DCC Circuit Breakers

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

I’m going to divides my new DCC layout (approx 20 x 16) into six or eight power districts using a combination of one additional booster (MRC Power Station 8) and circuit breakers. I’d like your opinions on whether to use the NCE EB3 Triple Output circuit breaker or Tony’s Trains PSFour Power Shield. Looks like it would be a little cheaper to use two NCEs but I’d like to use what works best.

2

The NCE one has the flaw of only opening once side of the circuit. Of the two, the Tony’s PS-Four is the better device.

–Randy

3

I use a couple of Tony’s PS-Rev reverser units, and I’m very happy with them.

4

I have 3 Tony’s circuit breakers on my layout. Easy to install and have worked flawlessly for 18 months. I have no experience with the NCE breakers.

5

I have two of Tony’s PS4s and one PS REV. All work great.

6

Thanks to Randy R. I am in the Tony’s camp. (5) PSfour, (3) PSrev and (7) Rampmeters. All work perfect first time every time. Also have a Digitrax PS42, not as good as Tony’s.

Mentioned the Rampmeter becasue it is worth its weight in gold for finding problems in DCC. Got one on every Booset plus the Command Center. My DCC is Digitrax.

7

http://www.tonystrains.com/technews/pshield-restart.htm discusses BLI locos’ large capacitors that draw so much power at start-up that they can appear as a short circuit.

8

Out of the package the CB are set to short of a spam go to 30 ms using a jumper of bare wire and all is well. Simple quick fix. I preset all of mine before I put them in their panels.

9

If you want the budget version of this approach (couple dollars a section, instead of $30 each section), see my video clip here.

In practical terms, the 1156 bulbs work to limit shorts, and they also work to allow a booster restart when you have a BLI loco on the track section where a short occurs.

I rewired my HO Siskiyou Line in 2000 to use the 1156 bulbs, and haven’t looked back. It has effectively short-proofed my DCC layout to the extent no one even knows where the power booster boundaries are any longer, because only the guy whose train causes the short notices.

Before using the 1156 bulbs, every time someone would short the track in an op session, you’d hear “Allright! Who shorted the layout?” and everyone was painfully aware of the booster boundaries on my layout.