Dumb Question About Unitrack Turnouts

[choochoo22]

Hi, have a basic loop with siding basically A or C in this photo: https://www.nscaledivision.com/images/Kato Images/KATO_CV2_Back.jpg

On a whim with a set of piers I created a flyover and inverted the connection, connected the inner turnout rail to outer turnout rail, and it works but all rails stay live so I can't park a train. The current isn't enough to drive both trains though.

Guessing its a insulating joiner problem, I pulled a rail off and checked turnouts with a volt meter and they work correctly (not sending power down the wrong line) but when the loop is reconnected it's live again. Using Kato Unitrack 20-240 R150mm turnouts set to power routing. Have feeder rail on left side of switches if using Layout A in photo. Any thoughts would be great.

 

Edited April 19, 2021 by disturbman
direct image link & grammar & punctuation

[Sheffie]

I think I’d need to see a track diagram or photo to be sure I’m visualizing this correctly, but I’m going to guess that one set of points is not set up for power routing. 
 

Not being familiar with the EP150 I can’t comment on that directly, but I do know that some Kato points were manufactured with incorrect labeling for power routing. 
 

I’d advise you to double check your screw positions on the underside of the points. If any screw is bridging a gap between two pieces of copper, then it is NOT power routing. 
 

On the other hand, it’s possible that your layout is such that each rail is always connected to the power regardless of power routing on points. I managed to do that on my own layout, and the solution was indeed to use an insulated unijoiner. 

[Dinosbacsi]

The turnouts should be set for power routing from the factory, as far as I know. Did you buy them used or did you change the screws on the bottom? Because from what you described, you should be able to turn off power on one track if both turnouts are switched away from it - unless one or both of the turnouts is set to non-power-routing, that is.

 

In any case if you could post a picture of the layout that would be great.

[cteno4]

With the reversal of going from an inner to outer switch points you ended up having a common rail problem that will always feed both rails between the points with the common outside rail that is always live and doesn’t respond to the point power routing. To fix this you need an insulated joiner both of the common rails at the points on ends of the track inside the points. This should the  only let power be routed via the non common rails switched by the points. You also get this when doing a passing siding using two of the same direction turnouts rather than a left and a right to make a passing siding.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[choochoo22]

This layout the power goes to all tracks all the time. The feeder line is before the crossing guard.

 

This layout works fine. 

The Kato turnouts are setup (power routing) and work correctly and the frogs are plastic so the "common rail problem" cteno4 jeff presents is the cause and adding insulating joiners should fix it. Thanks for your help, bill.

[cteno4]

Bill,

 

great, glad it helped, 4 insulated joiners should fix it. Fun little micro layout!

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

ps no dumb questions, it’s by asking questions we learn! 

[brill27mcb]

The second layout looks like more fun, and no fixes needed! To summarize, regular Unitrak turnouts in "power routing" mode only shut off one of the rails leading away from the frog to the two branch routes. The outside rails of the turnout, on the other side of these tracks from the frog, are continuous metal from one end of the turnout track piece to the other end. So you could insert an insulated joiner at the branch end of each of these outside rails to solve the problem. Some years ago, Tomix modified its Fine Track turnout design to be "fully routing" with the two outside rails having an insulator built in, and circuitry so that both rails of the "unchosen" branch get shut off. They did this to avoid this problem, which can easily confuse people.

 

Rich K.

[Dinosbacsi]

Hey guys, I also have a dumb question. Long story short, I temporarily moved and had to set up my layout on my desk again - and I don't know why it doesn't work.

 

Here is a quick sketch of the layout I made in AnyRail. It's not exact, as the combination of the short filler straights are not exactly the same, also I couldn't make the track connect at the bottom curve, but it shows the basic idea.

And here is the layout in real life.

 

I already had a pretty similar layout previously (the only difference was that the turnouts were on the other end, but pretty much the same way) and it worked just fine. Yet now it doesn't. The train runs on the inner side of the L shape, but stops getting power at the rear track (exactly at where that one motor car sits in the back, near the yellow anime girl picture).

 

What might be the cause? A pretty similar layout worked just fine previously, why not now?

 

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Where are your power feeds? So where does the power go out in each direction? Ie how long is the power outage in the track. It’s looking like you may have a couple of bad unijoiners on the same rail. Check to see there are unijoiners on all the track pieces in that back area. Once and a while both unijoiners will come off on one piece of track and then you will be missing a unijoiner. But it’s odd you would have 2. 
 

do you have a multi tester? Very handy in these situations to put it on continuity testing and just place on a rail across a few joints to make sure power is coming thru and figure out where the break is. Also helps you isolate joints where you may have some voltage loss if you see slowdowns and speed ups happening. Great $15 investment if you don’t have one.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[katoftw]

Why is the feeder attached?

[inobu]

What Jeff said...

 

Make sure that these are not in the wrong place.

 

Inobu

 

[cteno4]

Ahh yes in your first layout you needed some insulated rail joiners, maybe some were left on the track in this layout?!

 

jeff

[Dinosbacsi]

20 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Where are your power feeds?

Ah there is only one. I forgot to include it in the digital sketchup, but it was on the top left corner, on the track near that dead-end track. You can see the cables go up for it on the second photo.

 

10 hours ago, inobu said:

Make sure that these are not in the wrong place.

 

9 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Ahh yes in your first layout you needed some insulated rail joiners, maybe some were left on the track in this layout?!

I don't have any insulated joiners, and all of my regular joiners are in place, as far as I know. So maybe it was just a bad contact between two rails or something, I don't know.

 

Anyway I decided to just ditch it and did a bit different one:

Basic concept is the same, except I used the turnouts to make a passing track, instead of the two dead-end sidings. The feeder remained in the top left. This way it works absolutely fine. So I wonder if the way my two turnouts were set up in the prevous one caused some problems. I'd say it was caused by the power routing, but a pretty similar setup worked just fine previusly, so I don't know. Well at least this one works, and may be even better, as I can use the passing track better than the two dead-end sidings.

 

But thanks for the help anyway, guys!

 

 

[cteno4]

No the points would not cause a problem on the loop power.
 

It must have been a poor track connection in a couple of joints in that back corner. Usually you can find these by running the engine into the dead area from each direction and engine will stop just past the bad joint. Many times just pulling apart and snapping back together will get it fixes. Unijoiners are pretty hearty and rarely will you get a dead connection, but usually just a poor connection and a voltage drop and train will slow.

 

when you pull your Unitrak apart do you wiggle it side to side flat on the table or pull one track up vertically at an angle? I say this as one of our members had always pulled his Unitrak apart for years vertically and it spreads the metal track joiner in the unijoiner out and makes it loose good positive connection. He had been doing it for years and years on his own huge unitrak layout until one of us saw him doing it on the club layout. In retrospect it made sense as he was alway chasing voltage drops usually assumed from dirty track in a basement that rained schmutz from open flooring  in the ceiling. At times you can repair a loose unijoiner connection by squeezing the metal joiner shut some with some flat nosed pliers.

 

jeff