Hi Pierre,

Welcome to the forum, and to the wonderful world of model railroading!

Have you checked your connections? Where exactly on the layout are these "5 tiny dead spots"?

You and your father have a nice little layout out there. Enjoy!

Cheers,
Ranjit

Hi Pierre,

Welcome to the forum.

Hey!

Connect wire in each every 2 metres,by counting trackparts.
Like this:First track as feeder,then count to at least ten parts of track and connect next wire.
And besides...18 watts seems to small as powerfeeder!
Because i can see at yours picture,which you have an doubleheaded swiss locomotiv.
This locomotiv draw power at least 10 watt,by using it!!!
Good luck!

There is also a physical limit as to how much power a Mobile Station will provide and a 60VA transformer will not increase that limit. The only way is to split up the layout into sections and use boosters to power up the extra sections. I am not sure though if a booster can be used on a layout with a Mobile Station as the controller.

Looking at the layout two feeders would do at the ends furthest from the main feeder. Take all the locos etc off the the layout and just run one loco. If this sorts the problem then you may need a booster (again looking at the layout I would not think this is necessary)
Also you could try : where you have a dead spot remove that bit of track and replace it with a similar part and see if that solves the problem (original was dirty or faulty)

dave

Welcome to forum Pierre,

A good cleaning as suggested and Feeder Wires will eliminate most problems.

NN

Hi guys,

Thanks very much for the warm welcome and all the great replies

My Dad is thrilled seeing an internet forum for the first time (!), and grateful for all the suggestions already posted.

We are just going to go now and take off all the locos but one, check the MS power rateing, and reconnect/swap/rotate track parts, and look for 1200 grit to try all your suggestions. Really chuffed, thanks!

Can someone please explain what exactly is meant by feeder? The transformer now has the main output, plus 2 additional ports of (2x black, 2x yellow) My Dad has one yellow and black currently connected, I believe for his switches and signals.

Cool, thought it might be something like that. I will hook that up. I don't know exactly but it looks about 8-12m of track in total.

I just spent the last hour racing the below with the track cleaner wagon attached to it around the layout. I let Pa walk out before I put the hammer down on full power and it chuffed around the layout about 30 times by the time I had finished working out multiple switching layouts to cover the lot!

[img]http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQWmFNfKVsDtwgyzq9zRm3R1-q_23zQwS6YGKcvj-Hk98HVYjzfCg[/img]

I took out 3 areas of track and rubbed, rotated, clicked in and out multiple times and so far there are only 2 spots left where power has not been restored (one is on the bridge ramp section). Doing so did make me wonder about screwing the tracks down - if you do and dont use the set for some months, then it will be a hassle to have to unscrew every time a track is giving trouble. I'll get some fine grit for my dad and leave for him in case.

I will try with two loco's now, including the big double green one, and see how it goes.
Later this week I will add a couple of feeders in also. Pa says his Mobile Station is an older one and I cannot see an "Option" menu on it. He is interested in a central station but I'll make another post on that.

Sorry, my error: it's OPTIONEN in German and SETUP in English (OPTIONS in French and OPTIES in Nederlands; would have been too simple to call it OPTIONS in English).

So press Menu/ESC, turn to SETUP, click OK, turn to INFO, click OK, then turn the knob to see all info screens.
For an old MS1, there should be "OVC:" somewhere.

You can add feeders direct from the controller or take them from any track part. As I said above,with your layout two extra feeders should be enough at the far ends of your layout. Try with a feeder at your dead spot. Just take two wires from the feeder track at the MS1 and attach to the track with the dead spot (Red to B and Brown to O) any colour wire will do as long as they are connected properly. No need to drill holes at this point just take them over the top of the layout and if the dead spot has gone them you can wire up from underneath.
C track is very good and although needs cleaning from time to time it will be OK providing it gets the power it needs.

You can also disconnect half of the layout and see if the half that remains worls perfectly. If it does then feeders should solve the problem. Easy to do with C track in a few seconds.

dave

Hi Pierre, and welcome to the forum. Are the dead spots near the signals? You need the
little red isolators for the signal blocks. Perhaps these isolators are in the tracks but t
the signals are not connected yet? Could this be? Check it out. Good luck! Peter

I'm not a digital user and I know you said small spots but could this still occur?

A Märklin 36 VA power supply would be a better idea.
You don't need a 3.75 A transformer to get the most out of a 1.2 A Mobile Station (the 18 VA/1 A power supply is not far from the maximum anyway). A power supply with stabilized output will be better than an unstabilized transformer.
Cheap universal laptop power supplies can also be used.