Help!!! reverse loop wiring nightmare

[El4774]

Hello all I’m stumped. I’ve tried a dcc specialties frog ar and a digitrax ar to see if I can get my loop to work. With the dcc specialties the train will get to the gaps and stop I’ve connected it correctly with the instructions with the jumpers. With the digitrax ar the train Will get through one gap but still sort out at the other where I marked on my diagram. I’m using an atlas s1 n scale sound decoder. All my switches are peco electro frog. Can any one tell me what I’m doing wrong with auto reversing that section of track.


Thanks for any suggestions
Ryan

[GaryHinshaw]

Referring to your colour diagram, I'm assuming you have the AR controlling the thin section of track between the two gaps.  The only thing I can see being an issue here is that you could have a train spanning both gaps at the same time, e.g. with something conductive like a loco in the lead and cars with metal wheels or on-board lighting (e.g. passenger cars) at the other end.  This would cause the AR to try an correct the polarity at both gaps simultaneously, which is not possible.

Do you have this problem if you just run a solo loco around the loop?  If so, perhaps you could make a sketch of your track power wiring, including the AR.

[El4774]

Right now I’m just running one loco to test it out and it’s still shorting out. The my wiring I just have my two blue and red from the bus going into the track section of the ar and I have the feeders from that gapped section going to the isolate section on the AR.

[rockislandfan]

Can you post photos of your wiring and your connections on the auto reverser?

[El4774]

This is how I had it with the digitrax ar with the main bus and the feeders coming from the top are in the isolated section

[El4774]

This is what I’d like to use but will settle with working at this point. Dcc specialties frog ar

[El4774]

Here’s the top of the layout where I have my insulating joints and feeder going to the ar unit

[El4774]

My next step today is going to be using atlas track and make a small version of what I want and see if I can trouble shoot it that way. I’ll wire up the digitrax one and see if that works then the dcc specialties frog ar and try that. I know I cut my gaps all the way. It’s got to be something simple that’s hanging me up

[NDave]

Did you adjust the sensitivity of the Digitrax AR-1 as described in the user manual?

[CRL]

Does the rest of the layout run correctly when you isolate the reversing section?

[GaryHinshaw]

With the Frog-AR have you jumpered the appropriate two pins together, so that both rails are switching polarity at the same time?

[thomasjmdavis]

You note that you are using Electro-frog turnouts.  Have you provided gaps for all of those electro-frog turnouts?  (per the Peco recommendations for electro-frogs)  I did some experiments for a yard I intend to build with electro-frogs, and had some issues around crossovers and double slips until I installed what seemed like a very large number of insulated joiners.  You are not using double slips, but the trackwork is complicated, especially that bit that connects the westbound (top) track to the east bound (bottom) entry to the reverse loop.  Strikes me that one insulated joiner out of place could result in just the problem you are having.

[John]

as the above post .. https://dccwiki.com/PECO_Electrofrog#Making_the_Electrofrog_DCC_Friendly

[GaryHinshaw]

^This is a good point in general, but in this case I think it doesn't matter because both ends of the reversing section are attached to facing point turnouts.  So there should be no polarity switching on that side of the Peco turnouts.

[El4774]

Yes I tried moving the sensitivity on the digitrax ar with no results. Yea the entire layout runs with no issues until I get back to where the loop is. All my points are isolated then I have feeders at the beginning of each turnouts.  I have jumped on the frog ar pins 1 and 2 and have my track coming in from that section to 1 and 2. Thanks for your responses it’s helping me cross things off the list of problems