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Offline Thewolf  
#1 Posted : 27 February 2018 20:42:25(UTC)
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Thewolf

Canada   
Joined: 08/09/2015(UTC)
Posts: 2,035
Location: Saint Mathias dur Richelieu-Canada
Hi guysCool

I broke my ass to make my contact rails.

I install them... I do a test... four don't work... I check... patiently... I re-install the 4 deficient... I do a test... everything works.... for 3 hours yesterday.

This morning... a loco is rolling... everywhere on the layout... oups 2 contacts light up as if the block was occupied... no wagons... no locos... but the block is occupied... a nice red line

on the Itrain TCO.

I check the rail... the 74030 are present... the blue wire is correct... with the multimeter there is no electrical continuity... under the table the blue wire of both rails are not in contact with

other wires brown, yellow or red.

There's plenty to throw it all out the window... oups.Cursing

It's nice out there, so, uh, go for a walk in the sun,

Thewolf
Project The Richelieu Valley Railway-CS2-Track C- Itrain-Digital
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Offline PMPeter  
#2 Posted : 27 February 2018 21:35:22(UTC)
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PMPeter

Canada   
Joined: 04/04/2013(UTC)
Posts: 1,274
Location: Port Moody, BC
You've had numerous posts regarding this ongoing problem with your home made contact rails. So there must be something that is causing them to work intermittently and then not.

In your description you mention blue wires from each rail. You should only have 1 wire coming from the isolated contact rail going to your S88 decoder. There should be no wire from the non-isolated rail. Can you explain why you have one from each rail?

Peter
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Offline Thewolf  
#3 Posted : 27 February 2018 21:59:24(UTC)
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Thewolf

Canada   
Joined: 08/09/2015(UTC)
Posts: 2,035
Location: Saint Mathias dur Richelieu-Canada
Originally Posted by: PMPeter Go to Quoted Post
You've had numerous posts regarding this ongoing problem with your home made contact rails. So there must be something that is causing them to work intermittently and then not.

In your description you mention blue wires from each rail. You should only have 1 wire coming from the isolated contact rail going to your S88 decoder. There should be no wire from the non-isolated rail. Can you explain why you have one from each rail?

Peter


What ?? What ??

I wrote that the contact rails have a blue wire to s88.

There's no other wire

Ah ...ok...I see ... maybe you're talking about this: ''under the table the blue wire of both rails are not in contact with other wires brown, yellow or red.''I read somewhere that as far as possible the wires for the feedback should be kept away from the power wires to avoid interference.

Anyway everything is fine... for 3 hours then suddenly a problem in two places.

Anyway, I'll see you later... in the new place.

Thewolf

Project The Richelieu Valley Railway-CS2-Track C- Itrain-Digital
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Offline PMPeter  
#4 Posted : 27 February 2018 23:24:34(UTC)
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PMPeter

Canada   
Joined: 04/04/2013(UTC)
Posts: 1,274
Location: Port Moody, BC
Originally Posted by: Thewolf Go to Quoted Post

Ah ...ok...I see ... maybe you're talking about this: ''under the table the blue wire of both rails are not in contact with other wires brown, yellow or red.''I read somewhere that as far as possible the wires for the feedback should be kept away from the power wires to avoid interference.



Yes that is what I was referring to. It sounded like you were bringing 2 wires for each contact track. I didn't realize you were talking about 2 contact tracks.

Just out of curiosity, whose S88 modules are you using? If they are Maerklin, are you using the standard flat cable to connect the S88 modules or another cable that is more shielded?

I too had a similar issue when I first started and then got rid of all of the Maerklin flat cables and replaced them with the LDT round cables. That got rid of a lot of the issues, however, I still had 1 contact track that worked fine when I first made it and a day later it showed solid yellow on the CS2 no matter what I did. I rebuilt it 3 times with the same issue each time. I ordered an LDT optically isolated S88 decoder and the issue went away and has never reappeared.

Peter
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Offline Danlake  
#5 Posted : 27 February 2018 23:44:18(UTC)
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Danlake

New Zealand   
Joined: 03/08/2011(UTC)
Posts: 1,571
Hi

I have +50 home contact tracks and once they have been installed, tested and functioning I never subsequent have any faults of them

As I wrote in previous post make sure you have a visual gap between the steel rail ends of the contact track and the other tracks it’s connected too.

I have experienced with new contact tracks in test phase that everything appears ok, but once on the layout I get faults. 99% of the time is due to the fact the I hadn’t used a dremel or similiar tool to grind a bit of the rail ends. Some tracks are born with a big gap, while others are cut at an angle (when looking from top it appears to be a gap, but bottom part of rails are actually touching each other.

