I would like to wire all uncouplers to fire at once using only one button on my control panel. Attached is a picture of the components I would like to use.
Is this possible?
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I think you will draw way too much current with all 16 at one time. Also if your push button or relay sticks closed you could burn them ALL up at once instead of just a single unit of wired separately.
I think the 14 volt output on the Z4000 is rated at 6 amps, not positive on that? And I think just one Atlas uncoupler will draw a few amps. I have measured mine, but I forget what the reading was. I believe it was more than a couple of amps though.
Sorry, but I don't think I would recommend doing this.
Is this for the sake of convenience and/or because of limited control panel space in that you only want to push one button rather than having 16 buttons to choose from? Or do you actually need to uncouple (up to) 16 devices simultaneously?
As rtr12 points out an uncoupler draws a few Amps. So 16 at once can take a whopping 50 Amps!
But if you're absolutely determined to do this you might consider firing, say, 4 groups of 4 each in rapid succession. An uncoupler can activate in a fraction of a second. So a single button press could activate a chain of 4 relays and the whole affair would still be over in less than 1 second. This would spread out the instantaneous/peak current demand. There are 12V DC powered timer modules on eBay for a few dollars that could be cascaded to do something like this.
Or I can imagine some occupancy sensing scheme where you only apply current to an uncoupler if a car is there. Again it's not as simple as a single relay pulsing 50 Amps but then again you can get 10 Amp relay modules for about $1 per relay on eBay. An insulated rail detector could then drive the 16 individual relays to only apply current to an uncoupler coil that actually has a car present.
RTR - thank you, I was wondering what the draw was.
Stan, it is a little of both, convenience and the switches I like (as shown) are a little larger and looked nicer than the usual 1/4 inch momentary ones. My panel is 16x25 and does not leave a lot of room between tracks for the switches to fit nicely.
This is the one I did for the industrial area, the area that I put it allowed me to enlarge it so the switches fit.
This is the 16x25 one that is going in a specific spot and does not allow me to expand it anymore, I can probably still use the green switches but I will have to stager them.
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You are welcome. And as GRJ says above, your images are not showing here either. Edit, they are fixed and showing now!
I think Stan has some good ideas (he always does) that you might be able to work with. Stan knows how to make it all work as well!! One thing I was thinking earlier was maybe having a selector switch to select an uncoupler and then only one button would be required to operate any of the uncouplers.
Along Stan's ideas maybe you could do blocks of a few uncouplers with relays that would require a much smaller selector switch. Also, much less current would be going through the selector switch with the relays which might provide more options for the selector switches available. Or maybe something like that anyway.
