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DCC - Electrical

Turnouts and Arc Faults

Sat, 2015-11-28 16:53 — Jackh

The house we have bought is rated at 50 amp service and is getting updated as soon as I get all the price quotes back to a 200 amp service. At the same time all of the wiring is being update along with the hardware.

It turns out that something called arc fault detection will be included into most rooms including the bedroom designated as the train room. I have no issues with safety. For those who don't know about this, if a spark is detected by the circuit the fuse is blown, shutting down everything on that circuit.

Reversing loop wiring help

Fri, 2015-11-27 19:27 — schul4

So this single issue has been holding me back for over a year now. I have pretty much a double track going into a reversing loop. I have attached a picture of the trackwork and a diagram of where i have gaps and wires. With it hooked up this way, my DCC system immediately shorts out.

Installing SMD LED in Steam

Fri, 2015-11-27 15:55 — traintalk

DCC - Electrical

I thought I would share my progress of installing the small SMD LEDs lights in my PBL Sn3 K-36 steam engine.

In the front of the engine I have 5 of the LEDs threaded. One goes into the headlight, two go into the classification lights (one on either side of the headlight) and two into the number boards (one of either side of the stack).

Another LED goes into the ash pan to represent the firebox light. The tender gets its own back up light.

NCE Powercab & Smart Booster

Fri, 2015-11-27 15:31 — BR GP30 2300

Hi,

I have an older 3 amp SB3 Smart Booster from NCE.......also an NCE Powercab to USB interface.......can both of these be used at the same time for my test/program track?

I was thinking of using the Smart Booster in place of the Soundtraxx PTB-100.

I also plan to use DecoderPro.......therefore the NCE Powercab to USB interface.

Thanks.

2 comments

New to DCC, track sections question

Fri, 2015-11-27 02:49 — Richard Priddy

Hello,

I'm new to DCC and would love to have some input on if I should be splitting my track into sections, instead of building everything with metal track connectors.

The layout isn't very big (3ft by 4ft). I know my reversing loop needs to be split due to stop short circuits, but I don't know if I should be splitting different sections of my track off or not.

Please ignore the green lines.

MTH ES44AC DCC ready issues HO

Wed, 2015-11-25 18:00 — prostreetamx

Recently purchased 2 MTH DCC ready ES44AC HO engines. I decided to wait for the 28mm speakers before I converted them to RailPro decoder equipped engines. They come with pretty decent instructions compared to my other recent Fox Valley purchase. I used a 8 to 9 pin adaptor cable after removing the 2 preinstalled jumpers on the 8 pin socket. I also removed the metal jumpers for the ditch light and number board internal feeds so they will be controlled instead by the decoder which has 6 light outputs.

My Product Reviews (UPDATE: Rapido ultimate Canadian gondola coming soon)

Mon, 2015-11-23 19:08 — trainmaster247

This is the thread for my product reviews.

Here are the coming items as of 12/1

- Scaletrains.com item (coming sometime next week CLARIFIED: WAITING TO ARRIVE (and permission to show it )

- Soundtraxx Souncar (also sometime next week CLARIFIED: WAITING TO ARRIVE)

-RS Laser Kits (working out the details)

Reverse loop and dim bulb

Mon, 2015-11-23 16:51 — David Stewart

So I've got myself a plan...but, it's smarter than I am.

Illustrated below is the problem I have created for myself...the loop portion actually comprises the majority of the layout and it seems less than practical to switch the polarity of the whole thing as in the usual reverse loop scenario. But, I am danged if I can see how to accomplish it.

Busy Weekend

Mon, 2015-11-23 09:43 — mesimpson

It was a busy weekend in our house between kids activities and sleepovers, regular household duties and having some visitors over. Between all of that activity I managed to get the DCC booster and transformer moved to their permanent home on a shelf under the layout. I found an old shelf from a home entertainment center that was not being used for anything to house the electronic gizmos.