I am building a new layout, my layout room is a trapazoid shape with the walls 15 1/2’ x12 1/2’ x20’ and the front being about 15’ across. I am planning another room for a staging yard that will probably be along two walls 6’ x 12’. I have a log of engines and a good number of them have sound. I have noticed that these engines draw more power and on my last layout I was limited to five engines at a time. Bascially two trains, one with two engines and one with three. If I ran any more than that the DCC system would short out. I also have a couple of big steam engines, with sound and smoke. Those seem to draw even more power.
In addition to my command staiton, I think I need two boosters. I can split the main layout in 1/2, between the command station and a booster. Then use the other booster for the staging yard. I might build the staging yard off of a wye, so the booster would also be the auto reverser.
I think the fact that the layout will be set up in two different rooms may be reason enough to divide the layout into two booster districts, one booster in each room. That will give you better control over the layout.
My experience is with an NCE 5 amp wireless PH-Pro system with a second 5 amp booster (DB5). I started out with one booster but eventually added the second booster for better control over multiple power districts.
Have you decided which DCC system you will use on your new layout?
One booster and two power districts. The power you need is determined by how many locomotives you intend to run at once, not how far they are going.
You don’t need two power districts, one will do but it can be handy to have more. A power district corresponds to a double insulated Block in a DC system. For DCC you just wire all the power districts together, effectively bypassing the insulated blocks.
You only wire it that way if you may in the future wish to add a booster. Alternatively, you may want to add circuit breaker units downstream of a single booster.
More useful is SPST on/off switches and single rail isolated sidings to park locomotives on that yiu don’t want always powered up. It can get noisy out there if all your engines start up every time you power up.
I just bought an ESU Cab controller which comes with a 7 amp power supply. The system allows you to limit the max power shoukd you not need that much. Default on startup is 4 amps max. You change that in a menu, nifty.
Modern locomotives generally draw less than one amp each, even at peak load.
I didn’t see it mentioned what the output capacity is of your present command station/booster. It seems you already know that it overloads when you are running five + locomotives so there certainly looks like there is at least one additional booster in your future.
Dedication another booster just for a reverse “loop” (or wye) seems wasteful to me especially when you can get an auto reverser that will also act as an electronic circuit breaker would suffice. Plus, a staging yard wouldn’t normally see all that much current draw unless you have lighted passenger cars plus idling locomotives.
Kill switches aren’t a bad idea for a staging/storage yard for the little cost/effort it is to install them.
Probably more importantly is to have your layout divided into segments protected by circuit breakers. One PSX quad could be wired as two pairs and you can divide the main line into two power districts then feed other sidings and yards off the other two and the wye on its own reverser/breaker.
If you’re switching or placing locomotives on the track in a yard or engine terminal you don’t want the main line shutting down becase of a brief short or running through a closed switch.
I, too, have many sound locomotives and lots of lighted passenger cars. I have three Digitrax boosters (8 amp!) each divided into four power districts. Still, with four trains running, sometimes a total of 12 to 15 engines, and several tracks full of idling locomotives each booster never sees more than about 2 - 3 amps of current draw.
I’d say get one booster, one auto reverser and one quad breaker and see if that takes care of your needs. You can always add another booster at a later date.
it’s not the number of boosters but the current capacity of the boosters. one 10A booster instead of 2 5A boosters
the density of trains in a section of the layout determines the # and sizes of the power districts. if a circuit breaker is set to 2A, the power district should be sized to handle some # of trains such that there total current is < 2A.
and finally, you could have 6 or 7 power districts all supplied by a single 10A booster. they are not all likely to draw 2A at the same time (e.g. 14A).
if you have a command-station/booster rated at 5A you may need to add a 5A booster. 3 power districts connected to one and 4 less heavily used power districts connected to the other
One booster is all most home layouts will need. 4 Amps is more than enough. 2 amps might be.
Power districts are the same thing as DC Blocks, electrically speaking. For DCC you double isolate the Blocks, for DC you don’t really need to as common rail works fine.
The decision then boils down to creating only one power district which is what the whole idea of DCC was about originally. Locomotive power was controlled only by each decoder so no isolated blocks were required for locomotive control.
But then we get the shorting out issue. So we build in a couple of by putting in pairs of isolating gaps in case we need to later add separated power districts for convenience.
It is highly unlikely you’ll ever need to add a second booster to a home layout nowadays. My latest ECU Cab Control has up to 7 amps of power available right out of the box. It also allows a software control to reduce maximum amperage output should 7 amps be “too much”.
