DCC - Electrical
Cleaning up the power wiring -- hopefully for the last time
As work on the control panel continued, I realized that my power distribution wiring was not as clean as I would have hoped. Some occupancy zones would detect properly and some just would not. And if I did the quarter test in some places more than one PM42 feed would trip. I had already decided that there should be a 1:1 relationship between PM42s and BDL168 zones -- bought a second PM42 and installed it, This exposed a number of issues that had probably been there all along. Some of my track wiring was a mess.
New Atlas nscale S2
Wondering if a non sound decoder can be easily installed in the DC version of this new S2. Would like to have one to run on my Surroundtraxx layout.
Doug Brown
New Brunswick
Electrical Needs
I am beginning to expand/improve my current layout. I want to add more overhead lighting, scenery lighting, etc., and powered switches. I currently only have one outlet (20 amp) servicing my DCC bus work, 2 overhead fluorescent lights, and my home furnace! So I definitely need to put my layout on a separate dedicated circuit and add 4 or five more outlets around the layout to prepare for these future enhancements.
Signals For Your Railroad.
You want to put signals on your layout. Stop and think. I was reading a very good article about signals in the DO magazine. LIGHT BULB turned on.
I suffer from red pimentos. To make it simple my wife has always took me what color tie to wear with my suits and dress shirts. You know guys.
Bachmann 0-4-0 Porter Short Circuit
Hi Guys,
I was messing around with my On30 Bachmann 0-4-0 Porter, running it on my newly laid track. It's a simple layout, 2'x4' with an oval and two switches. I soldered a set of feeder wires to the layout from my other layout, so they share the same main power wires. I have a Digitrax Zephyr. I only have one other HO locomotive.
BQR Control Panel continued -- finishing up
Been back working on the control panel -- starting to really appreciate the flexibility of using wire-wrap for this type of application. It has given me the flexibility of making changes -- like discovering that my idea of sharing on PM42 between two boosters was really a bad idea. The second PM42 is on my bench waiting to be installed. The impact to the control panel was discovering that the four bicolor power status LEDs needed to expand to eight (or run wires from the BDL168s plugs) -- and my vendor didn't have any more of that flavor of LEDs for a while.
Cinder Ballast Attracted to Magnet
I have cinder ballast from Arizona Rock and Scenic Express. When I pass a magnet over samples of these cinders, nearly all the material winds up on the magnet. I have been assured by one supplier that there is no problem using their cinders with DCC. Has anyone had any issues with cinders from either supplier as far as operation on a DCC layout? Arizona's Yard Mix also demonstrates the same behavior to a magnet.
Anti-Main Power Sector
I'm building a layout with a lower level of staging that feeds an upper level of 2-track main line. The staging level is almost a dogbone, but one end terminates in a "balloon" reversing loop - see the area labeled with XX and W0. Eventually the power will be DCC, but I need to have the choice of DC to run locos that haven't yet been converted.
Adapting the "Keep Alive" for use with Railpro? - Circuit Guru's please help. - UPDATE: It Works!
I am genuinely frustrated with the performance of a few of my locomotives around my turnouts and I really want to try TCS Keep Alive's with them.
The problem is that the RailPro is not natively KA friendly.
As I understand it, if I would simply wire the KA to the power leads, it would work one way, but if the power was reversed (loco turned) then the KA will burn out.
Reading about KA's here: https://sites.google.com/site/markgurries/home/decoders/keep-alive-compa...
DT402R
I have an older DCS 50 (2.5 amp) and I have a UR91 connected to it. But when I use my DT402R wirelessly it seems to have issues sending messages to the locomotive. I keep thinking it is my wiring, but when I plug it into the DCS 50 or the UR 91 it works perfectly, unplug it problems again. I'm stumped, could someone who has seen this issue let me know what they determined caused it and how did you fix it? Thanks
Steve
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