How Do I Set Accessory Voltage on Lionel CW-80 (6-14198)

Voltmeter.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Voltmeter.

Don't (yet) have a voltmeter.

Could I also use a multi-meter?

And where might I purchase either? Since we no longer have Radio Shack I'm at a loss.

Harbor Freight, Northern Tool, or your favorite big box store.

Which would be better/simpler for an electrical novice - voltmeter or multimeter?

I also want to use it to check track continuity.

3/4 throttle will get you pretty close.

A basic multi-meter will do the job.

Try Home Depot or Harbor Freight

Multimeter will do all the tasks you are interested it.  Harbor Freight is always cheaper and has various price ranges.

Bill DeBrooke posted:

Multimeter will do all the tasks you are interested it.  Harbor Freight is always cheaper and has various price ranges.

 

Yes, especially if you have a coupon for them.  And if their latest ad doesn't have a coupon for them, not to worry.  The next ad probably will.

This will over-complicate matters, but doesn't the CW-80 use a chopped sine-wave on the settable Accessory Voltage output?  IF so, most multi-meters will not give an accurate AC voltage reading as they don't measure true-RMS AC voltage.  It could well be that "3/4 throttle" as suggested earlier would get to close-enough to 14V!

I think there is a chart floating around in the OGR archives showing the conversion of the AC voltage measurement from a generic multi-meter to the true-RMS AC voltage.  

stan2004 posted:

This will over-complicate matters, but doesn't the CW-80 use a chopped sine-wave on the settable Accessory Voltage output?  IF so, most multi-meters will not give an accurate AC voltage reading as they don't measure true-RMS AC voltage.  It could well be that "3/4 throttle" as suggested earlier would get to close-enough to 14V!

I think there is a chart floating around in the OGR archives showing the conversion of the AC voltage measurement from a generic multi-meter to the true-RMS AC voltage.  

Yes, and heres a link to the thread with the chart : CW-80 voltage Make sure you have a load on the transformer when setting the voltage, i.e. have it running your accessory.

The CW-80 is an odd duck. Best thing I ever did was get rid of 2 I had for accessories and replace them with a180w brick going through a TPC unit to regulate the output. My accessories have never ran better, and at lower voltages to boot.

RickO posted:

...2 I had for accessories and replace them with a180w brick going through a TPC unit to regulate the output...

I would rather have the 10 amps(2 CWs) with 4 adjustable settings than your 10 amps with one adjustable setting.

paulp575 posted:

... how do I know what throttle position is 14 volts?

14 volts is just a guide. Set the CW to the position that gives the best operation with the lowest possible throttle setting for accessory & bulb  longevity.

ADCX Rob posted:

RickO posted:

...2 I had for accessories and replace them with a180w brick going through a TPC unit to regulate the output...

I would rather have the 10 amps(2 CWs) with 4 adjustable settings than your 10 amps with one adjustable setting.

Everything is running just "Jim Dandy" at 10v coming out of my TPC, Lights,  signals, uncoupling tracks, operating accessories with motors , you name it. Additionally, my $18 meter can give me the the voltage without a conversion chart.

With the CW -80s some accessories needed 12 or more volts to function reliably.

At any rate. Thanks Rob!  The chart you posted at the link I pasted above was very helpful with my CW-80s while I had them.

Thanks to all for the info.

I'm using the CW-80 temporarily until I can get a layout built; just wanting to ensure my 2 new accessories wortk well. I do recall Lionel (or maybe it was MTH?) that the CW-80 doe not put out a good sine wave.

Once I start building my layout I plan on using either the MTH Z-4000 or the Lionel ZW-L as my power source.

I have been using a CW80 set to 8 volts on the accessory terminal; I have a TekPower TP2844R True RMS multi meter that I found on Amazon to measure and set the voltage out of the CW80; I have been running Lionel 395 Floodlight Towers and Lionel 494 Rotary beacons on 8v with no issues.

Well, to further obfuscate the issue , here's the thing. 

True-RMS AC voltage is relevant in O-gauge for incandescent lighting.  In other words, if you have 14V AC RMS from a CW-80 (chopped-sine) or a Z-4000 (almost pure-sine) the lights should be equally bright.

HOWEVER. 

If you are driving a vibrating/vibra-motor accessory (cattle car, rotating searching, wig-wag, etc.) 14V AC RMS from a chopped-sine source will generally produce more "action" than 14V AC RMS from pure or almost-pure sine source.  This is because for the same RMS AC voltage, the peak or maximum voltage of a chopped sine source is larger than the peak or maximum voltage or a pure sine source.  This larger peak voltage is, for all intents and purposes, what governs the electromechanical behavior of non-lighting accessories.

This also applies to solenoids as found in un-coupling UCS track sections.  It's the peak voltage (not the RMS voltage) that for the most part determines the peak pulling force that determines whether the coupler releases.

This also applies to the heater resistor in most fan-driven smoke-units.  For the same true-RMS AC voltage, a chopped-sine source will produce more heat than a pure sine source.  This is because in fan-driven smoke units the AC voltage is converted to DC (to drive the DC fan motor) and hence these units generally power the heating resistor with DC voltage which tracks the peak AC voltage.  IIRC there was even a Lionel video extolling the virtues of chopped sine transformers driving smoke units.

This also applies to DC illuminated accessories such as buildings which use LEDs (instead of filament bulbs).  Again, if there is not some kind of DC voltage regulating circuit to level the playing field, the peak DC voltage following AC-to-DC conversion and smoothing will be higher from a chopped sine source than from a pure sine source of the same RMS AC voltage.

The bottom line, in my opinion, was suggested earlier.  Go ahead and use the CW-80 and adjust (starting low) the voltage to simply confirm that the behavior of a particular accessory does indeed change with voltage.  Now you know the accessory "works".  If you want to use a meter to record the optimal voltage or voltage range, that's fine.  Note what meter you used.  Then, when you get your Z-4000 or ZW pure sine sources, simply keep in mind that it's not apples-to-apples.  Though you should expect if Accessory A requires more voltage than Accessory B when using a CW-80...that the same will be true with the pure sine transformer.

The 2 accessories I want to check to see if they are working correctly are: (1) 6-24113 (Lionelville Ford® Auto Dealership) and (2) 6-85294 (Plug-Expand-Play Lionelville Hobby Shop). Because I've seen some post about problems with these, I don't want to inadvertently put more voltage to them than is absolutely necessary.

Since I don't - yet - have a multi-meter, why couldn't I just connect the accessory to the track using the 8" Female Pigtail Power Cable (6-82038)?