Is there a way of telling which is the hot and common on the end of plug of Lionel powerhouse180?
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There is no defined hot/common terminals on the
secondary side of a transformer. The transformer
removes and isolates the hot/common connectons
from the power company. The transformer terminal
you connect to the center rail becomes the hot side
and the terminal connected to the outside rail becomes
the common side. If you have more than one transformer
connected to your layout than phasing may be required
because phasing will pass thru the transformer from the
power company.
Per a conversation with Jon Z, it appears that the Lionel "standard" for the bricks is a polarity inversion - i.e. a positive-going AC cycle on the input will produce a negative-going AC cycle on the output. Wouldn't it have made sense to have "positive in = positive out"? I guess that would be too logical!
