short circuiting on points

[AJ 257]

I have set up a small layout in a spare room and it contains quite a few points. Now on a couple of points my locos seems to stall and short circuit with its LA address sort of flashing on the screen of my controler.
I have to move the loco back on

the track for it to return to normal running.

(NOTE : I AM USEING ELECTRO POINT CLIPS WITH THE POINTS)

I would appreciate it any one could get back to me on this as it is a rather anoying problem.

THANKS ALL :D

[poliss]

Check the back to back distance of the wheels. Should be 14.4mm +/- a tiny bit.

[58001]

I have the same problem with large wheeled steam locos on short radius points. Unfortunately the back-to-back distance of the wheels needs to be slightly reduced so that the long wheelbase of the loco can gat around the tight curve on the points.
Applying

a drop of varnish to the offending rail surface would get around the short circuit problem but I'm not sure if it would do the loco wheels any good!

[Flashbang]

Hi
The problem is quite common with DCC and insulated frog points. Because all rials are live and some are at opposing polarity to the adjacent rails.
DCC consoles also use very fast acting cut-out/overload devices.
So the same fault on a dc

system is often seen as a small spark, but without the cut-out operating.
Correcting the wheels Back 2 Back measurements is the correct way of overcoming the problem.

But it doesn't always fix it! Some older locos with wider wheel treads short at

the point frog area where the two rails almost touch each other.
Some locos with many driving wheels - 9F for example can allow the inner face of the driving wheels to touch the inner face of the open points switch rail as the loco negotiates the curved

direction. Both defects can cause a short circuit, even with the B2B set correctly. A special B2B gauge can be obtained for checking this B2B measurement. The Double O Gauge Association sell them as should all good model shops - The Double O gauge B2B gauge

is the Universal one which is the needed. http://www.doubleogauge.com/shop.htm

There is an explanation and a 'fix' shown here if it helps? http://www.brian-lambert.co.uk/Electrical.htm#Insulated%20Frog%20point%20problems.....