Success!

We're back up and running after replacement and rewiring of the circuit breakers for the railroad!

The first move to test our new breakers was a 52-car ELSE.  Here that train is in photos, coming and going at milepost 293, climbing towards the summit at CP 282.  Thanks to sound construction techniques, labeled terminals, and the patience to have done it right the first time, I was able to quickly replace the 6 breakers with the issues by simply substituting the new ones, which all work as intended.  This time I remembered to ensure that the 'SETUP' jumpers were not left on the boards!

One thing I did change as part of this process was the bus wire that ran to the breakers from the command station.  All of this was originally solid 12-gauge wire, which is very stiff and therefore puts some strain on the fine soldered joints on the printed-circuit boards of the EB-1 breakers.  I changed all of it to 14-gauge stranded wire, which is much more flexible.  The track bus all remains the original solid 12-gage copper wire.

So, we're back in business on the Onondaga Cutoff!  Later this week, we hope to begin running wire from the BD-20 detectors (see the January 2013 blog entries) back to the command station, which will enable the computer to 'see' the entire railroad from a block detection standpoint.  Exciting developments coming soon!

~RGDave

Sometimes you Win, Sometimes...

...you have to fix what you lost!

Most of you who follow the blog know that I'm running a PowerPro 5-amp system with a second booster unit for my HO scale railroad. I have 6 EB-1 circuit breakers, three on each booster unit, that until this weekend were working perfectly. Since all 6 need the same settings, I never changed the factory-set stationary decoder address of 2044 (which, by the way, is not an address I use on the model railroad for any locomotive).

This weekend during an operating session, the EB-1's all stopped tripping, and therefore the boosters themselves would trip when there was a short.

In troubleshooting, I realized that I had never removed the 'SETUP' shunt on any of the EB-1's, which is explicitly mentioned in the directions.  For two years, it was no problem, due to simple programming that did not affect the CV's that control EB-1's.  Recently, however, I have installed the JMRI software to assist in programming and to control the detection and signal system.  JMRI allows speed matching of locomotives as well, a huge asset with a locomotive fleet as varied as mine.  While it is simple to do this on the computer in JMRI, the computer is actually doing quite a bit of CV programming in the background...including several that affect the EB-1's when the SETUP jumper is left installed.  In effect, I had reprogrammed my EB-1's, and they no longer worked!

I did attempt to follow the directions and do a factory reset per the instructions, which had no effect.  I even called NCE and asked for advice, and even their advice to enable the manual reset had no effect.   It was time to bite the bullet and order 6 new EB-1's for the railroad.

Long story short - FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS!  Some days are diamonds, and some days...well, they're rocks.

~RGDave

New Power Districts

As planned, I went ahead and installed two new power districts over the course of the week - both of them were installed on the visible main line.  Since the visible part of the layout is at the top of the grade, it requires the most current to keep trains operating.  Locomotives draw more and more current as the entire consist hits the grade.  Upon reach the summit at each end of the upper level, though, the locomotives must continue on level track while pulling the train up the grade, and so still draw quite a bit of current.

Installing two new power districts, each with its own EB-1 breaker set to 5 amps, I seem to have eliminated current-draw power interruptions.  With two heavy trains at mostly open throttles, 3 Athearn units each, working up 2% grades with 35-40 cars, I had no issues - a nice relief, given the prospective cost of adding another booster to the system.

Soon, I will be installing headlights in my older Athearn units for the first time, and will also work to finalize the design of the engine yard.  Winter is a great time for model railroading!

~RGDave

Learning the Hard Way

Building a railroad like this in my home means that much of what I am doing, I am learning by myself for the first time.   Therefore, a good part of the fine points of construction, operation, and electronics are learned trial-by-error...figuring out problems when the happen, and hoping I don't destroy electrical components!

So far, I did toast a decoder (due to a steel tool fouling the track, which tripped the breaker, but due to the length of time that passed before I realized it, the decoder shorted out anyway).  I have also had to learn the hard way with my breaker settings and power district design. 

My NCE EB-1 breakers were installed as per the directions that come with the units.  While the booster itself has an internal breaker, I wanted to add a layer of protection before causing that breaker to trip, to ensure that the booster would last.  The additional layer includes the bank of EB-1 external breakers with a factory-set limit of 2.5 amps per breaker.  While fine for a small layout or for a large layout with no grades and small trains, this limit quickly began to get in the way of my operations.  Thankfully, NCE predicted this, and allows the user to adjust the trip limit of each breaker using jumpers provided with the kit.  I bumped mine up in steps, per the instructions, and stopped with each breaker set to 5 amps, since if I went higher the breaker in the 5-amp booster itself would trip before the EB-1.  All worked well with this idea until last night.

I was running two large trains, in different directions, when suddenly the breaker protecting the upper level tripped again.  The issue here is that this load is going to be standard for me:  two trains with more than 30 cars, 5 Athearn units total, moving upgrade on separate districts.   However, I noticed the breaker only tripped when both trains were pulling uphill AND then one crossed the insulated gaps onto the same power district as the other.  On separate breakers, 3 units and a big train is fine, even upgrade. 

This leaves one solution:  time for another power district.

Fortunately, I purchased a total of six EB-1 breakers, one of which is reserved for the short line.  Therefore I have two remaining breakers.  My plan now is to add another insulated gap just east of CP280, and a new power district, allowing trains in different directions to pull over the top of the grade on DIFFERENT breakers, instead of the same breaker.  It is my belief that this will solve the issues of overdraw on the district.  But...time will tell. 

Stay tuned!