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Loss of Power to Tracks
Answer below if you can help this reader with his question:
“This may be hard for your readers to answer without seeing a diagram of my layout. I am doing whats called in the book, a ‘Monopoly/Octopus’ layout. Its setup so you can be going one direction, switch to another track and end up going the opposite direction. At one point when the track comes to a ‘X’ crossing, the power stops. If you switch direction on the power supply, it can continue on its way. Why am I losing power at this point? I heard it has something to do with plastic rail joiners in this area, and maybe adding in a switch to cut power. This is confusing to understand for me. Any ideas on what little info I just gave you.”
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Well it sounds like a reverseing loop situation. The fact that when you switch power supply (polarity) it goes again you are creating a short or a polarity problem to begin with. check earlier comments on this site to see in detail how to correct this and they actually have a unit that does it automatically by Digitrax called AR1. If the reverseing loop is your problem you can fix it with these suggestions and yes the plastic rail joiners separate power to specific sections of track if you go with the long detailed way to correct it or you can just go with the AR1. check out the previous comments and let us know how you made out. Tony P