal post (blade) in the following manner:

Route Selected:                  Left                    Right

Blade connected to:  Right Stock Rail        Left Stock Rail

The stock rails are the two outer-most and longest rails of the turnout.

A common failure mode of the EZ-Track turnouts is to have the rack-and-pinion gears jump a tooth.

When that happens, the blade will always be connected to one stock rail, and never the other. 

In that case, one route will work correctly, the other will cause an electrical short.

The cure is to open up the turnout and put the gear teeth back to where they belong. 

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Barry,

I was extremely busy and couldn't make it.  Sorry.

Did you enjoy it?  Any pictures? Did you buy anything?

Bill,

I'll try to PM you next year a few weeks ahead of the show. 

It often falls on the weekend just before tax day.

Joe 

Hi, Keith,

There is a possibilty that something is shorting out, but more than likely it is poor power pick-up by your loco, causing an "open".

Non-powered frog turnouts rely on the (frog-side) wheels that are not over the frog to do a good job of picking up power.

If your wheelbase is shorter than the frog, there will be a moment when all wheels are over the non-powered (dead) frog, causing a stall or hesitation.

This usually happens on higher numbered turnouts (which naturally have longer frogs).

Check your loco for good power pick-up:

1.) Turn the loco over in a padded cradle.

2.) Use an Ohm-meter (one of the functions of a Digital Multi-Meter, or DMM) set to its lowest Ohm range

to check for continuity between all pick-up wheels on the same side of the loco.  

Wheel-to-wheel resistance should read near zero Ohms (less than 2 Ohms?).

3.) Repeat for the pick-up wheels on the other side of the loco.

Dirty wheels can cause these problems, too, so clean your wheels.

Another possibility, some turnouts have rivets holding (and transferring power to) the point rail that can loosen and lose continuity over time.

You could disconnect your power pack from the rails and check your point rail continuity with your Ohm-meter.  

Hope this helps.  

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Edit: added Italics for grammar and clarification

Dear strawb63,

Hornby straight track has small slots between certain ties (across the pond - "sleepers") and the rails that the Hornby power connector can slip through.

There is an arrow molded into the bottom of the Hornby ties to help locate the slots.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik

Dear MM,

Do you mean the 100 Watt  Z1000 ?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTH-40-1000-Z-1000-Transformer-with-100-Watts-of-Power-/301528242623?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item46347bd9bf

As far as I can tell, that has a chopped sine wave output, which may be confusing your loco's sound triggers. 

Try a pure sine wave output transformer and see how your loco reacts.

Any postwar transformer should have pure sine wave outputs. I use an old 1033.   

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Joe Satnik