Shorts are Fixed but...

After lots of frustration, I took a turnout to an event nearby and had one of the train club members look at it. He used a multimeter (I did too) to check for continuity. And there was the short!

When I was building the turnouts, I needed to cut the PCB ties to prevent shorts, and I did. After finishing the build, I checked with a multimeter and found none. However, I didn't check across the PCB ties, only from the frog to the various rail parts. Apparently, there was still some residual copper on the sides of the ties that didn't get cut. I suspect it may be because these were ties that were punched out not laser-cut. Sure enough, we cut the sides slightly of the offending tie and the short was gone.

After the event, I went home and tested the remaining turnouts, found the shorts, and fixed them all. Yeah!!

I have reinstalled 2 of the #6 turnouts (near the yard area) and successfully run a train around the layout.

Pushing my luck, I then reinstalled the three #5 turnouts that are connected together. Still no short!

However, in running a train around, it stalled on the second and third turnouts for a yet unknown reason. I had connected the frogs to the tortoise, and the appropriate wires to the track (it shorted the first time as I needed to reverse them since they faced the opposite direction). So, I'm a little miffed as I will probably have to rebuild those two if I can't find the issue. Not a big deal but didn't want to waste the time if it wasn't necessary.

Before I do any rebuilding, I'm going to replace the nice purchased #6 turnouts with mine and make sure I don't need to rebuild any more of them. I expect to complete the reinstall this coming week, and if the #5s need a rebuild, start that also.

Keep your fingers crossed!