So if your tolerances are to narrow, you will find with fluctuating temperatures and rolling stock on tracks the rails will move so ever slightly.

So my advise is always to grind a little bit of the rail ends, just to make sueThumpUp

Brgds Lasse
Digital 11m2 layout / C (M&K) tracks / Era IV / CS3 60226 / Train Controller Gold 9 with 4D sound. Mainly Danish and German Locomotives.
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thanks 2 users liked this useful post by Danlake
Offline Thewolf  
#6 Posted : 28 February 2018 00:48:11(UTC)
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Thewolf

Canada   
Joined: 08/09/2015(UTC)
Posts: 2,035
Location: Saint Mathias dur Richelieu-Canada
Originally Posted by: PMPeter Go to Quoted Post
Originally Posted by: Thewolf Go to Quoted Post

Ah ...ok...I see ... maybe you're talking about this: ''under the table the blue wire of both rails are not in contact with other wires brown, yellow or red.''I read somewhere that as far as possible the wires for the feedback should be kept away from the power wires to avoid interference.



Yes that is what I was referring to. It sounded like you were bringing 2 wires for each contact track. I didn't realize you were talking about 2 contact tracks.

Just out of curiosity, whose S88 modules are you using? If they are Maerklin, are you using the standard flat cable to connect the S88 modules or another cable that is more shielded?

I too had a similar issue when I first started and then got rid of all of the Maerklin flat cables and replaced them with the LDT round cables. That got rid of a lot of the issues, however, I still had 1 contact track that worked fine when I first made it and a day later it showed solid yellow on the CS2 no matter what I did. I rebuilt it 3 times with the same issue each time. I ordered an LDT optically isolated S88 decoder and the issue went away and has never reappeared.

Peter



Peter,

I use the Viessmann 5217 Feedback Decoder for S88 bus and the standard flat cable Marklin.

I'd heard about LDT products but I never went deeper. I guess you're using LDT.

Can you give me the references? I need it for the final layout because we may move earlier than expected.

I don't want to have so many problems later on

Thank you

Thewolf


Project The Richelieu Valley Railway-CS2-Track C- Itrain-Digital
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Offline Thewolf  
#7 Posted : 28 February 2018 00:53:46(UTC)
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Thewolf

Canada   
Joined: 08/09/2015(UTC)
Posts: 2,035
Location: Saint Mathias dur Richelieu-Canada
Originally Posted by: Danlake Go to Quoted Post
Hi

I have +50 home contact tracks and once they have been installed, tested and functioning I never subsequent have any faults of them

As I wrote in previous post make sure you have a visual gap between the steel rail ends of the contact track and the other tracks it’s connected too.

I have experienced with new contact tracks in test phase that everything appears ok, but once on the layout I get faults. 99% of the time is due to the fact the I hadn’t used a dremel or similiar tool to grind a bit of the rail ends. Some tracks are born with a big gap, while others are cut at an angle (when looking from top it appears to be a gap, but bottom part of rails are actually touching each other.

So if your tolerances are to narrow, you will find with fluctuating temperatures and rolling stock on tracks the rails will move so ever slightly.

So my advise is always to grind a little bit of the rail ends, just to make sueThumpUp

Brgds Lasse


Hi Lasse

I agree with what you're writing, but above all I noticed that it's a very capricious system.

A little nothing can make everything fail.

I replaced center rail insulators and all is correct .

Thewolf

Project The Richelieu Valley Railway-CS2-Track C- Itrain-Digital
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thanks 1 user liked this useful post by Thewolf
Offline PMPeter  
#8 Posted : 28 February 2018 00:54:40(UTC)
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PMPeter

Canada   
Joined: 04/04/2013(UTC)
Posts: 1,274
Location: Port Moody, BC
Originally Posted by: Danlake Go to Quoted Post
Hi

I have +50 home contact tracks and once they have been installed, tested and functioning I never subsequent have any faults of them

As I wrote in previous post make sure you have a visual gap between the steel rail ends of the contact track and the other tracks it’s connected too.

I have experienced with new contact tracks in test phase that everything appears ok, but once on the layout I get faults. 99% of the time is due to the fact the I hadn’t used a dremel or similiar tool to grind a bit of the rail ends. Some tracks are born with a big gap, while others are cut at an angle (when looking from top it appears to be a gap, but bottom part of rails are actually touching each other.

So if your tolerances are to narrow, you will find with fluctuating temperatures and rolling stock on tracks the rails will move so ever slightly.

