True wattage or VA. of the new ZW-L

It is only 620 watts, originally it was advertised as 720 watts and I want to say real early on at the York show when it was first announced it was 760 watts. When it was all said and done the underwriters set a max at 620 watts. There is a maximum of 180 watts per channel with a maximum of 620 watts for the transformer.

Lionel also has videos on their site and the You Tube site on the ZWL.

Total power available is 720 watts, however the transformer will limit total maximum output on all channels combined to 620 watts or, I believe, 36 amps. As paulp said above, it was a limitation by UL, for their approval, on the maximum output.

See the videos paulp suggests above, good info there.  Many here have reported it to be a very fine transformer, arguably and/or possibly the best one currently available.

The ZWL is rated at 620 watts, not 720 watts. In every Lionel catalog since 2012 Lionel states that it is 620 watts. In Mike Reagan's video on the ZWL which is 36 minutes 13 seconds long, go to the 11:29 mark and it clearly shows on the name plate on the back of the ZWL states on the bottom line "LIONEL 620 VA MAX A.C. OUTPUT".

All I'm stating are the facts from Lionel and with my talks with Mike.

Tiffany

The transformer senses automatically how much wattage each channel is using up to the max of 180 watts. So if 3 of the channels are using the max of 180 you are left with 80 watts for the last channel. Or if you are using 180 watts on 2 of the channels that would leave you 260 watts that can be used for the last 2 channels.

Also remember it senses the amount of wattage being used at that time. If 1 train is only using 100 watts to operate. Then that channel is only using 100 watts of the maximum 180 total that it could use, leaving 80 watts to be used for the other 3 channels.

Hope that helps you, it is best to watch Mike's video on the ZWL.

I like to check out the house circuit that supplies the 36 Amps.

Do they have breakers that size, or do you wire for 50 Amps, and only use 36 Amps?

The 36 amps would be at 18VAC, your house power is 120VAC. If my calculations are correct, that's less than 6 amps on your house circuit. Not a problem. A 15 amp circuit could handle a couple.

It will probably draw closer to 7.5 A at the wall (still only half the 15 amps of a normal circuit).  It's has some serious heat losses, etc., inside, as any power supply will (that is what fans, etc, are always for . . .)  Mine draws about 25% more power than the power delivered to the track.  I've never had it up over 600W but when I tested it up to right at 500 W it was drawing a bit over 5 amps from the wall socket.  I was actually suprised the losses weren't more.  

Thanks Lee, good to know the actual figures from someone that has one and has checked it out. I don't have one (sure would like one though), was just doing a rough conversion of the rated power of the ZW-L. Hadn't thought of the cooling fans or other added power consumption for the internals. I think the 620 watts was actually closer to 34 amps, but I was thinking Lionel had stated 36 amps, could be off a little there too?

As others has stated, it is 620 watts of power.  I own one and it is just an awesome piece of equipment.  I've run it for several hrs at a time on my layout.  The fan is very quiet as well and only comes on as needed.  So when you first power it up, the fan is off.   I've run dual gg1s (pulmor motors) with a string of heavy weight passenger cars on one channel (draws near 7 -8 amps) and the other channels still have plenty of power for my other blocks and switches.

Go to 15:17

That's gonna leave black spots on that very nice nut driver.

That really is quite a transformer, I had forgotten just how many features it has. And now, thanks to RickO, I watched the whole entire video again and am now really wanting a nice shiny new ZW-L to go with my new 990 that will be here this week. Unfortunately, my train budget is already on life support this year, so it's out of the question.  

hello guys and gals...........

OK, We decided to buy one of those black beast !!!  Is there anything we should know about such as any problems with them from other owners who had them for while ? We understand that it is 40 pounds heavy.

the woman who loves the S.F.5011,2678,2003,200

Tiffany

The voltamp rating is used to determine how to safely supply the maxmium power for a device. It is not interchangeable with watts.

620VA/120VACrms = 5.1666Arms to supply this beast.

The rating is to protect the consumer from overloading a circuit.

The variable output is a different calculation.

From the ZW-L Manual, Page 5:

"Dynamic power limiting allows the 620W available from the transformer to be shared across the four
outputs as necessary to power the connected loads. Up to 180W is available to each output as long as the
total power of all four outputs does not exceed the 620W transformer rating. When the 620W total is reached
the output that tried to take more power will be limited to maintain the 620W total. The red light on the
transformer will flash while the output is being limited. The transformer can run in this mode indefinitely
and will not shut down. When more power becomes available because of a change in the demand from the
other outputs it will be automatically given to the limited output."

The two I have are GRRRRREAT!

Alex