3: The yellow arrow in this image points to a nearly
invisible feeder wire connection that caused this entire
section of the layout to short-out during open houses.
The portion of this feeder under the layout had been
covered with a lamp fixture, making it impossible to
see this extraneous feeder from below.
3
If only one lamp lights, that indicates that the current is flow-
ing from that booster terminal through the short circuit, and is
returning via the system ground wire, not through the other DCC
bus wire.
Initial test
Now we can allow a safe current to flow through our short cir-
cuit long enough to use the clamp-on ammeter to check the
current.
Will it read DCC?
It did! I immediately got a reading of 0.95A when clamping the
meter around either bus connection at the booster. Now I was