So my advise is always to grind a little bit of the rail ends, just to make sueThumpUp

Brgds Lasse


Totally agree. I always make the gap cuts with a Dremel from both directions all the way through the rail and partially into the plastic to make sure I don't have the angle issue. I run a small file through the gaps to make sure I have no lingering metal and then I also add a small piece of styrene below the cut just to make sure that i don't have any leakage from the centre rail metal below the plastic. I then fill the gaps with epoxy to ensure the rails don't shift. Out of the 20-30 contact tracks that I have made, I only had the one where no matter what I did, I could not get it to function properly until I added the optically isolated LDT decoder.

However, back to this thread, he is using C track so it is not the same issue as we have when cutting rail on K track. My point was more regarding the type of decoder used whether standard or optically isolated, since that solved my problem once and hopefully for all.

Peter
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Offline Thewolf  
#9 Posted : 28 February 2018 00:59:55(UTC)
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Thewolf

Canada   
Joined: 08/09/2015(UTC)
Posts: 2,035
Location: Saint Mathias dur Richelieu-Canada
Originally Posted by: PMPeter Go to Quoted Post
Originally Posted by: Danlake Go to Quoted Post
Hi

I have +50 home contact tracks and once they have been installed, tested and functioning I never subsequent have any faults of them

As I wrote in previous post make sure you have a visual gap between the steel rail ends of the contact track and the other tracks it’s connected too.

I have experienced with new contact tracks in test phase that everything appears ok, but once on the layout I get faults. 99% of the time is due to the fact the I hadn’t used a dremel or similiar tool to grind a bit of the rail ends. Some tracks are born with a big gap, while others are cut at an angle (when looking from top it appears to be a gap, but bottom part of rails are actually touching each other.

So if your tolerances are to narrow, you will find with fluctuating temperatures and rolling stock on tracks the rails will move so ever slightly.

So my advise is always to grind a little bit of the rail ends, just to make sueThumpUp

Brgds Lasse


Totally agree. I always make the gap cuts with a Dremel from both directions all the way through the rail and partially into the plastic to make sure I don't have the angle issue. I run a small file through the gaps to make sure I have no lingering metal and then I also add a small piece of styrene below the cut just to make sure that i don't have any leakage from the centre rail metal below the plastic. I then fill the gaps with epoxy to ensure the rails don't shift. Out of the 20-30 contact tracks that I have made, I only had the one where no matter what I did, I could not get it to function properly until I added the optically isolated LDT decoder.

However, back to this thread, he is using C track so it is not the same issue as we have when cutting rail on K track. My point was more regarding the type of decoder used whether standard or optically isolated, since that solved my problem once and hopefully for all.

Peter


Peter, if I understood correctly, neither you nor Lasse are using C track

Project The Richelieu Valley Railway-CS2-Track C- Itrain-Digital
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Offline PMPeter  
#10 Posted : 28 February 2018 04:20:24(UTC)
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PMPeter

Canada   
Joined: 04/04/2013(UTC)
Posts: 1,274
Location: Port Moody, BC
I use a mixture of K and C track. As per many other posts I have responded to, I have slowly gotten rid of most of my C track due to its brittle nature and resulting breakages, the noise factor, and the unreliability of the under track switch motors. So for my K track I mainly use contact track sections that I have made, and for the C track I use reed switches and a few 24995 contact tracks.

Here is the link to the LDT website LDT

You can also switch the language over to French which may make it easier for you. As per the previous comment I have switched all of my S88 flat cables that either go to the CS2 or an actual Marklin S88 module over to their round cables of various lengths and now also have 7 of their S88 decoders. Between the LDT S88 modules I run standard Ethernet cables.

I have also changed my digital turntable decoder over to LDT's version and love it.

Peter
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thanks 1 user liked this useful post by PMPeter
Offline amartinezv  
#11 Posted : 28 February 2018 11:22:00(UTC)
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amartinezv

Spain   
Joined: 25/08/2004(UTC)
Posts: 320
Location: Madrid,
Hello

I have 1 s88 of marklin, 3 of LDT and 2 more made by a German who sells them on ebay. No problem, everything works fine.

In one of my hidden stations I use via C and here during the installation of the retromodules I found that the isolated rail, sometimes making contact with the adjacent rail, I solved it by placing a little kitchen film between the two rails.

And sometimes when I have had to cut via K, some residue of the cutting material can remain and be removed with a brush or compressed air.

Best regards
Antonio Martínez
marklin, IB, era 3, Train controller
www.raildigital.es/davidruso
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thanks 1 user liked this useful post by amartinezv
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