ZW-L vs Power Master

The new Legacy PM only needs power from a transformer, and is connected directly to the track.  I power my Legacy PM with a 180 brick.

The Legacy PM, the way it is designed, can be controlled by a Cab1, Cab1L, or Cab2.

You lose the ZW's handles with the PM, making is a bit harder to run conventional (my thoughts).  If you need all 4 channels (tracks) to run trains the ZW will be cheaper, otherwise the PM/brick combination is cheaper. You will need one PM/brick per track.

The ZW has volt and amp meters.

Maybe you should state the environment and solicit recommendations.  Now knowing the problem, it makes it pretty difficult to suggest a solution.

I also believe that the ZW-L only has one plug, so to get 4 outputs with a PowerMaster setup you'd need 4 PowerMasters each with it's own transformer and thus 4 plugs.  Now the ZW-C on the other hand is more like a PowerMaster in that each channel can take a transformer so that'd be 4 plugs if you wanted max rating, otherwise you can share one transformer with all 4 outputs.

Like stated above, the ZW has handles, and as a conventional guy I'd pick it because of that.

Each ZW-L channel is programmable from the remote just like the ZW-C.  The fact that you don't have multiple individual transformers is somewhat a moot point, you have the power available and individually controlled from either the handles or the TMCC/Legacy remote.

One question I have is that of total output.  The ZW-C is 180Wx4=720W listed as 760W in the manual, but the ZW-L is listed as 620W in the manual and on several places on the web but there are also places that state it's 720W.  Which is it for either?   I picked the ZW-C over the ZW-L because both numbers for the ZW-C were bigger/equal to the ZW-L.

I believe that the zw-l was initially supposed to have 720w but UL compliance required a reduction to 620w.

The ZW-C will be hard pressed to actually deliver 720 watts continuously I suspect.  The ZW-L would be my choice if I needed that much power.  For one, you get a currently supported transformer, the ZW-C main board has not been available for some time.  Also, the ZW-L supports finer speed steps when under TMCC/Legacy control for their PowerMaster function.  Other points are the meters and the better circuit protection.  By the time you buy the ZW-C and the four bricks, you are knocking on the door to the price of the ZW-L.

Why would it be hard pressed?  It has the ability to have 4 independent channels.  If you remove the 2 jumpers and use 4 Power House 180s, you will have 40 amps at 18V available. 

The original question is similiar to whether you want an all in one computer or a desk top set up.  Personal choice.  The ZW-L is all in one.  Big and heavy.  Using a Power House with Legacy Power Master is discrete and you build up to the capability you need.

You still run conventional, but remotely with the CAB-1L or CAB-2.

I have the original ZW-C with the power houses that connect into it.  It is light since the PH are under the bench work.  I run conventional and command together.  I rarely use the handles.  Everything controlled from the CAB-1 remote.  I do run accessories off the inner channels, so the short handles are useful for minor adjustments on accessory voltage, but if your using them for mainlines I contend you would never need them.   G

Simply because it runs hotter than a pistol with two of them loaded to around 9.5 amps.  The other two had light loads of around 4 amps.  While it's technically rated at 720 watts, there's no way I'd run mine at that power level.  I didn't have any more loads when I was doing the testing, or I'd have tried to go for the full power.  The drivers right at the junction with the heatsink were at 105C with the full load after about 10 minutes, I was frankly somewhat reluctant to run it any longer at those power levels.

You can't always believe the stated specifications.

I run my ZW-C with 4 of the lesser 135w bricks. I've never noticed any heat issue.

John is correct in that the cost of the additional bricks added to the main unit does begin to approach the ZW-L.

I've replace my board and both of the handle brackets and it's been perfect since. However, I probably would go with the simplicity of one power cord provided on the ZW-L if I were making the purchase right now.

The heat issue is when you try to get the maximum power out of it.  I suspect you've never tried to draw 135 watts from all four channels at the same time for an extended period of time.

See above, I ran it with less than 500 total watts power draw from the four channels, it was getting pretty toasty.

So how do you run conventional off of a ZW-L? Is there a switch on each of the handles for conventional (variable) or command (constant)? Thanks.

Well, the ZW-L has four handles, so conventional is handled that way.  You can also address it using TMCC to vary the voltage using the TMCC/Legacy remote.

It has all the capabilities of the ZW-C controller with the bricks and more.