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Yesterday I had a track short circuit that blew the 5-amp fuse between Z-4000 transformer and Gargraves track.  At the time, I did not know what had caused the short and my Lionel 6-85174 Southern #1372 O Scale LEGACY Steam USRA Pacific locomotive went into a funk ... totally unresponsive to Legacy Command Control.  Definitely and aaahhh sh** moment that persisted the rest of the day.  See atch'd memo documenting my troubleshooting.  Note that in addition to the 5-amp quick blow track fuse, I also have transient voltage suppression (TVS) diodes installed about every ten feet on my 14x10 ft oval track layout. 

Good news is that the engine apparently had a good nights sleep and immediately responded to Command controls today upon initial track power up.  Next good news is that yesterday's short circuit was a combination of sloppy rolling stock wheel truck, too narrow wheel gauge, and a switch with too tight a gap between outer rail and powered center rail stub.  Atch'd photos show the short circuit culprit location ... after I had nudged the tip of the switch powered center rail stub away from the offending rolling stock wheel.  Pre-fix, the inside surface of the truck wheel was contacting the side of the switch powered center rail stub. 

My previous experiences with blown fuse due to rolling stock derails was that my other Legacy locos would immediately respond to Legacy control upon replacing the blown fuse and powering up the track again.  But this engine was unresponsive all yesterday afternoon. My remaining puzzlement is why or how did the Legacy engine apparently self-heal overnight?  It was totally and consistently non-responsive to any Legacy Command Control yesterday.  Yet, this morning, the engine immediately responded to Legacy hand held control upon selecting its loco number and pressing the hand held 'start' button.  I don't get it.  

Regards,

Tom

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Last edited by S-Runner
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I don’t know why the engine healed itself either, but I’m all too familiar with some of the other problems you had.

 I’ve replaced too many fuses and it can be a PITA if you have a hard to find short.  I use 10A mini automotive type fuses.  Don’t know if the 5A fuses are faster, but the 10A are plenty fast.  I added 10A magnetic hydraulic breakers some time ago, but they hardly ever beat the fuses.  Recently I replaced the 10A breakers with Eaton FAZ B type breakers (some 3A and some 4A).  They beat the fuses and the 4 amp breaker didn’t trip when running three trains: MTH Premier Pioneer Zephyr (with incandescent lighting), Williams GG1 (converted to DCS PS3) pulling 7 passenger cars (4 LED lighted), MTH PRR G-5s pulling 8 loaded military flat cars and one lighted caboose.  There is another thread here on breakers.  You might want to look into it.

 Menards cars are a good bang for the buck, but I have found that I have to fiddle with them to get them to run well on my layout.  I’ve adjusted the gauge on most to 27.5 mm.  Axles can be removed from box cars and hoppers.  Usually you can pry the axles out without disassembling the truck.  I didn’t manage to pry them out on some newer cars so I just left them.  The truck sides can be removed by removing the Philips head screws, but I have had a few cars that had bad threads on the truck so be careful.  I fixed the trucks with stripped threads using crazy glue.  Once the axles are removed, the gauge can be adjusted using a Timko puller or equivalent.  The box cars tend to wobble.  That can be fixed by installing a spacer between the truck C clip and the frame.  For hoppers, add weight to get them closer to NMRA recommendations.

Replying to some of the comments:

1.  Selected 5-amp quick blow fuses because a) their spec'd time constant is faster than 10-amp fuses, b) I want to minimize the time that my Legacy electronics are exposed to current/voltage surges caused by short circuit events, c) my consists typically run at ~2.5 amps max for my highest current drawing consist ... incandescent passenger consist.  So, 5-amps have been doing well for me for over a year now.  The only reason I blew the five fuses recently was because it took me a while to figure out what was causing the short circuit.  Now that I've widened the switch track gap, the short circuit due to Menards narrow gauge wheels on my switches went away.  I've only been running Menards rolling stock for a couple of weeks and the short circuit was the first time I'd backed the consist up.  Tolerance stacked up on that and, voila ... short circuit.  That' problem is now behind me.

2.  Ref "Lehigh74" comments about tweeking Menards trucks/wheels to get better wheel gauge and general running.  Appreciate that info.  I don't have a wheel puller (yet).  Will consider in future if/when I have additional issues with Menards rolling stock.  Most of my rolling stock are Lionel which have pretty good truck/wheel tolerances.  I won't be buying any more Menards stuff for now ... what I bought were to experiment on how they look/run ... 2 tankers, 2 boxcars, 2 hoppers.    My modest 14x10 ft layout does not need excess rolling stock to sit around on sidings, etc.

Regards,

Tom

Last edited by S-Runner

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OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Suite 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
www.ogaugerr.com

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