Skip to main content

I'm not aware of the extent of the voltage spikes which are common with many electronic devices, but I can say that I have used many of these Ebay DC to DC and AC to DC power supplies and never blown an LED or bulb. It's really not very likely on a bulb, an LED is another story, but I never seen one damaged.

I've been using used computer transformers.  Pure 3, 5 and 12 volts DC and 450-650 watts.  I use 2 under my layout to power all my bulbs and LED's.  I got them on Craigslist for about $10 each and even have gone to garage sales where they are in the same price range.  You can vary the voltage by using a small pot rotary switch for each connection.  You just have to find the right one to wire in.    Anything  can be made to work on the bench by connecting the green to the black wire and as a bonus they have a built in fan for cooling.  Again they are cheap and easy to set up for multi voltage lighting situations. I dumped my Lionel transformers at least 6 years ago for lighting.  Now I can connect LED's direct to the 3 volt circuit w/o using a bridge rectifier on a Lionel transformer.

AMCDave posted:

I was given a large outdoor lighting transformer. I forget it's AMP out put but it is 12 VDC and is bigger than the Lionel 'bricks'. Can I use this to run lighting on my layout??? Is there an issue with using this type transformer??? Thx

Light bulbs arent too picky about AC or DC. The amp output is what's important. And there is a difference between amp. and voltamp when reading sepcs. It should work out through.

 

i'm fairly lucky to live in a rather large city where i know of a few 2nd-hand electronics stores.  remember back when people were upgrading their modems every few months?  well even those those modems are long gone, their modular power supplies are all over the place, usually for $1 or $2.  i have over a dozen of these in a variety of voltage and current ranges.  what i usually do is hook up a variable transformer to a light or accessory to find the best working voltage and then substitute a dedicated module for the task.

cheers...gary

I am a dummy sometimes. Couldn't figure out why Z-4000 was overloading at 100 watts - when its rated at 3.5 times that. I figured out it was the toggle switches that were limiting current flow to the terminal strips - so I bypassed them and now have Z-4000 handles powering directly to terminal blocks that have structure wires wired to. No more pulsing and crazy electronic sounds. I guess its analogous to putting high flow rate through a garden hose - it can only handle so much - the toggles were bottle-necking the juice.

Still don't know why MTH and Lionel's instructions for structures only say to use AC?

cjack posted:

What kind of toggle switches would do that? Picture or descriptions?

 

That's what I want to know!!  I have not started wiring the layout yet but have some heavy duty DPDT toggles rated at a much higher voltage than needed.....am I going to have issue???  Never heard of issue with good grade toggles before. 

A higher voltage rating on the switches will not affect anything for lower voltages.  The voltage rating is primarily achieved by greater gaps when the switch opens to quench any arc as the switch opens.  Note that the DC ratings of switches are quite frequently much lower than the AC ratings due to the self-quenching characteristic of AC currents.

Thank you for the response!!  I have many HO gauge due to the collection when I was a teenager. Now I would like to restore my engine using antique tracks from my father.  I would like to assemble a 1930 train to share with my 9 year old son at Christmas time.  I believe that it would be nice to share with my son.  He has lost my mother who would be his grandmother due to a  brain disease that was given to her.  She was 53 when she passed and sadly he lost his Grandfather to Cancer given to him by the government due to him servicing the plains that delivered the defoliant.

My toggles are Radio Shack - heavy duty SPST type - just on and off - no lights on them - "RTR - 25A" which I take means they're rated for 25 amps? Something's amiss however because they were bottle-necking the juice.

I checked MTH and Lionel instructions for the houses - all of which just have lights - and both companies say power with AC.

Add Reply

Post
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×
×