Shorts!

[centenary]

OMG, Came to switch the layout on today and the DCC Concepts iP Circuit Breakers started flashing! Id got a short and couldnt figure out why. I'd done a little bit of wiring the day or so before but everything was red to red, black to black! Now, I couldnt really remember all the wiring I had done. Note to self, maybe keep a schedule of work in future so can look at last things done?!

Started disconnecting blocks to narrow down where the fault(s) where but after 2 hours of trying to tack it down, I was no nearer and very, very frustrated.

I went over all the last wiring I could remember what Id done in the previous 48 hours and everything appeared to be bob on. I even changed some multi connectors for Wago ones in case one or two of the other ones were causing problems.

On the verge of giving up for the day. I saw a frog wire that I hadnt connected to the DCC Concepts IP Analog and got the wire strippers out. Hang on, what's that, DCC power into terminals 5 and 6 of the IP A?

Frog wire should be in 6 and DCC into 4 and 5! Fingers crossed that was the problem! Swap the wires into the correct terminals, plug in the DCC power supply and.......!

Success, no short! Over 2 hours spent trying to trace the problem when a chance spot with an unconnected frog wire helped resolve the issue.

So, the afternoon Id intended getting the Class 37 (in BR green!) to push the Sharge UK track cleaner around the layout was pretty much wasted!

Initial thoughts are the Sharge did quite a good job cleaning track seeing as it wasnt properly set up and only ran for about 10 minutes! More next time on this, I think!

[RFS]

I once spend over an hour searching for a short that appeared one morning as soon as I switched the system on. Turned out I'd left the Kadee height gauge (the all-metal one of course!) parked in a siding the previous evening after I'd been doing some height checking in "offline" mode!

[centenary]

I once spend over an hour searching for a short that appeared one morning as soon as I switched the system on. Turned out I'd left the Kadee height gauge (the all-metal one of course!) parked in a siding the previous evening after I'd been doing some height checking in "offline" mode!

LOL! Yes, I thought a spare piece of wire, a small screwdriver etc might have been between the track and spent ages looking over the layout to see if there was.

SWMBO said when I told her Id finally found the short when looking in the last place and saw an unconnected frog wire and the incorrect connections said 'Why didnt you look there first? You know something like this is always found in the last place you look for it'!