Breaker on z1000 trips when Running AEM 7 with many passenger cars

Do you have a way to measure the amp draw with the short train and longer train and even when running only the engine ?  🤔  Do all these cars have LEDs or incadescencts for lighting ?

If the draw seems too be too much , have you greased and oiled all wheels and a little on the center pickups ?       Given the age of this engine it is possible that there could be some hardened grease in the motor gearbox or even the accumulation of gunk on all moving axles.

Of course the clean rails and wheels along with the center pickups is a must.

Do you have good solid  electrical connections   ? 🙄

You need more power.

Thats a lot of light bulbs to be trying to run plus AEM7s have a lot of electronics inside them to run all the flashers and ditch lights, etc, and the heavier the load the higher the draw for the motors.

You can solve it by getting a more powerful transformer, converting the cars to LEDs to lower their power demands, or running fewer cars.

Thank you for your reply,

METER: I'd have to look, but I do not believe I have a meter.  However, I should have mentioned that there is no issue if the train is running a higher speed. Wouldn't that require higher amounts of power?

BULBS: all the bulbs are appear to be incandescent.

OIL: I did oil the pickup and axles a week or so ago.

ELECTRICAL CONNECTION: I am using Lionel fastrack which I ran a bus line with positive and negative connections every 10 pieces of track or so. I clean the rails and wheels regularly.

Out of curiosity, how does dirt/bad connection cause the breaker to trip?

The z-1000 has a 6 amp breaker.  Under load, your AEM 7 is drawing about 1.5 amps.  Each lighted passenger car is, maybe, 1/2 to 3/4 amp so your 7 cars are pulling between 3.5 and 5 amps.  As Boilermaker suggested, your solution is a bigger transformer or replace the passenger car bulbs with LED’s.  I didn’t lookup what bulbs types are in those cars but you might be able to find a compatible bulb in an LED version.

@TheRambles posted:

Thank you for your reply,

Out of curiosity, how does dirt/bad connection cause the breaker to trip?

Besides engine needs and incandescent bulbs everywhere ,   dirt and bad connections act as little dams that the " juice " has a hard time flowing through causing resistance which in turn causes heat ........which in turn causes more  resistance which in turn causes more heat ........which in turn causes more resistance...............................>>>>>>>>>>

LED CONVERSION...........Gunrunner John has the regulators and associated light strips that I have used in every one of my passenger cars .     The nice thing about John's system is you will have ZERO  LIGHT FLICKER besides way less energy use. 😉

I'll have to second the recommendation for LED lighting. (Why wouldn't I???)

If you want the easier solution, go for the full lighting kit, if you don't mind a little soldering, you can use the lighting regulator and buy 5 meter reels of LED's, cuts the price in half.  Passenger Car LED Lighting Kit or LED Lighting Regulator.

Thank you everyone for your help. The electrical issue makes a lot more sense now. I had the z750 before I bought the z1000 thinking that’d be the solution. Now I realize I need even more power.

I will also look into the light conversion. Thanks for the recommendations. Also, thanks for the link to Henning’s, my hometown train store.

More watts or less load on the watt side ... IE LED's like everyone else has said.

For example I can run my 3rd Rail Southwest Limited with 3 powered locomotives and 15+ scale cars at 7 amps thank to LED lighting.  3 of the cars still have incandescent lighting strips.

I had ten double-deck Amtrak Superliners and four regular Amtrak 18" cars on the track with my Premier Genesis (upgraded from PS/1 to TMCC).  All the cars have LED lighting, and the total current draw at around 35-40 scale MPH with smoke on the Genesis was around 3.5 amps.  The engine was working pretty hard, so I suspect that the Genesis was using the lion's share of the power, I estimate the cars at no more than around 50 milliamps each, simply because my lighting regulator tops out at around 45ma.  The lighting is at a nice level with no flicker, and the transformer was not even breaking a sweat.  I can't wait until I can run this on my layout, coming soon!

@TheRambles posted:

...

METER: I'd have to look, but I do not believe I have a meter.  However, I should have mentioned that there is no issue if the train is running a higher speed. Wouldn't that require higher amounts of power?

Yes.  In addition to the engine drawing more power at higher speed, the incandescent bulbs in your passenger cars draw more power at higher track voltage.  That there are no issues at higher speeds is genuinely puzzling.

