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DCC Turnout

Started by tigerthelion, January 04, 2011, 07:39:03 AM

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tigerthelion

Last night I finally wired my main track to rest of my layout, which consists of a turntable and a few tracks coming from it. I had already programmed it for DCC was was working fine until I began running one of my Bachmann locos. When I turn on/off the cab lights, it causes the turnout to stop responding and I have to reset the power. I am still testing and working on it... but so far everything works just fine, with the exception of that loco. As soon as I resolute I will update this post... in the meantime, if anyone else has had this problem, let me know. Thanks!

tigerthelion

Update!

I think it has more to do with the fact that there is an auto reverser on the turntable and when it "trips" it causes the dcc to fail on the turnout... I have to press the stop button and reset the power, but I don't know if there is a permanent fix...

hawaiiho

#2
Just so you know you are not alone.
I have one of several Bachmann DCC turnouts that does the same thing when I run either of two  Bachmann DCC  locomotives, then either reverse the locomotive's direction or operate it's DCC controlled lights.
I have more three dozen DCC locomotives and only those two Bachmann DCC locomotives of the dozen or more that I have,  cause that one  DCC turnout to quit responding. The rest of the DCC locomotives(including the Bachmanns) cause no problem. And there is no problem with the other DCC turnouts.
My thought has been and still is that some kind of interference is occurring between the decoder in that one turnout and the decoder in those two locomotives.
Since I have two totally separate layouts, the easy solution for me was to move the two offending locomotives to the other layout.
I wish I could offer a solution that would solve your problems that easily.

You might try calling Bachmann's Tech people, or possibly The Bach-Man may have an idea.


atari

I'd like to revive this topic rather than start a new one.

I have a Bachmann setup. I have a layout of >100 pieces of track Four DCC engines and a few DC engines that I run one at a time with four DCC turnout/crossovers. Every so often, one of my DCC Crossovers quits working. If I power cycle, it comes back. Its not the only turnout to do this but it is the one that does it 90% of the time.

Oddly that same frequent offender DCC crossover also switches itself when the power comes on to reroute my train. I've reconfigured the default position of this crossover but, after a while, it goes back to its old habits so the reconfigure doesn't stick permanently.

Is this a problem with my crossover or is it a problem with a mix of DCC devices as suggested above?
Is it just general flakiness with DCC and to be expected or could it be that 2.5amps is not enough for my layout?

I'm not sure what my expectations should be so I'm not sure what to do to fix it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Jerrys HO

atari

I prefer to manually switch for easier control when running multiple trains.
With that said I have one of my crossover's that I bought is DCC. It has the same characteristics you describe. Every time I power up my layout it automatically switches.

QuoteIs it just general flakiness with DCC and to be expected or could it be that 2.5amps is not enough for my layout?
Power is not the issue as I also have a 5 amp booster connected and it still does this.
I have never had it quit working as you stated happens to yours.
I will replace it with a manual one to match the return crossover (left and right) as soon as I can,but for right now I will just keep flipping it at start up.

Jerry