I have a set of 5 Bachmann heavyweight HO passenger cars. One of them is causing shorts on my layout. Is there a known fix for this?
Does it cause a short the minute you set it on the tracks? Or does it only short in certain spots on the layout?
I have a MRC Prodigy Express2 system and it detects the short as soon as the car is placed on the tracks. Anywhere. Only with this one car. I did this by clearing the layout an checking them individually.
Look at the wheelsets. They should each have one insulated hub. Is there a truck where the insulated hubs are on opposite sides? If so, flip one of them around. The front truck should pick up off one rail, the rear truck the other rail. Take that into account when you decide which wheelset to flip.
I checked for an insulated hub but my cars have an insulated bushing where the wheel meets the axle. I places an ohm meter on the wheels on the same axle and the platic bushing isn isolating the wheels from each other. It is intermittent, but enough at times to short. Maybe I should replace the factory wheels with plastic on non conductive axles?
You should replace the wheelset with another one just like it, If you use ones with plastic wheels, you won't be able to have lighting in your car,
I will look for metal wheels with plastic axles. That should stop the shorts