Check all your connections. I have also seen decoders get fried and sideframes melt. No fun. I recently took apart the love of my life... wait that is supposed to be my wife...eek!(please don't tell her) and found a loose connection that may have attributed to some adverse effects. Loose=more power draw. Circuit protection like any other protection with help you enjoy your passion that much longer.
Sounds like there are a lot of "me toos" out here. I still have a decoder-equipped Model Power 2-6-0 that ran afoul of a switch and melted its feet to the rails :-( Cheers, -Mark
I was thinking the same thing Mark. While it may not happen a LOT. It would appear almost all of us have seen this happen at least once. So it is not all that rare.
I have had my share of shorts but my system always detects them super fast. I have never had a melt down, wonder what I'm doing wrong!
Several of the local model railroaders, in multiple scales, use the 12V auto light bulbs. They have to be 'light bulbs' as in incandescent, not LED-based tail lights which don't work for this purpose. (You can guess how I know this.) Harbor Freight used to be a source for what's needed but the item is getting harder to find now with so much conversion to LED based 'lamps.' The larger layouts near here have neatly constructed "short cabinets," with multiple bulbs mounted in each, near the ceiling in the layout rooms, for easy discernment. Letters under the bulbs indicate the power district that is shorting.
You can buy 12V auto bulbs at your local auto parts store. I buy em by the box (12 ea I believe) for my RV.
I would suggest the DCC Specialities PSX solid state circuit breakers might be an excellent choice. These circuit breakers are fully sound-loco aware (i.e. these breakers are actually small micro-processors and distinguish between a sound loco capacitor startup and a true short circuit, which the Digitrax PM42 unfortunately can't). and these are also much much faster to trip than the Digitrax PM42. Even on my small little 4' x 4' layout, the PSX-1 was a good idea when running in DCC mode. My 2 cents worth: http://home.comcast.net/~j.sing/Peavine_Layout_Overview.html#DCC Just some input, please do whatever you decide is right for you. Good luck and happy model RR'ing .
I've never had the problem on my own layout either. I built in sufficient feeder locations (every piece of rail) and large enough main power bus dia. (12 AWG) along with a PM42 to detect shorts in each of my three power districts. Yup, I've had plenty of shorts, but, no melting going on.... Cheerio! Bob Gilmore
Well said, Randgust! I have a colour television - you'll not want to go back once you've tried a few of your favourite tv shows via that medium! Regards, Pete Davies
