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   Can i wire the controller directly to my rails? Requires 12 to 20 vac but i dont want to interfere with DCS.My system is DCS revL 4.20 using a Z1000 brick which feeds 2 loops, one 2 rail and one 3 rail. Wiring to my acc side or the z1000 brick very inconvenient as i would have to wire underneath my floor, crawl space only and buried w/ snow.

traffic lite

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  • traffic lite
Last edited by willygee
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Dave, I suggest you look at the light kit we're talking about before making judgments.  It's an LED traffic light set with a power supply & controller that runs the lights.

 

The so called "magic bulb" is nothing but an incandescent bulb. 

 

When you have a power supply that has diodes and bulk capacitance, it can reflect on the DCS signal.  Why do you think the simple power supplies for constant voltage lighting in locomotives are isolated with a choke for DCS updates?

 

Originally Posted by gunrunnerjohn:

I'll have to disagree.  While you may not see any apparent issue, it may degrade the DCS signal just a little.  I had the same thinking when we added a crossing gates to our modular layout, but as part of my DCS issue remediation, I added chokes to all the crossing gates, made a significant difference.

?  It should be measureable via a track signal test.  Either it degrades it or it doesn't.  I don't think anything is lost testing it.  Especially on a home layout.  G

I can't argue that testing it makes sense.  However, due to the variability of the track signal test, you still won't always see minor differences.  From what I've observed in trying to get DCS working properly on the modular layout, you can have a lot of minor issues that all add up to significant signal degradation, where just one of these areas would not be noticeable by itself.  I figure for the 30 cent part, the time wasted testing the effect, or lack of effect, isn't worth it, so I just add the choke.

 

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