Use of TVS electrical surge protection

Magnetic breakers tend to be 10-30 times the price of the thermal breakers.  Seems like a good business model, make a breaker similar to the PowerHouse 180 breaker for a reasonable price.

Jphn

Back in the late 1990s I paid over $90 for a magnetic breaker. Discarded the big,thick Mouser catalog so not sure of the prices now?

Yep, the suckers are expensive!

Mine was a salvaged part and was under $50.

LDBennett

Well, $50 is ten times the price of a $5 thermal breaker, no?

There's always the PSX-AC's, $44.95 at Charles Ro, at least last time I looked anyway. Those are extremely fast.

The PSX-AC is a good choice, and about as cheap as you're going to find that capability.  Note that you need to make a change if you run DCS, apparently they had a cap they have to remove for DCS compatibility.

I remember the thread you helped with the choke on, but I was thinking he was putting the PSX-AC after the TIU and the TPC? Is this something different with the cap? Been trying to save all the info I see on them, I must have missed t thread somewhere?

I should have mine somewhat operational in a few weeks or so, bench work is on the way and temp layout is gone, to make way. Finally! Was going to put mine before the TIU and I have no TPC's.

But how fast is PSX-AC? As fast as the Lionel 180W power brick CB or the Airpax "Fast" curve?

I don't know if the capacitor will affect things on the input of the TIU.  The fixed channels are pretty close to straight through, so if there's not a high-current choke in the path, I suspect it might.

AFAIK, it's pretty fast.  I don't have direct experience with them, so I can't really compare them from actual experience.

Instant. I have been testing them with a PH-180 for power source and they have outdone the PH-180's every time. Haven't tripped a PH-180 yet, with a PSX-AC in the circuit. They also clamp voltage spikes starting at about 20 volts. They are a pretty nice little device. I have not seen or heard of the Airpax breakers until this thread so I know very little about them, but I would imagine the PSX-AC would provide some stiff competition for those also.

Here is a link to get started with if you would like to investigate these further PSX-AC. Should you decide to have a look, I would be interested in hearing your comments.

Thanks, I hope to be finding out real soon. I will probably be back asking you more questions if there is a problem.

Here is a video of the PSX units being tested. Skip to the 3 minute mark and you will see the track being shorted by a wire. The PSX unit trips instantly, no delay. It seems that a microprocessor controlled breaker will trip faster than a magnetic breaker, and both will trip much faster than a thermal breaker.

Larry

Dale H:

With the MTH TIU and the MTH  100 watt Power brick with its slow acting CB, the 20 amp (YES, 20 amp) TIU fuses would blow with every derailment. So fuses are cheap but my TIU is screw mounted to the benchwork from which it had to be removed. Then the TIU had to be opened (many,many screws) to change the fuse. After doing this a half dozen times I decided that a fast acting CB was in order to say nothing of what the 20 amp through the TIU was doing to the TIU. In every case the MTH power brick CB did not trip but would trip with a direct short across its terminals, eventually.

Running conventionally you probably have no need for a fast acting CB or it may be you power source CB is fast without you realizing it (the Lionel 180 watt power brick breaker is a very fast acting CB). Thermal breakers are fine for your application, I would think but if you ever go MTH TCS with the MTH power bricks you'll need a fast acting CB in series.

LDBennett

I have command control only (DCS & Legacy). Even though I am using the Lionel PH-180's, my theory on the PSX-AC's was that if $50 spent on a protection device saves just one engine from having to have it's electronics replaced, I'm at least a couple hundred ahead. I agree that these are not needed for conventional operation, the P&B or similar circuit breakers mentioned in recent posts would be just fine for that. These breakers are what I plan on using for my accessories and everything else but engines. Especially now that the trip times are proving to be extremely better than their spec sheets show.