Lionel 180 Watt power supply

No

You will need at least 2. Convert passenger car lighting to LEDs,it will save some wattage.

Dale H

Thanks Dale I will have to purchase another!

Six or seven trains on 80 feet of track?  Isn't that going to be a bit crowded?  Are you talking the length of the layout?

Tim, the length of the track doesn't affect the amount of power required, but it does partially determine the number and wire gauge of your feeder runs.

The amount of power you need is determined by:

1.  The number of motors in the locomotives,

2.  The types of motors - old open frame or newer can motors,

3.  Smoke units,

4.  Grade steepness and length,

5.  The number of cars you pull,

6.  The friction of the cars - old stationary axles or new needle-point,

7.  Lighting and/or smoke in passenger cars and cabeese, and

8.  Any rolling operating accessories such as an aquarium car.

(Did I miss anything?)

Simple, eh?

I mean the length of all the track i plan on powering....It will make a Large U shape in my basement and I would run 2 - 3 train lachups. 2 full lengths at a time. 

OK, that will work better than 6-7 trains on one piece of track!

Someone else in the hobby said that they put a power feed to their track every six feet or so, does that sound about right or is that over kill???

You could go farther than that, I have feeders about every 10-12' with 14 ga wire. Not a voltage drop anywhere. Using a smaller guage wire will most likely require more feeders. I used the 14ga because thats what Lionel recommends.

overkill, no.

just remember to alternate your common drop. if you drop a power feed every 10', do the following for the common or black wire. at 10' inside rail & power, at 20' outside rail & power, at 30' inside rail & power. you will have a better signal pickup for tmcc or dcs.

This depends on the make of track,  lionels fastrack is manufactured with the common rails "tied" together so alternating is not necessary.

Your type of track influences the distance between drops.  If you are using 10" section, you need more drops than if you are using 36" sections.  Most of the voltage drop occurs at the pins between sections.  If your pins are new and tight, you can easily go 3-4 junctions without worry.  If you have old tubular track with rust inside the pin holes, you may need to connect to every single piece!

Whenever possible, use the longest sections that you can to minimize problems.

The bus wire size does not affect how often you need to connect.

I would like to add another powerhouse power supply using a direct lockon hoping this would increase the amps to enable running another engine. What is the correct wiring for this if its possible to do.  Thanks.

Are you talking about adding another power House to the same district or to a separate loop/district? If to a separate district okay, but it to the same district you need to parallel through linkgage of both units to a Track Power Controller[TPC].

The same district.  So using a tpc I can increase the amps to that district?

Yes it can be done, but be aware that you are placing 360 watts[20 amps] on the rails in a single district by paralleling a pair of 180s. That is enough to create very strong and damaging arcs wheels-to-rails upon a derailment before the PoHo trips.

What are you planning to run that requires that much power? Normally a couple of long lighted passenger trains with multiple engines can be operated with a single 180 PoHo or at most, a pair of 135 watt units paralleled via a TPC for 270 watts. 

I am also curious to know what your are running that requires another brick.  Is your problem that the brick's circuit breaker trips off (maybe you need more power), or are you experiencing slowing due to voltage drop (a wiring issue that will not be solved with a second brick)?

Trying to run a lash up with 3 engines all with smoke that third unit trips when I put it on the track. All 3 are dual motor engines. Certainly could be an issue elsewhere I just thought another brick would fix it but Dewey's warning seems like its a bad thing to do.

Thanks for any suggetions.

Rick

When running 2 180w bricks through a TPC 400,the tpc allows you to set the voltage wherever you like, lowering it down to 15 or16v will eliminate the arcing.

RickO 

I ran a paralleled pair of 180 PoHOs linked through a TPC 400 to support two very long, lighted passenger trains on a 14 x32 power district[loop].

I can assure you that 20 amps capacity upon a surge even at a regulated 16 volts will scar a rail and wheels fairly significantly. I only had the one derailment over a period of several months and it both blew the cartridge fuses and tripped both PoHos, nevertheless the damage was done in a matter of seconds. Presumably my Power Guards[TVS] clamped or at least modified any Voltage surge. For that reason I believe the high rated amperage plus overcurrent surge created by the derail short caused the metal damage. A voltage spike itself will not trip breakers---a current surge will.

RickO, I have to agree with Dewey.  Certainly, arcing may be less, but there's no magic to 15-16 volts, and that much current at that voltage will certainly do some welding at times.

I experienced the same thing Dewey, dropped the voltage down to 15.5 and now when I have a derailment the breakers on the bricks trip but theres no visible arc or rail/wheel damage. I personally was suprised that dropping the voltage a couple of digits would work, but it did. I'm only saying what I did John, I'm no electrician, I understand its alot of power but in my case dropping the voltage eliminated the welding, a couple of "test derailments" proved it. Having said all of that I would think one brick could operate three locomotives depending on the other factors like wiring, train length etc. I can run 3 scale steamers on my two 10x16' loops on one brick with the smoke units on with no issues, as well as 6 turnouts and 2 crossings. I've been debating whether I really need the second brick. I believe when I started it was a case of "more is better"

I can't argue with your experience RickO.

