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Hi everyone,

 

I have two very large reverse loops in a multi room layout.  When my loco pulling 9 madison cars gets to the far side of the layout, the power loss is very noticeable.  I think I have read somewhere that I can put an insulating pin along the single straight section that connects the two reverse loops and then run the second throttle on my MTH Z4000 for the far loop, and the first throttle for the near loop.  Is this correct?

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Originally Posted by Volphin:

Hi everyone,

 

I have two very large reverse loops in a multi room layout.  When my loco pulling 9 madison cars gets to the far side of the layout, the power loss is very noticeable.  I think I have read somewhere that I can put an insulating pin along the single straight section that connects the two reverse loops and then run the second throttle on my MTH Z4000 for the far loop, and the first throttle for the near loop.  Is this correct?

Oh, and I'm using Fastrack if that matters.

Originally Posted by Volphin:

Hi everyone,

 

I have two very large reverse loops in a multi room layout.  When my loco pulling 9 madison cars gets to the far side of the layout, the power loss is very noticeable.  I think I have read somewhere that I can put an insulating pin along the single straight section that connects the two reverse loops and then run the second throttle on my MTH Z4000 for the far loop, and the first throttle for the near loop.  Is this correct?

Volphin,

Passenger cars in particular require a lot of current.  Recommendations:

 

  • You should be running power feeds more frequently for that size of layout.  Every 6-8 feet or 4-5 track joints is a good idea.  Run feeder wire pairs to terminal strips as shown below.  IMHO the MTH terminal strip is horribly overpriced for what it does.  More than adequate terminal or barrier strips are available for $1-2 (see diagram below) from www.allelectronics.com, www.digikey.com, Radio Shack, and many, many other sources.
  • Look at the concept of power districts.  That's where you electrically divide your layout so that the electrical load of one or more trains is divided among power sources.  Essentially, that's the idea you had to use with multiple Z-4000 throttles.  My layout is running 8 power districts with 2 Lionel 180 watt powerhouse transformers.  Four power districts (pairs of terminal strips) are shown on the left side of the diagram.

  

 

20091116_Panel

Hope this helps.

 

George

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For what it is worth.  On my layout work I use 14 ga feeders for a small RR (12' x 12') 12 ga for up to 40' runs and all my large RR get 10 ga. feeders or buss.

 

Yes, I know that so and so runs everything well on his full basement pike with 16 ga wire.

 

Performance can suffer with undersize wire but not with oversize wire.  NAO

 

This chart can be helpful in selecting wire size.  Layouts just need the first one or two columns.  There are mitigating variables, but you will not experience poor performance with these sizes.

 

voltage-drop-and-wire-gauge-size-calculation-for-12v-

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Last edited by Tom Tee
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