I am starting to recreate a postwar Lionel layout I built about 20 years ago This time for my son and grandson. It will be powered by two ZW’s and a Z for powering the switches and accessories. There will be three mainlines, 25-022 switches, and about ten accessories operated mostly one at a time. 20 years ago I plugged the three transformers into a surge protector and then into an outlet in a large second family room with not much else plugged into that rooms circuit. It worked fine and I never tripped a breaker. This time I am perhaps a little more cautious about how much power I need to run these three transformers. I am no electrician but I think most circuits for lights and outlets are 15 amps. My question is about how many amps are these three transformers going to draw and do I need to run a dedicated circuit?
I’m sure they’re better folks to answer this than myself, but since no one has posted here are my thoughts, You say you’re running three loops ( I’m guessing isolated from each other ) Okay ZW #1 powers first two loops, ZW #2 one side powers the third loop, why don’t you run your switches off of the other side. Then you can eliminate the Z transformer. And have it as an emergency back up.
Speaking from experience I ran a large layout with 3 ZWs, up to 5 PW trains running at a time. The whole thing was connected to a standard 15a outlet with the rest of the basement wired into the same circuit. I never popped the breaker in the 15+ years I lived there.
Earth ground is more important if you are running a control system. I had trouble with TMCC operations. I tested the outlet with a simple tester and found the earth prong was open. Turned out the outlet was rusted from a previous basement flood. I replaced the outlet and added a battery sump pump.
Less than 7 amps, at full load, on every one.
No.
Good advice from the other posters!
Just make sure your electrical outlet doesn’t look like this guys…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGnUexrYlwY
And [#welcome] aboard!
[#welcome] to the fun train!
Becky
The nameplate of the ZW-R says that it needs 275 watts at 115 volts, which works out to be 2.4 amperes. The Z has no nameplate, but it’s very similar; so thats 7.2 amperes for all three together. Branch circuits are protected at either 15 or 20 amperes, but any one appliance may draw only 80 percent. A 7.2 ampere load is well under that, assuming the worst-case 15-ampere circuit.
Keep in mind that receptacles can have either of two phases, 180 degrees apart. This is particularly likely with duplex receptacles, which often are wired to two out-of-phase branch circuits with a common neutral wire. If you’re counting on any particular phase relationship among your transformer outputs, it’s a good idea to combine all the transformer plugs onto a strip like you did before.
Total continuous load from ALL connected loads cannot exceed 80% of the rated current.
Possible but very unusual for a duplex to have more than one circuit connected. In 40+ years in the trade I never ran into that.
My copy of the NEC is woefully out of date, but my 2008 NEC says in 210.23(A)(1), “The rating of any one cord-and-plug-connected utilization equipment not fastened in place shall not exceed 80 percent of the branch-circuit ampere rating.”
I don’t have any in my house, but I have seen multiwire branch circuits, always with one circuit switched, for plug-in lamps in rooms without any ceiling or other general lighting. Each duplex is split to allow plugging into either circuit.
Building-code differences between countries fascinate me. Although US and Canadian practices look very similar, multiwire branch circuits are an interesting example of the more conservative Canadian approach: They require that the neutral of a split duplex be pigtailed to the neutral wires in and out of the box, so that disconnecting the neutral from the duplex doesn’t interrupt the neutral to downstream loads.