But after Lou Kovach invented the TPCs and demonstrated with his video the output of paralleled 135 PoHos running 10 MU-ed locomotives I was intrigued and experimented with several combinations. Included was paralleling three 135 PoHos linked to a TPC 4000 for 400 watts or over 22 amps output regulated at just slightly over 16 Volts. I didn't run any trains on that lash-up but I did short across rails on a section of Gargraves track with a #12 pigtail and clearly demonstrate what could serve as a toy welding accessory[until it tripped].

The photo below shows the color-coded[round dots] transformers down below wired in parallel to the color-coded TPC 4000s on shelf above[small dots] for a pair of 180s on the left ,three 135s in the center and a pair of 135s[a TPC 3000]. The latter was left connected for 270 watts that served two long, lighted passenger trains---the others were returned to single unit power.

I am down to a small layout these days and have no need for added power. Now I am intrigued by your experience which is so different from mine years ago. 

Hmmm... I may have a brick for sale.

The best solution for lighted passenger cars nowadays is use of LEDs in place of incandescent bulbs. But I don't have to worry since my passenger trains on the little 9x16 are now a single engine and 4-5 cars.

I dont think so,unless they are converted to LEDs.. 2 sets of cars with bulbs by themselves could use up to 100 watts. Not much left for motors and smoke units.

Dale H

I have 8 lighted RailKing Milwaukee Road cars with three bulbs each.  Right now they consume a bit more than 3A, which figures to about 50 watts just for the cars.  They're the next on the LED conversion block, where they'll then be more like 5 watts.

Dale, as you well know it depends on the size and type of motors in the locomotives as well as the numbers of lights in the cars and whether one is running unlighted headend cars in the consists. I certainly cannot run a pair of 9-car [7 lighted] consists behind my 4-motored Weaver E-8 diesels or similar engines, but I can with late 4-6-2s or a single Alco PA or E series +dummy as power. [I have never operated with smoke units on].

That is 14 lighted cars and two 4-6-2s or two Diesels and I have done it many times without interruption of my 10 amp PoHo. I have some pretty good handheld meters from out at the shop as well as the panel meters that both indicate less than 10 amps load. No question, if I run two consists with 14 cars each[11 or 12 lighted] and as I did on a former layout with 14x32 loops, I had to parallel a couple of 135 watt PoHos to handle them.

I completely agree with your promotion of replacing incandescents with LEDs as a more efficient use of power. But at the same time with my much diminished assembly skills and now smaller layouts and shorter consists, I have little incentive to do so.

Hi Dewey

You are correct the way you run you can do it on one brick. All depends on the cars and engines of course.  The worst power hogs were the K-Line ones with stream lighting.

However it must be understood that most passenger cars until recently released ones were designed for conventional operation. 18-21 volts in command is too much voltage for them and can result in premature burned out bulbs and melting roofs. This problem needs to be addressed whether the transformer is adequate or not to supply them..  LED lighting solves this problem if done correctly,or a single diode can be used to dim the existing bulbs in half and also protect the smoke unit in a caboose.

I have seen lots of pictures over the years of expensive cabooses and passenger cars with melted roofs by people who have not considered the issue..

There have been numerous posts here by different people on LED lighting and different methods to accomplish it.  The way I do it is pictured in several posts here

www.jcstudiosinc.com/BlogCategoryMain?catId=426

The hardest part for me to do the conversion is getting the cars apart.

Dale H

Seeing how cheap the LED strips are nowadays, I normally take the easy way out and use the self-adhesive strips in my cars.

I use them in buildings but since they are wired in series of 3 for conventional operators it is not too feasible to wire them in CV circuits without using a voltage doubler.

Dale H

I also have had good luck after dropping the voltage to the track to 15.5-16 volts on the TPC. 2- 135 bricks to a TPC300.  Now when a train rolls across my Ross double crossover set the wrong way (I try, I really try hard not to do this) with the dreaded DZ1008 relays, it doesn't fry the relay.  I don't have as much power-starting a triple whatever while running a double whatever will slow down the double, but it's worth a slight speed adjustment, if to save a fried relay replacement. 

Since I'm a command/control kind of guy, that isn't an issue for most of my conversions.  However, the doubler is very easy to do, and at the low currents of LED lighting, you don't need large caps.

Every 6' or so is a good range for power drops.  Question?  Is it really that neccessary to have as many drops to the common?  I always did as little common connections as possible, as few as one on a layout, thinking the juice will always find it's way around the circle and the power connections were the critical ones. 

Common is just as important as the power, you should have drops for both at whatever interval you select.

A z4000 puts out up to 21 volts. Times 2 is 42 volts. This is too much for common components used such as 35 volt capacitors.  Even a 20 ma regulated circuit would result in 3/4 watt generated by the cl2n3 chip or regulator. The chip is only rated for about a half watt as I remember.

Dale H

Dale, don't forget the square root of 2.  You would be dealing with about 55 volts peak on a doubler!  I know when I tried a doubler at max voltage the CL2 was very unhappy.

A 7812 or LM317 would be overvoltaged.

If you're running command, you don't need a doubler.  If you're running conventional, I doubt most folks will get close to 20 volts on the track.

There are also solutions for higher input voltages, consider the SuperTex LR12 for instance.  It'll handle 100 volts input and the TO252 package handles two watts, surely enough for some LED's.

I never ran my pickup truck at 100 MPH like I used to run my 49 Ford but hopefully the wheel bearings and other components are designed to take the speed.

Dale H

See previous post for one high voltage solution.