circuit breaker for zw

If your talking about a replacement for the original internal breaker, I bought one from this site few years back.  It fit and worked perfectly.

http://www.lioneltransformer.com/home

Cheers,

Jim

You can go to Radio Shack but I am not sure that they sell AC circuit breakers for what you may need. A substitute would be an 8 amp fuse rated for 32 volts AC. 

Don't use a DC breaker as it may pop too soon or not at all.

Another source for AC circuit breakers at a great price is www.mouserelectronics.com

Get a breaker rated at 8 amps 50 volts AC. 8 amps should be enough power for almost any O gauge train. For better protection add a TVS unit rated at 32 volts AC bi-directional, either use one for each track power connection or use one in each engine that is a modern one with a circuit board inside.

FYI, about the older post war ZW's, they have a 15 amp breaker on the common side. In today's electronic world that would fry something before it would pop.

Lee Fritz

If your looking for add on protection that reacts quicker, you are better off with fast blow fuses or an electronic solution like the PSX-AC from DCC Specialties.

Jim

Just noticed Lee's post.  If you're trying to better protect modern electronics,  I'll strongly second adding the TVS device.  When I first got into TMCC, I damaged a couple boards with the ZW.  On the advice of the guy that ran Digital Dynamics, I started using a 36V TVS device from Digikey (along with an 8 amp fast blow fuse I decided to add)  in both my ERR conversions and existing Lionel trains.   I haven't had an electronics board fail since.

Jim

thanks for the info and help. i run mostly PW and MPC stuff the only things i have with boards are a few conventional only starter set engines and an rmt bang. i could use a cw-80 for those. the breaker tripped a few years back i just replaced it with the cw's until the end of the year. last year i only had a small layout so ididn't need it, but this year is pretty big. plus i'm starting a year round layout after the holidays so it's time to fix it. guess i'll hit radio shack first.

as always thank you, i love this forum.

Dave

Take a look at boat suppy web sites, like www.defender.com, for Sierra marine push button breakers.  Come in 5, 7, 10, 15, & 20 amp.  Also available under other labels.

Adding external ones are shown here

http://www.jcstudiosinc.com/BlogShowThread?id=486

Dale H

Dave, the technically correct answer to your query is that a postwar ZW replacement circuit breaker is a "Z-22 circuit bkr old style black box 13.50" or a "ZW-232R side mount circuit breaker repro 8.00" from Jeff's parts list.  The part # depends on the ZW model you have.

When the postwar ZW has a good circuit breaker that protects the transformer, not the engines or accessories, you get to choose protection for the A, B, C, and D circuits.

See Circuit Protection for Toy Trains for one runner's protection preferences and methods.