Melting points

[gary789]

Hi, My son has a live steam, It runs fine on an oval but as soon as we run it on my layout it melts the points. We contacted Horny about this a few years ago and they said we needed to add more power points to the track. We tried this but still had points melting. Anyone else have the same problem or know how to fix this?

[96RAF]

Search for melting points on the forums as it was well covered many moons ago after being reported in by Yelrow.

 

Are you using DCC type points clips or relying on point blade contact to transmit power across a junction. LIve steam pulls a lot of current to boil that kettle.

 

GoWest will be along soon to give advice as he is our live steam main man.

Rob

[Go_West]

Hi

RAF96 must think I'm the one stop fix it but he has covered it well and so have Hornby if you have used good heavy copper wire from in front of the points to just behind then you want have a ptoblem these wires are best add by soldering then direct to the rails and always use long lengths of frack like flexibility types as with short bits the more joint you have the more problems you will get and alway run wires to the further parts of the track to help power drop off. And never steam an engine sitting on the point. 

Ken

[gary789]

Thank you for the replys, I think we will keep it of my layout and wait till my son sets his new layout up this summer and have a loop with just 1 or 2 points that runs around the outside of this layout that we can use for the livesteam and dc running.  

.

[Huwsie]

It's down to a high resistance somewhere which will generate heat and melt your points - or melt anything where there's a poor connection, and as stated, never leave a loco or tender standing over points for any reason.

Good to hear of another 'Live Steamer' though - our numbers and the models are diminishing slowly.