My small 6x11 layout uses all fastrack. I have for now 2 135 lionel bricks running into the mth rev. L tiu fixed one and fix two ports. I also have my legacy hooked into it via the rs232 and proper mth tiu/tmcc cable. I also have the mth wifi/ wiu connected to my usb port on the tiu. My track feeders are all connected in the star pattern via mth terminal blocks. There are two.one for each side of my layout as it is divided in half. Each brick powers one half. I connected the legacy com. Wire to the banana ground or black post on the fix 1 out on my tiu. I have basically exstetion cords in connecting the terminal blocks to the tiu. I cut off the female end and use banana jacks to hook them to my tiu. The male end easily plugs in to the female end and then is run and hooked to the main post on the tiu. I make sure to color each male and female end with a sharpi so I always have hot and ground hooked the proper way each time. This allows me to have my modular sections which can easily be connected to my tiu. This set up has worked flawlessly since day one of building my layout.
I recently got out some old realtracks I have to test out my engines going through various switch configurations. I may use it someday on the other sections of the layout. For now just laying the track out on the floor next to the layout to try my experiment is what I am doing. I basically used another exstetion cord with the male end and just put some large alligator clips on the other end to attach quickly to the track. I pluged the male end into fix out 1 on my tiu. Powered up the 135 brick for fix tui 1. Success I ran mth and legacy engines on this test track with out any problems. Thats how it should be.
This got me to thinking. When I do add more sections and expand my layout will the legacy/tmcc comm wire connected to the fix 1 out on the tiu be sufficient for the legacy signal. I know only one command base is used on a layout. What about the com. Wire to the track though. Like track feeders does it need mutiple ground locations on the layout to get better signal strength? Or is just the one hook up to the fix 1 channel on the output side of the tiu enough to handle it now matter how big my layout gets in the future?
Here is a photo of my tiu set up. I recently moved it and tidied up the wiring. I got tired of not being able to unhook everything easily from my tiu and get at it to do firmware updates on it. This is much easier to do now. Love those banana jacks they made my wiring job so neet and easier to unhook everything when needed. I know I need inline fuses on the output side of things to protect my tiu fuses. I just need to get around to that.