So to your point, while I am all-aboard with LED conversion, that this doesn't happen with other  similar size/weight/motor engines is a head-scratcher.  Practically speaking, the vast majority would simply get a heftier transformer or do the LED conversion and call it done... that's the closest exit. 

But this being a discussion forum, it would be interesting to instrument your AEM-7 measuring the power as a function of scale speed (I realize this is PS1) and drawbar pull weight to see if there's something hinky at slow speeds that "clears up" at higher speeds.  I realize this ain't going to happen but just saying...

I don't claim to be an electrical jeenyous, but doesn't..............................

High speed watts = High voltage x low amps.

Low speed watts = Low voltage x high amps.

I'm thinking that the high speed and low speed watts remain relatively constant.  Don't breakers tend to trip when they start getting a little too warm and the amperage draw starts exceeding their tripping limits?  Just guessing here that maybe this is what's going on with your current setup.  In other words, a higher capacity transformer is needed if you wish to maintain the same train ensemble.

Maybe maybe?  Either that, or there's also a fairly good chance that I don't know what I'm talking about (better'n a 50/50 chance, in some cases).

I had a similar issue - small Fastrack layout, 6x Williams Amtrak Superliner cars (incandescent lighting) pulled by a TMCC Amtrak Dash-9. With the Z1000, I could run the train for 5-10 minutes before the Z1000's breaker would pop. I put a multimeter in series to measure current and this train was definitely maxing out the Z1000. As others have said, each of those cars pulls about 3/4 amp. I upgraded to a Lionel ZW-L and haven't looked back. The Z1000 now sits in a box - maybe I'll use it to power some accessories someday.

Strange that you don't have issues at higher speeds, but you're ultimately going to want more power if you're running trains like that. If you don't want to splurge for something like a ZW-L, I've heard good things about the Z4000 as well.

@Mixed Freight posted:

I don't claim to be an electrical jeenyous, but doesn't..............................

High speed watts = High voltage x low amps.

Low speed watts = Low voltage x high amps.

You're exactly right, and that may be a factor here.  It really depends on the overall engine and car friction, the motor type and condition, etc.  The only way to really know is by using...  an ammeter!  What an idea.

@Mike0289 posted:

I had a similar issue - small Fastrack layout, 6x Williams Amtrak Superliner cars (incandescent lighting) pulled by a TMCC Amtrak Dash-9. With the Z1000, I could run the train for 5-10 minutes before the Z1000's breaker would pop. I put a multimeter in series to measure current and this train was definitely maxing out the Z1000. As others have said, each of those cars pulls about 3/4 amp....

By TMCC do you mean you were using just the Z-1000 brick itself (and not the conventional throttle controller)?  If so, that's 18V AC to the track with 100 Watts of available power.  6 incandescent Superliners at ~3/4 Amps each is ~80 Watts just for the lighting!  That's a paltry ~20 Watt left for motive power.  I'm surprised your Dash-9 pulling 6 cars could make it out of the station much less the train yard!

Yep, I foresee a continuing market for LED lighting supplies.

I still think something is odd about the AEM-7 behavior.  But IMO the time/effort to do a methodical analysis is not practical.  For example, it's easy to say "just" hook up an Amp meter and take some measurements.  Well, the Z-1000 is a so-called chopped-sine controller...and most meters that a typical OGR user has do NOT accurately measure the current (or voltage) for these controllers.  Then the discussion devolves into the relevance of True-RMS meters, eyes glaze over, the discussion enters the death spiral, end of story.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on how to troubleshoot but if I were doing it I would be interested in the power consumption of the AEM-7 vs. scale speed.  But the number of folks on OGR that can accurately measure true power (Watts) going into an engine can probably be counted on one hand.  And it's not correct to simply multiply the track voltage and current...that's just "apparent" power as opposed to "true" power.  Again, eyes glaze over, lather, rinse, repeat.

Also, note that this is a PS1 engine operating conventional which simply applies rectified AC voltage to a DC can motor(s) with diode/transistor losses.  This is NOT a command engine with speed control where, for a given commanded speed, the current indeed rises as you lower track voltage.

For the issue at hand, let's say the short-term objective is to run the AEM-7 with the specified consist without tripping the breaker.  How about opening up some of the passenger cars and removing, say, half of the incandescent bulbs.  Zero out-of-pocket cost!  Then consider the options for converting to LED lighting.

Or just convert to LED lighting and face the inevitable!

