Hi there all you Model Railroaders,
It has been awhile since I have been in here.
Back toward the end of May my wife and I went out to see Steve at Ross Custom Switches.
We took the tour, which was great, and I purchased my first loop of track, which will be the outer loop of my two loop layout.
We took a long weekend and I was back to work on Tuesday May 24th, when I was informed that they were laying me off, along with several others. I was in the office at 8:00 and gone before 10:00.
You see, that company makes highly engineered pumps for the Oil and Gas Industry, and extended period of low crude oil prices has forced the closing of a lot of oil fields, which caused a dramatic drop in sails for us and our competitors.
Needless to say, model railroading took a very back seat to the job of finding new employment, taking care of medical insurance requirements, and navigating the NYS unemployment system.
Well, I am happy to say that after a bit over four and a half months (BTW, I did have two months of full severance pay) I am now gainfully employed once again.
I am a mechanical designer with well north of 30 years of design experience over a lot of different types of equipment, and CAD experience, mostly in ProEngineer, Windchill, etc....
I actually landed a position that utilizes my particular set of skills, and it is only 20 minutes from my house. The last four years I commuted just under an hour one way, and that took its toll.
Anyway, I am now ready to begin cutting and laying track.
I received a real nice RYOBE 7 1/4" compound miter saw for my Birthday a couple of weeks ago, and I have added a nice Diablo cut off wheel, so I am ready to go.
Here is a link to the saw that I got, and it was only $89 at Home Depot:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-9-A...143L/205448390
Due to all of the above, I am in no way ready for a DCS system, and if possible, I would really like to avoid that option completely.
The question that I have is in regard to hooking up the power to run several different trains.
1) MTH SD70 with "Ready To Run Set" remote
2) Lionel conventional (Several)
3) Lionel Lion Chief (Not LC Plus) (Several)
I have the ZW Controller with 2 180 watt power bricks, and I want to experiment with the best way to hook up the power, inclusive of the MTH remote and receiver box, that came with the ready to run SD70 set.
I also want to use, only one side of the ZW, as the second side will ultimately power my second, inner loop, in the final layout.
At this time I will, of course, have to put each train on the track separately, but I do hope to be able to figure out how to hook up power to include all of the above from one power supply to the same track.
Now I am aware that, in my final layout, I will have to have separate powered sections to segregate the trains from power when I don't want to run them, but for now there will be only one train on the track at a time.
Is there a way to do this?
1) Can I just hook the MTH receiver box, in line to the track, and run everything, again one at a time?
......This is what I hope to be able to do.
......Could it be that simple?
Or
2) Would I need some kind of splitter/divider switch to send the power one way, to one point on the track, for the Lionel trains, and then another way, to another point on the track, through the MTH receiver box for the SD70 remote?
Thanks for any and all comments.
Also, it is good to be back in here
Roger
It has been awhile since I have been in here.
Back toward the end of May my wife and I went out to see Steve at Ross Custom Switches.
We took the tour, which was great, and I purchased my first loop of track, which will be the outer loop of my two loop layout.
We took a long weekend and I was back to work on Tuesday May 24th, when I was informed that they were laying me off, along with several others. I was in the office at 8:00 and gone before 10:00.
You see, that company makes highly engineered pumps for the Oil and Gas Industry, and extended period of low crude oil prices has forced the closing of a lot of oil fields, which caused a dramatic drop in sails for us and our competitors.
Needless to say, model railroading took a very back seat to the job of finding new employment, taking care of medical insurance requirements, and navigating the NYS unemployment system.
Well, I am happy to say that after a bit over four and a half months (BTW, I did have two months of full severance pay) I am now gainfully employed once again.
I am a mechanical designer with well north of 30 years of design experience over a lot of different types of equipment, and CAD experience, mostly in ProEngineer, Windchill, etc....
I actually landed a position that utilizes my particular set of skills, and it is only 20 minutes from my house. The last four years I commuted just under an hour one way, and that took its toll.
Anyway, I am now ready to begin cutting and laying track.
I received a real nice RYOBE 7 1/4" compound miter saw for my Birthday a couple of weeks ago, and I have added a nice Diablo cut off wheel, so I am ready to go.
Here is a link to the saw that I got, and it was only $89 at Home Depot:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Ryobi-9-A...143L/205448390
Due to all of the above, I am in no way ready for a DCS system, and if possible, I would really like to avoid that option completely.
The question that I have is in regard to hooking up the power to run several different trains.
1) MTH SD70 with "Ready To Run Set" remote
2) Lionel conventional (Several)
3) Lionel Lion Chief (Not LC Plus) (Several)
I have the ZW Controller with 2 180 watt power bricks, and I want to experiment with the best way to hook up the power, inclusive of the MTH remote and receiver box, that came with the ready to run SD70 set.
I also want to use, only one side of the ZW, as the second side will ultimately power my second, inner loop, in the final layout.
At this time I will, of course, have to put each train on the track separately, but I do hope to be able to figure out how to hook up power to include all of the above from one power supply to the same track.
Now I am aware that, in my final layout, I will have to have separate powered sections to segregate the trains from power when I don't want to run them, but for now there will be only one train on the track at a time.
Is there a way to do this?
1) Can I just hook the MTH receiver box, in line to the track, and run everything, again one at a time?
......This is what I hope to be able to do.
......Could it be that simple?
Or
2) Would I need some kind of splitter/divider switch to send the power one way, to one point on the track, for the Lionel trains, and then another way, to another point on the track, through the MTH receiver box for the SD70 remote?
Thanks for any and all comments.
Also, it is good to be back in here
Roger
