Things a Beast.
But it does have the great advantage of that you are very unlikely to misplace it.
I don't know about(misplace) that, ask me in a month, my ZW-L with into the storage room last week. I have been hunting for my Legacy 990 for over a month now with no luck finding it. I do know where the expansion 993 is.
I believe Mike's video reported that the same on the ZW-L
Now that I've gotten mine and played with it for a little bit this afternoon, I'm happy to say that the inner handles also start at zero volts when being used in command mode! (didn't see this mentioned in any of the other ZW-L threads over the last few days)
The handles do still need to be set to the max voltage you wish to use in command mode, but the handles B and C do not start at full output when the transformer is powered on. (at least not in the factory setting where the unit is set as engines 1-4, I have not tried different things like addressing the ZW-L as a series of TRacks yet)
Thank You, Lionel for modifying this behavior in the new ZW-L!
-Dave
What I liked about it ;
Things a Beast
It ran the entire club layout alone.
If you are running 4 separate tracks with any conventional engines you can blow horn/whistle on all 4 tracks and obviously vary the voltage and interupt etc...
The other nice thing at the club show today, is the easiness of taking off a legacy and putting on a conventional engine still using same remote and never touching the transformer.
The breakers on the back have never had to be touched yet,The 1st 2 layers have always takin care of whatever type of short.
The across the room view of the blacked out meter when there is a short gives you instant awareness of what track is shorted. A quick press of the remote and the track is reset.
Its made in Malaysia rather than China. Isn't Malaysia good for producing high tech items...cameras..computers...etc. So this means a high quality ZW.
The across the room view of the blacked out meter when there is a short gives you instant awareness of what track is shorted. A quick press of the remote and the track is reset.
Can you leve the handles set at say 16 volts and just turn it off for the night and turn it back on the next day and not have to touch it and the tracks have 16 volts?
The across the room view of the blacked out meter when there is a short gives you instant awareness of what track is shorted. A quick press of the remote and the track is reset.
Can you leve the handles set at say 16 volts and just turn it off for the night and turn it back on the next day and not have to touch it and the tracks have 16 volts?
From what I remember from the video, that works on the B and C handles, but the A and D handles are just limits that you have to throttle up to what you want with the CAB. Like the ZW-C I think except for being able to program the outputs as ENG as well as TRK.
From what I remember from the video, that works on the B and C handles, but the A and D handles are just limits that you have to throttle up to what you want with the CAB. Like the ZW-C I think except for being able to program the outputs as ENG as well as TRK.
On the ZW-C if you have the handles at 16 volts and turn the bricks off, when you turn them back on the tracks have 16 volts without touching anything.
So this new ZW-L will only do that on the two inner throttles, not the outer two throttles correct? They will need to be "spun" up to voltage with the remote?
Right.
From what I remember from the video, that works on the B and C handles, but the A and D handles are just limits that you have to throttle up to what you want with the CAB. Like the ZW-C I think except for being able to program the outputs as ENG as well as TRK.
On the ZW-C if you have the handles at 16 volts and turn the bricks off, when you turn them back on the tracks have 16 volts without touching anything.
So this new ZW-L will only do that on the two inner throttles, not the outer two throttles correct? They will need to be "spun" up to voltage with the remote?
As I mentioned a few posts above, I don't believe this is true with the new ZW-L (at least not on mine).
When in command mode, the inner handles (B&C) also need to have the throttle increased (spinning the red knob on remote) to apply voltage. (to me this is a good thing, but your opinion may vary)
When you think about it, this makes sense now that there is a dedicated Command/Conventional switch on the transformer itself. If you want the transformer to start with the voltage up (wherever the handles are set), just put it in conventional mode, and the transformer will ignore the remote. You can certainly still run command controlled trains, you just will not have control of the transformer (including the halt to interrupt power, of course). If you are OK with dialing up the throttles with the red knob each time, leave the transformer in command mode.
The ZW-C behavior was originally based on the thought of using the inners for accessories (much like why there is no bell/whislte buitton for the inners), which you would want the voltage to come up at full right away. Since there was no way designed in for the ZW-C to "ignore" a command signal, this was a decent compromise at the time.
I am very glad to see that with the addition of the new command/conventional switch that the old behavior was eliminated.
-Dave
I am very glad to see that with the addition of the new command/conventional switch that the old behavior was eliminated.
...
The Lionel owner's manual addresses the very "basics" when it comes to this new transformer. But not surprisingly, it's becoming very evident that there's an entire other level of "nuances" that is NOT explained in the Lionel manual at all -- but rather is gleaned from actually using the transformer and observing its behavior. Sounds like a "users guide" could be helpful down the road.
David
I watched the video again and i see now that in the command mode, all the outputs stay at zero until you rotate the throttle on the cab.
So...i guess if you want the outputs to come up full on without rotating the cab throttles like running command engines, you have to run it in conventional mode? And if you want to run conventional and control them with the cab, you have to run the transformer in the command mode.
Interesting...
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