It's alive - the Taki-Tiki Rwy!

Well, at least off life support and on its own.  I'm talking about the Trans-Tropics Rwy. layout.  It started out with the outer loop worked well.  The inner track complex, however, was a different story. I spent a good part this evening debugging it.  It didn't surrender its' secrets willingly.

There were two problems, as it turned out.  First, there was a short on the inner track complex.  It turned out that I had crossed the feed wires to the loop on the lower module in the drawing.  I don't understand how that happened - I was SO careful.  Yeah, right.  At least the wires went to a screw terminal block, and were easy to reverse.  That was the easy part.

Then, there was a dead section of track in an area where the power routing turnouts should have handled it.  After a time of close inspection and snooping with a voltmeter, the problem was isolated.  One of the Tomix track joints on the bottom loop was missing a joiner between rail sections. Once that was replaced, power was flowing to the right places, with the right polarity. Yea!  I'm sure glad I got some new Tomix joiners with my last order of track from Japan.






A Bandai Shorty locomotive was test run around the tracks.  It made it, but not easily.  I expected as much, since it has been sitting in the garage for a long time as I slowly made progress.  The track is very much in need of a thorough cleaning.  So, tomorrow, the track cleaning,  and then address some rough spots.  The track pieces are connected properly.  I inspected them closely, and will again tomorrow.  I'm thinking, though, that the light Bandai (4-wheel) locomotives are going to need a really tweaked track. A quick first look before shutting down tonight suggests that the turnout frogs may be a bit high, and a little judicious filing could be in order.

I think trying a Bachmann MDT switcher could be worth while.  It's a 6-wheel loco, but I'm expecting the slightly longer wheelbase will handle the 103mm (4") and 140mm (5.5") radius curves in the inside areas. More fun for tomorrow, I hope.

Even so, I'm hoping to shoot a little video of the layout in operation over the weekend. 

A while back (in my SouthWest Traker days, pre-2016) I made a little box that plugs into the Kato connectors between the throttle and the track.  It has a 15-0-15v meter, and a 1-0-1a meter.  It was very useful, but I wish the ammeter was 0.25-0-0.25a in scale.  That would be more useful with the low current draw of today's locomotives.  And, yes they are good ol' swingin' needle analog meters.  I love 'em.