MTH Z4000 Question

Mark,

Each Z4000 handle is rated for 180 watts. That would be 18 volts at 10 amps.

My math says ~10 at 18 volts per channel (200 watts each), but my math has been known to be wrong....

(Barry beat me to it by 15 seconds...) 

Good evening Barry and Mr The Stumper, thanks for the info and quick reply.

I just wanted to make sure I wasn't on the edge or brink of electronic disaster.

Thanks again !!!!! 

Hello MarkStrittmatt...........

I believe its 10 amps per handle before circuit breakers kick in.  I have a Z4000 myself. I hope it helps and perhaps someone will know more.

Tiffany

Hello Tiffany, yes you are correct.

Barry and Mr Stumper got me straightened out.

Thanks for reply though!!!!!

5.2-6 Amps for 3 engines to pull 2 cars?  Seems like a lot of power to pull 2 cars but maybe not.  If you have occasion to run this configuration again, try running with all 3 engines uncoupled and separated by several feet (but running as a lash-up) with one of the engines pulling the 2 cars.  I'm curious how the Amps reading changes if at all.  The idea of separating the engines by several feet it to see if there's any obvious speed variations causing the separations to noticeably change over a few loops.

Good evening Stan,

In this Lashup I had the (3) MTH Steam Engines, smoke units at maximum output and (2) Lighted Cabooses with standard lighting as I mentioned.

But I also had in this Lashup 19 MTH standard box cars.

With that many cars I had a pretty good train when I had all this Lashup put together this is why I figured I was reading the higher amps on the Z4000

Hi Mark, OK thanks for the clarification.  Reminds me of the CSX TV commercial where they claim they move a ton of freight 400 miles on a gallon of fuel or something like that.  I think very few guys here know (or care) how efficient their locomotives are in pulling weight.  So when I read you were expending over 100 Watts (18V x 6 Amps) to pull 2 cars I had to look twice.  But if your smoke units were running full tilt, brightly lit cabooses, etc. then all bets are off!  Fortunately, very few of us have to generate $ revenue pulling O-gauge loads around and at ~10 cents/kwH for electricity in the U.S. you don't have to be smarter than a 5th grader to do the math.

Hello Stan, after I seen your reply I thought I better clarify what I was up to with this lashup.

As always thanks for your help with my questions.