hornby express points electro clips burning

[gragrahadea]

can anybody please help .Bought new express points,fitted new  point clips and some of the clips are glowing red,and burning,layout working on elite and select controllers.

[Fishmanoz]

Despite both clips and points being new, this can only be happening because they are not making good contact - poor contact, high resistance, power dissipated, heating results.  Do they seem to be fitting firmly, as firmly as any you have in standard points?

 

Throw out the burnt ones, make sure any discolouration is removed from the point rails and refit with new ones, bending if necessary to ensure as tight a fit as you can manage. Try first with either Select or Elite but with the Select's 1 Amp supply and see how they go.  Then the 4 Amp.  

 

You are of course only attaching one controller to the track aren't you?

[gragrahadea]

many thanks,will try that to see if it works

[Yelrow]

Gragra, i had exactly the same problem, some time ago, , which led to melting points. If you do a forum search, you will find it. The solution, is to solder wire across in place of clips, but its all in that post. john

[Chrissaf]

Unfortunately we can't see you layout design and power connection positions. It sounds like the high resistance point clip issue is showing up a weakness in the layout design. For the clip to glow red there must be significant current passing through the clip.

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Is the controller connected to the track in a position where the rest of the whole layout is dependent upon this one set of point clips. Would connecting your controller in a different track position alleviate the reliance on any one particular point location.

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Can you not implement a power BUS and provide power to multiple track locations to distribute power more efficiently, thus doing away for the need for point clips altogether.

[Yelrow]

Chriss, i am confused, quite normal, but are you saying that with a bus, you dont need point clips ?  When my points were melting i was advised to solder wires across the point, that cartainly stopped the issue. I already had a bus. john

[Chrissaf]

Doing it your way is fine too. If someone has enough BUS droppers fitted then they can do away with the point clips. It depends on how many droppers are installed and the design of the track layout (how many points, where they are etc). In my case I went overboard and fitted droppers to every individual track piece, thus relegating the fish-plate track joiner to just the role of providing physical connection. Thus every individual track piece has its own dedicated supply from the controller, eliminating any possible power loss due to dirty or loose physical connections. Your layout from what I've read from your posts is quite large with quite a high number of points in it. No hard and fast rules, what works for you is best for you at the end of the day.

[96RAF]

The problem with points John is that one set of droppers will not cover all parts of the point, especially if you factor in live frogs as well, so even with a bus you could still need clips unless, as you have done they are replaced with soldered links.

[Yelrow]

Chriss, are you related to PJ,? he, also has droppers to each rail. Your baseboards, must look worm infected. I would love to have had more droppers, but would still have been soldering after 3 months. As it was, i had to make the DCC, layout, a first tier on top of my DC one, as heather would not hear of any holes being drilled in Table Tennis Table. You never know, we might play again, was a constant theme. PHEW, at least i am not losing my mind. My bus, is only on about 10 connections, as had to be fitted in situ.. Layout, is a bit like Topsy, keeps growing. This weeks forcast is on my Side, Rain every day, so theres hope to get upstairs. Its just those little conversations like, dont forget about the .............., that keep me on lower floor. john