on my dcc pike should cir breakers be placed centrally near command station or close to their respective
electrical district. also i’ve heard dcc doesn’t like T circuits so should i instead daisy chain the breakers ?
You can put them anywhere you like to. Usually near the district it powers to cut down on wiring. And you can T the buss from the command station/ booster. A good many layouts are wired that way.
http://www.wiringfordcc.com/track.htm
Pete
The circuit breakers can go close to the area it will protect, but if you put it at the command station it will protect all the wiring for the district. I like the DCC specialties PSX series breakers as they don’t need an external power supply to function. The breakers come in single units or in multiples of up to four on one board. It is not recommended that the power busses be connected in a loop, but a T should be OK.
If you have a 5 amp DCC system, you can use the NCE EB-1 breakers. They are less expensive and do the job for sound and non sound locos.
However, if you have a low current starter DCC system, you will need to use the more expensive PSX breakers so you can adjust for a lower trip current than the EB-1 has.
I have never heard of a DCC circuit breaker requiring a second power supply to function.
Digitrax PM42 does.
Actually, Digitrax says the PM 42 is a Power Management device and not just a Circuit Breaker.
There is a difference between them.
Power Management is just a fancy word(s) for circuit breaker.
Power management can mean to limit or control unneeded electric consumption. On PCs, it refers to shutting down devices to save battery or wall power.
On automotive, an example is to run a pump or fan at a 50% duty cycle to save power until demand is higher.
Of course a short circuit is also an unnecessary power drain…
Then how come it has a LocoNet connection???
From the description on the Digitrax site, it’s smarter than the average circuit breaker. I’ve got the breakers from Tony’s Trains, and they can be configured and queried by your DCC throttle. The Tony’s Trains breakers, for example, can be individually adjusted for trip current.
I plan to use the PSX breakers in my layout. Do you have any idea of the required LED spec for an external LED option? Also how does one decide of the value of current protection with these?
Thanks
John…
Tony’s Trains / DCC Specialties puts their manuals online for you:
Not a fan of DCC but that is pretty impressive technology.
PM42’s can turnb on or off each section via command through Loconet, they also report the status of each section via Loconet. Only ones that come out of the box that can do that.
Tony’s likes to list all of their products, the PSX’s, Hare, Wabbit, etc as having feedback. Well, they KINDA do - if you hook them to inputs on eg a DS64 for Loconet, an AIU for NCE, etc.
For turnouts, the DS64 will report position on Loconet even if you use the local input buttons to change the turnout. What this means is that signals, or a dispatcher panel in something like JMRI will always show the proper settings no matter how the turnout was thrown - via throttle or via fascia buttons or via distacher control.
–Randy