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Yep, I foresee a continuing market for LED lighting supplies.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Or just convert to LED lighting and face the

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

It really depends on the overall engine and car friction, the motor type and condition, etc.  The only way to really know is by using...  anammeter!  What an idea.                                                                                                                                                                                                  Yep..............hard to just guess what's going on without a scientific approach.

On  my  DCS /TIU  FIXED ONE  MAIN  I run about 80 feet of Realtrax in a 16 x 5 foot main layout with a 6 foot × 30 inch side yard with 8 lines and 8 cabooses with LEDs lit. 

Also 7 MTH switches with their 21 LED lights burning .       

On that MAIN I have a climb of 15 feet  over the first track and then I have a steep climb to get to my MTH bridge in a short 9 feet. 

I don't have the " Daisy Method " wired up .  I just have the small yard wired on the front and back areas and on the MAIN I have 4 areas wired in an equidistant manner.😶

With all of this , i am running a newest MTH Premier  Santa Fe ps3 F7  (  2 As powered ) ABA  with RK 4 streamlines ( GRJ / LED lit) .......................newest  MTH Premier  Union Pacific  ps3 F7  ( 2 powered )  AA  with RK 4 streamlines  ( GRJ / LED lit ) ....................MTH ps3 RK C&O Allegheny with 7 cars and an caboose with LED lights................ALL THREE CONSISTS RUNNING AT THE SAME TIME 🤤

...........Z 1 0 0 0 .........😨🤔........only power source wired to TIU input FIXED ONE MAIN double loop.  Probably around 4 years now with usually 2 or 3 consists of various sizes.....No problems with power.

Maybe MTH  has this brick mislabeled from a DEEP SPACE PROBE PROJECT 👨‍🚀👩‍🚀.......maybe my articulated figure eight inner loop with a 5 line yard with a second Z1000 on the FIXED TWO channel is from the same batch.........................

.....................neither Z1000 is for sale....not that they are any different than a zillion other Z1000 s.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

@stan2004 posted:

By TMCC do you mean you were using just the Z-1000 brick itself (and not the conventional throttle controller)?  If so, that's 18V AC to the track with 100 Watts of available power.  6 incandescent Superliners at ~3/4 Amps each is ~80 Watts just for the lighting!  That's a paltry ~20 Watt left for motive power.  I'm surprised your Dash-9 pulling 6 cars could make it out of the station much less the train yard!

No, the transformer was connected with the output set to 18V. In either case, it's way too much for the Z1000. That train never ran for more than a few minutes before popping the breaker

@stan2004 posted:

I still think something is odd about the AEM-7 behavior.  But IMO the time/effort to do a methodical analysis is not practical.  For example, it's easy to say "just" hook up an Amp meter and take some measurements.  Well, the Z-1000 is a so-called chopped-sine controller...and most meters that a typical OGR user has do NOT accurately measure the current (or voltage) for these controllers.  Then the discussion devolves into the relevance of True-RMS meters, eyes glaze over, the discussion enters the death spiral, end of story.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion on how to troubleshoot but if I were doing it I would be interested in the power consumption of the AEM-7 vs. scale speed.  But the number of folks on OGR that can accurately measure true power (Watts) going into an engine can probably be counted on one hand.  And it's not correct to simply multiply the track voltage and current...that's just "apparent" power as opposed to "true" power.  Again, eyes glaze over, lather, rinse, repeat.

Also, note that this is a PS1 engine operating conventional which simply applies rectified AC voltage to a DC can motor(s) with diode/transistor losses.  This is NOT a command engine with speed control where, for a given commanded speed, the current indeed rises as you lower track voltage.

For the issue at hand, let's say the short-term objective is to run the AEM-7 with the specified consist without tripping the breaker.  How about opening up some of the passenger cars and removing, say, half of the incandescent bulbs.  Zero out-of-pocket cost!  Then consider the options for converting to LED lighting.

UPDATE:

I think you're on to something here.

For the purpose of...erh science, I purchased a new PS3 Amtrak AEM 7 from Nick Smith trains, and I don't have this issue at all while running conventionally. I can run at slow speeds with two other Lionel starter passenger (LED) sets trains running as well. no issue.

The PS1 Septa AEM 7 also stopped running in reverse. It will cycle Neutral -> forward -> neutral -> Neutral (I'm guessing, lights don't switch it does not move) -> forward. It does this even after a reset. Soooooo if anyone has a Septa AEM 7 with PS2/3, I may be interested.

Being new to this community, I am super grateful for the input and support.

-Tony