From: John M. Wallis [jwallis@nc.rr.com] Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 9:03 PM To: Koproske, Glenn Subject: RE: Balloon Module Followup Hi Glenn: Something doesn't add up here. Let's look at this on a rail-by-rail basis. Let's call the outside rail on each track the rail nearest the front of the module, and the inside rail the rail nearest the back of the module. If the outside rail on Red is connected to Rail A on the Booster, either directly or through a PM4, then as we go around the balloon Rail A becomes the inside rail on Yellow and Blue. This means the polarity on Yellow and Blue is the reverse of Red. The turnouts and the insulated joiners should have no effect on this. Presumably if the only track feeders we had were the Red feeders, and we had continuous track (i.e. no insulated joiners), there would be no problem and trains should run normally (even if a bit slower on Yellow and Blue due to voltage drop). Now we add feeders to Yellow and Blue. I presume the normal feeder cables would have Rail A connected to the outside rail and Rail B to the inside rail, either direct from the Booster or via a PM4. Clearly if you put a polarity reverser at the Booster/PM4 end of the feeder cable there should be no problem, and trains should run completely around the loop. Since you say the connectors at the box cannot easily accommodate a polity change you therefore must place the polarity changer at the track end, and you would need two polarity changers for each feeder, one for the feeder's female connector and one for the male connector. Two of these polarity changers would be needed for each feeder to the Yellow and Blue tracks. It is not clear to me if your feeders in the box are connected directly to individual Boosters per track or through a PM4. Are you sure the Boosters are correctly phased? If the Red Booster were out-of-phase it would cause the condition you describe. The fact that the fellow removed the polarity changers and things worked OK would confirm this. If the feeders connect through a PM4 are any of them set for auto-reversing? Perhaps you should try to test things on the layout when no one else is there or trying to run trains. Turn on the DCC system with no locomotives on the track, and then select address 00 and set the speed to 99. The Track Status LED on the Command Station and All Boosters should be either all red or all green. If one is the opposite color then that Booster is out-of-phase. With normal feeder cables connected (no polarity changers) use a bi-color LED to check the polarity on each track (be sure to keep the leads consistent - the lead which connects to outside of Yellow should also connect to outside of Blue). The color should be the same as the Boosters/Command Station. If not there may be a cable or connector problem. Leave the bi-color LED connected to the track. Now place your polarity changers in the Yellow and Blue cables. The LED color for Yellow and Blue should be the reverse of Red. If this is the case, trains should operate normally. If trains still have a problem, is there an auto-reversing section in the balloon module, or is there some kind of power-routing toggle switch in the balloon module that could be the culprit?? Also I assume you disconnected the Cinch connectors below the track where the insulated joiners are located. Hope this helps. Let me know how you make out. Regards, John -----Original Message----- From: Koproske, Glenn [mailto:GKoproske@unitrin.com] Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 9:07 AM To: 'John M. Wallis' Subject: Balloon Module Followup Hello John, A long time ago, you responded: ======================== >> One more item, you said you have balloon ends, which then route trains back on yellow and blue. While not being a true reversing loop, this does have the effect of requiring reverse polarity on the yellow and blue tracks. If you use the PM4 wired as described on the web page you will need a gender changer in the power lead between the equipment board and the yellow and blue track. This could be a short cable with an NTRAK plug at one end and a socket at the other. The wire from the wide pin on the plug would go to the narrow pin on the socket. ========================= I built the Cinch plug polarity changers, they being jumpers with the wire flipped between wide pin and narrow pin, and we used them on the yellow and blue line feeds from our club's DCC cabinet. The business end of the feeder cables is a Tee I guess, with the female on one side and the male on the other. I inserted a jumper on either side, and then to the yellow and blue bus lines. Because of the plugs and sockets we used to connect the feeder cables to the DCC box, we could not flip polarity there. We had to do it where we connect to the modules. Yellow====plug plug ==X==plug plug ===Feeder to DCC Box(con'td. on next line) Feeder to DCC Box ===plug plug==X== plug plug ====Yellow Then we started to run trains on our layout set up for display, using our two balloon modules. Again, trains run on red, reach the balloon, and red ends at a Peco Insulfrog, which is insulated at the frog end. This turns into yellow and blue, and you run back over the modules to the balloon at the other end, reach the switch, and it turns back into the red line. When a locomotive reached the insulated gap, it would stop, the PM42 would click, then reset itself and the locomotive would proceed, sometimes needing a little persuasion. I was sure that these jumpers was solving a problem, not creating one. I recalled a post on the NDCC group this past week concerning a double crossover problem, and the solution was to reprogram the PM42 for slow reaction. I raced home to get the PM42 manual so we could figure out how to program the CVs. When I returned, everything was running fine and everyone was happy. They said they pulled the jumpers out, and that solved the problem. Yikes. I did not expect that. So, plugging in the DCC feeder cables from the box to red, yellow, and blue, just like always,m took care of going the opposite direction on yellow and blue. Doing nothing worked. Doing something didn't. Regards, Glenn Koproske Mississippi Valley N Scalers http://mvns.railfan.net ----------------------------------------- CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: The information contained in this e-mail and attached document(s) may contain confidential information that is intended only for the addressee(s). If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby advised that any disclosure, copying, distribution or the taking of any action in reliance upon the information is prohibited. 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