Breakers

Ok hooked them up and when I tested it took like 5 sec to trip is this too long.

Too long for what?

5 seconds maybe a little too long. I use the Lionel battery house breaker and they are instant.

The only problem is  they tend to go when there is more than 8.5 amps being drawn...

For that reason I really like  the new ZW-L

Too long for what? 5 Seconds is pretty good.

A thermal circuit breaker only slightly above it's rating will take many seconds to trip.  You can run 12-13 amps through a 10A breaker for a long time.

Here's a chart of one of the very popular thermal breaker types, the W28-XQ1A-10.  As you can see, for a 135% overload, they take an HOUR to trip!  At a 200% overload, they take from 2.2 to 15 seconds to trip.  You're probably expecting way more than is reasonable from a cheap circuit breaker.

i just want to be ok without blowing all my electronics I have tvs on the switches with a 10 amp breaker and I have a tvs and 10 amp breaker on my track power. So hopefully I am protecting my dcs and trains .

I use a 2A breaker on my test bench, and I was running my VL Big Boy on it with all the smoke units working, it was drawing about 3.5 amps.  It ran for several minutes while I was doing some testing, never tripped the breaker.

I would probably use something less than a 10A breaker unless you crowd the limit most of the time.

This is one reason I like the Lionel PowerHouse 180, it has a really excellent electronic circuit breaker.

John what do you think about this one 

Gentlemen,

   Guns makes a very good point here, and more than likely for safety sake I shoud be using a 5-7  Amp breaker instead of a 10, however I have used the 10's from the beginning and I have never damaged any part of my layout, and there is no nuisance resetting while running the layout.  So far the 10 Amp breakers have worked perfectly.

The great breakers in the PH180 is the only reason I would ever use one.

PCRR/Dave

Your 5 second breakers will work fine, then. The TVS usage, not the breakers, will protect the electronics, as there really aren't any situations where you will be pulling all(or even close to) that amperage through the train electronics(the exceptions would include power distribution devices - TIU, PM-1, TPC, etc.).

Well just ordered 2 5 amp breakers but til they come I will use the 10 amp. the tvs I have one on each terminal on the back of the zw 275 is that good place to put it then wire comes out of transformer into breaker then into the dcs dcs to track am I set up right.

That's good, if you can I'd put the TVS right at the track connection, the closer to the unit being protected, the better.

I will try to put one at track then. Should I keep a tvs at the zw also

You can have as many TVS devices as you like, they can only help in the case of a voltage spike.

Just don't pass on this part.

This is a bit of a rehash of a thread from a few weeks ago, but it brings out a related point.......

We were discussing Postwar 91 adjustable circuit breakers. I set up a test to compare their speed to my regular protective devices. 5 amp thermal fuses with PTC resettables as backup (and TVS diodes as well). I took a small piece of light screening (actually, it's the screen for a water flow limiter on a faucet that I modified as a smoke baffle for a smokestack). I dropped it on a UCS track to see which breaker would trip first. The 91 was instantaneous. I even added 10 amp glass fuses to the mix and they were slower too.     But here's the rub......when I removed the 91s from the circuit and dropped the screen, not only did it take much longer to trip my 5 amp thermals, but the screen actually glowed and then burst into flames. So my concern is....what if that screen were small gauge wires near the site of a derail? And folks are using much larger than 5 amp breakers and they will take even longer. Try that little test on your layout and see how your breakers  handle it. 

Roger

On my new layout I finally have room to run more than one train on one loop. Today I put them all on one loop. I had two MTH GP-38s pulling ten cars each and a RK Hudson with six lighted passenger cars. With all smoke on I still only had 6 amps on the transformer. I think I could probably go to 5amp breakers and not have a problem. Once I put John's kits in the passenger cars I could even go less!

Here is the short video of the breaker test described above. See how fast your own breaker system will trip with a short like this. Something light like the screening seems to be a good way to measure it's sensitivity.

Ok just connected a tvs right to the track where I have wires connected and ordered the 5 amp breaker so that will replace the 10 amp so that should do it. It's better then what I was using before 1 10 amp glass fuse. So thanks all for the help til next time.

Speaking of forum sponsors, here is a breaker from Henning's ebay store,  looks like it can be installed anywhere.

Thanks for the reply I am using a 5 amp breaker from mouser and tvs from mouser when all the wiring is done will post some pics so others can see how I did it with the help of other members of this great forum.

I had used a tvs on my previous layout which had 4 loops powered with 4 separate transformers,each had a tvs on the back of the transformers,now on my rebuilt layout i still have 4 separate loops but each loop is powered by a lionel 180 watt powerhouse,which is connected to a power master ,my question is do i still need a tvs on each loop?,these 180 watt powerhouses trip very fast & even before on my old layout the power masters tripped pretty fast also.

A TVS at the track is still a very good idea.  They're providing a different kind of protection than any circuit breaker.

Then i assume i would put it on each of the power masters,am i correct on this?,just want to make sure as i don't have a lot of knowledge about these things.  Thanks For Your Help.

Put them directly across the track feed from any transformer or PowerMaster.  Obviously, you don't need one for each drop if you have multiple power drops from a transformer, though that can't hurt either.

Sorry i should have given you guys more details,i ran #14 wire  from the power masters to a barrier strip,then from there i ran 5 different track feeds along with 5 common wires also #14 wire,would it be ok to put the tvs to the barrier strips?

Seems logical to me, that should work.

Thanks John & Bigdogjeff1 for your help.

Hi Group

http://www.jcstudiosinc.com/TV...ar-Layout-Protection

This is a Dale H design and I modified it for carpet layout using an project box. It has been field tested and it works great. My youngest dropped a screw on the track when we were running train and it worked perfectly and saved my beacon.

Hi John so what TVS ratting diode do you use for the voltage spikes?

and where do you get them from? digikey?

oh by the way that's for the 5 volt boards, let me know what the shipping cost was! Thanks John for all your help

Alan Mancus

Here's what I use: 1.5KE36CA at Digikey, they work well for the O-gauge voltage ranges.

Guns,

   I have simply been using the TIU's built in TVS for many many years and have never had any problem, the back up is cool however.  Guns or is there something new that has been added that I am not aware of.

PCRR/Dave

Dave, I was asked what I use and I answered.