Annoying Fault on layout

[csvt2004]

Hi All,

 I am hoping that someone may be able to help me eliminate a rather annoying fault.

 

The layout is in a shed. It is powered by a NCE power pro system (5A). I use tortoise point machines, one changeover contact is used to switch the common crossing and the other contact is used for signalling. Recently two tortoise machines have developed a fault. One of the changeover contacts on each has gone open circuit. So I got one of those Hex Juicer things to save me having to change the tortoise machines. All wired up and working ok.

 

Here is the fault. Switch the layout on at the mains. Select any sound fitted loco. As soon as loco gets to the common xing of one of the hex juicer fed xings, the whole layout trips out. IE the command station trips. One second later power comes back on, sound restarts and loco continues on it's merry way. It does not fail again for the rest of the operating session. The only way to get it to fail again is to power the layout down and switch it on again.  The back up battery in the command station was last renewed in 2012.

 

Any ideas?

[Mick Bonwick]

 

Switch the layout on at the mains. Select any sound fitted loco. As soon as loco gets to the common xing of one of the hex juicer fed xings, the whole layout trips out. IE the command station trips. One second later power comes back on, sound restarts and loco continues on it's merry way. It does not fail again for the rest of the operating session. The only way to get it to fail again is to power the layout down and switch it on again.  The back up battery in the command station was last renewed in 2012.

 

Any ideas?

 

I suggest you try swapping over the power feed wires to the frog juicer.

[298]

Have you set the 4amp jumpers to 'on' to cope with the higher current...?

 

Or is the reverse loop jumper still in place which might confuse the juicer into thinking it is working as a pair...?

[csvt2004]

Hi Mick,

 Thanks for the reply. I swopped the feed wires over and that instantly cured one set of points. Progress! On the other set, the fault still seems to  exist, however with my multimeter set on ac volts, I have a potential difference within the common xing itself. Suspect one of those really thin wires under the peco point may have come adrift. Would that cause the failure do you think?

[Junctionmad]

Have you tried running the loco over the point repeatidy changing the direction of the point. It could be the frog juicer is sensing the short too slowly and the NCE is tripping

[Mick Bonwick]

Hi Mick,

 Thanks for the reply. I swopped the feed wires over and that instantly cured one set of points. Progress! On the other set, the fault still seems to  exist, however with my multimeter set on ac volts, I have a potential difference within the common xing itself. Suspect one of those really thin wires under the peco point may have come adrift. Would that cause the failure do you think?

 

If you mean the wire that comes from the common crossing (frog) it would certainly be a problem. That is the wire that should be connected to the frog juicer to effect the changeover.

[csvt2004]

Well I spent ages in the shed yesterday with this fault. I have another Hex frog juicer further along the layout and it has two unused outputs, so I ran a couple of long leads from that to the 2 problem sets and the fault disappeared. So it would seem that the fault lies with the original Hex juicer. I am going to swap the outputs around today to see if its just the output 5 and 6 that I have been using that are at fault.