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Hello everyone,

I'm looking to get some answers on what I should use to power my Roundhouse Area.  Currently my layout is a L-Shape 18x8 and 24x8.  I have two main lines which I plan on using my Z-4000 (one side of the Z for the large outer loop and the other for the inner loop).  Right now my inner loop is not wired so basically I use my Z-4000 for the Roundhouse area and large outer loop.  

My roundhouse area is all wired with toggle switches so realistically I would never power all the whisker tracks at once and the track merges onto the main loop just under the Lionel Coal Tower, so the length is really only about 7-8 feet of track at one given time.  However, I some huge engines that need to be powered like the Big Boy and Challenger.  I was toying with the idea of buying another Z-4000, but I figured that might be overkill.  I was looking at a 180 W Lionel Power Brick but that only uses 18 V instead of 21 V in a Z-4000.  

Please let me know what your recommendations are and I took a photograph of my roundhouse area for reference for what I was describing.  Thanks again everyone!

AJ IMG_1260

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Powering up all of your whisker tracks at once could up all of the Z4K's 10A output.  Powering one or two locos at a time on the turntable should be well within the Z4K's capacity even with a train running on the loop.  At shows without a dedicated yard transformer, I draw turntable power from one of the loops.  No problem with amp draw.  However, this photo session of a dozen locos idling on the whisker tracks used almost 10A.

10A draw from whisker tracks

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Well the issue with that idea for me is I use the MTH star wiring system and I have all of my whisker tracks and turntable lead on the same block.  Basically my wiring system is I have Outer Loop on one wiring block, Inner Loop on another wiring block, and the Turntable and Whisker Tracks and Lead on another wiring block (the wiring blocks in which you plug in the banana plugs from the TIU) 

You can power two TIU inputs from one Z4k channel and route one output to the loop and the other to the yard block.  YMMV with the DCS signal in complex track areas and a separate TIU channel driving the yard may provide the best signal.

The primary reason for a separate power source for the yard is to keep a short while messing with locos in the yard area from stopping operations on the loops.  If all of your locos are command controlled, then a 180W brick can be used.  Don't worry about 18v vs 21v as everything will run fine on 18v.

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