Well I have got a few lines on my layout running but I am a loss with two transformers hooked up. All my loco's are analog. I have one transformer hooked up to run the outer circuit and an extra half a loop on the outside of this circuit which is connected to the one transofrmer. The other transformer is connected for the inner circuit. With two locos going, one on the outer circuit and one on the inner circuit,when I increase the voltage on the inner circuit transformer, both locos stop. I then decrease the transgformer to zero and both loco's are running (inner slower) using the one transformer (outside circuit) which is designated for the outer circiut I thought. The same applies if running both using the inner circuit transformer and iincrease the outher circuit transformer voltage, both loco's will stop. What I am doing wrong as I want to use another transformer for the shunting yards so total of 3.

Hi Dale,

At a guess, I'd first check that the two Transformers are "in phase". Do you notice an increased hum from either trafo when the loco's come to a stop?

Without getting too technical, the mains power in to your transformers is coming at as AC (Alternating Current), as opposed to a battery for example which is DC (Direct Current).

You still have two wires, however instead of one side always being positive and the other always negative, they are swapping polarity 50 times (Hz) a second (60Hz in the US). The alternating cycle is often termed "phasing", hence the label "Phase" for the incoming mains Brown wire, and "Neutral" for the incoming Blue wire.

In Germany, they use a two-pin wall plug which can go in either way round unlike our keyed plug with the earth pin. So they can simply reverse the plug at the wall and problem solved. For us however, and NZ, GB, South Africa and a number of other countries, if you have multiple transformers, you really want to rewire them so they are all the same.

Rather than go into a longer explantion here, I thought I'd do a quick search to see who else has covered it - why re-invent the wheel?

http://www.helmutshobbies.com/tech_bulletins.htm

http://www.lctm.info/Fil...Marklinwiringbooklet.pdf (you want PAGE 12)

These two articles should hopefully give you the info you need.

I cannot stress enough that quite apart from the trouble it gives you with the loco's stopping, there is a HIGHLY DANGEROUS aspect to the Trafo's being out of phase, which can result in much higher voltages than expected to be present at certain Trafo terminals (input and output).

I ran a Clinic on this at the MMRC some years back and drew a few gasps from the assembled audience when they saw the worst case scenario!!

If you find that they are out of phase, the simplest solution is simply to rewire the plug and swap the phase & neutral leads. If they are original German mains leads their colour-coding will not match ours anyway. It's most likely Black & White.

Hope this helps - it would be my pick as the most likely cause of your issue.

Cheers

Cookee
Kiwi in Melbourne

With trains running on both tracks with one transformer off, phase is not the first thing I would check.

With two circuits set up correctly, phase matters only when a loco passes from one circuit to the other.