Legacy/TPC 300/DCS wiring

Jeff

Run power and common leads from one handle of  your Z400 to the hot and neutral inputs on the TPC 300.  These are your power supply leads and I would use 14 gauge wire. Connect a wire from "track out A" to the red input of one channel of your TIU.  Connect anothee wire from "Track Out U " to the corresponding black input channel of your TIU.  I would use a seperate power supply to power up the TIU.  I use a Radio Shack # 273-1690 18 vac power supply. Connect a Lionel 6-14191 cable assy. which has a DB-9 connector to the computer port of the Legacy Base and hook the other end to the TPC 300.  The red wire goes to the DAT terminal and the green wire goes to the COM terminal. 

The MTH TIU port must be set to a fixed output or the variable output must be changed to fixed.  This gets you one channel of operation on the TIU.  You can hook a TPC 300 to each TIU channel or run a jumper on the input side of your TIU to connect power to all 4 channels if desired.  Leave the output wiring from the MTH TIU as is.

You can now run TMCC & Legacy locos using your Cab-2 and PS-2&3 locos using the MTH DCS remote when you select a fixed 18 volt output from your TPC 300.  When you want to run conventional locos, reprogram your TPC 300 such as TR1, M, SET and you now can run all conventional locos from your CAB-2 remote.  With only one TPC300, and all 4 TIU channel inputs jumpered together,  all conventional locos will respond on all 4 TIU channels at the same time.

I know this sounds a little confusing, but it works.  I have this setup on my layout.

Allan O

Both of you have it right. I have a loop like this also. The TPC 300 feeds into the input of a fixed TIU channel.

If you purchase a Z-4000 Remote Commander it can control 2 handles of a Z-4000. Wire them to the fixed outputs of the TIU and make Z4k tracks plus the 2 variable from the TIU for a total of 4 variable power tracks all from the DCS remote.

Jim C, when you said "both of you have it right", did you mean it can be connected the way I outlined it in the first post or it could also be done the way Allan suggested?