So, apart from any reversing section which still has to be double isolated for obvious reasons, whether you double isolate any other track sections into power districts is just a matter of perceived convenience. I’m still deciding. For power off sections I intend to double isolate the rail joints but only switch one rail to begin with.
Please don’t hook up a big booster directly to the track. That puts a lot of available power which could concentrate in one spot and do some damage. Instead, heed the advice to use individual circuit breakers to protect smaller power districts.
Think about this early on so you can isolate layout sections with insulators or gaps.
My layout was in a 24x24 foot room and I was working on the trackage on the third wall. I had a lot of track and about a hundred square feet of layout. I have about 20 powered engines, mostly with sound, but I typically only ran about 3 at a time. I have a 5-amp Lenz system, which seems to handle all the DCC with no trouble.
To answer your question there are three (3) things to consider:
The number of locomotives and cars drawing power; sound cars, lighted cars etc. which translates into Amperage, which relates to the number of boosters.
Signal transmission- -This relates to the size of the layout and the number of cabs (throttles) in use, which also includes wireless control via “radio” or WiFi.
Power management- -Simply hooking up five (5) 10 Amp boosters to power the entire pike with 50 Amps can be potentially dangerous.
Consider the breaker panel in your house. The panel might be receiving 100 Amps but circuit breakers divide this into 15- or 20-Amp breakers (circuits).
Now, a little math…
To determine how many boosters (power sources) you require, you need to calculate the Maximum Amperage Draw required (with approximately 10% to 20% “Headroom”).
With sound-equipped motive power there is also a “start-up” spike in amperage.
Think of it this way…
When your refrigerator “starts” there is a brief moment, in its power cycle, when the amperage “spikes” over what the running amperage is rated at. This “spike” can
You raise a good point, Dave. I’d like to see NILE reply even if it is only to ask questions about the replies from others to his initial question. I always like to see an OP “manage” his own thread so that there is a better dialog than just a bunch of replies going all over the place.
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions, honestly it has been a lot to digest. As for not engaging as much, my apologies but life is busy. How long should a power district be for a double main line? I had thought you needed a different booster for each district, I see that is not the case. I have built three DCC layouts prior to this house, and I never used power districts before. I didn’t think a one room layout needed it. Those layouts had around 30 feet of main line double track main line. My goal is to get enough power to the rails so 1-3 operators can run 2 multi engine trains.
Booster District is dictated by the power requirements for a given number of current-consuming locomotives and rolling stock.
A Power District would further divide the output of that booster to particular segments of track primarily determined by “If I have a short here, do I want the inconvenience of the trains stopping over there”.
Imagine if your house only had one main breaker, for everything. By dividing up the circuits if you plug in an old, faulty toaster in the kitchen the lights upstairs in the bedroom don’t go out.
I used to have my power districts grouped by areas on the layout. After a while I found this to be rather inconvenient as a derailment on a yard track would shut down all the track in that area.
Now I have just that yard on one breaker and each of the main line tracks passing through are on their own breakers. Now when that yard engine runs a switch or a car derails, both the main line tracks can continue running.
My double track main is probably 140 feet or so. Each track is divided into roughly half that length so there is a total of four breakers, track one east, track one west — track two east, track two west.
The length of the track in each power district is only limited by the robustness of your supply feeders and power bus, up to a point. Most of us won’t reach that point as voltage and signal loss won’t degrade very much until you get into those huge modular setups found at some shows and such.
The length of a power district can be limited by how long a run can be without significant loss of power of that length/distance from the booster. I assume you will be running a power bus with feeders to the rails along the way. If using 14 AWG bus wire, for example, the longest run would need to be limited to 50 feet.
Take into account how many engines are going to be in each district at one time. I divided my mainline into two roughly equal power districts but after looking at it, I realized the second district will not have nearly as many locos sitting idle as the first district which has the main yard, engine terminal, roundhouse, and five track passenger station. I rerouted the wiring for the roundhouse to the second district to balance the load but I also have an on/off switch to the roundhouse so it’s not drawing power except when engines are being moved in and out.
I believe that Ed makes an important distinction here between a “booster district” and a “power district”.
A booster district monitors the amount of current draw (amps) from all of the running locomotives in that district even if a booster district is further subdivided into power districts. Amps in excess of the booster’s capacity will shut down the booster to protect itself from damage.
A power district protects the district that it directly controls by shutting down the district if a short circuit occurs within that district.
Early on in this thread, I suggested that the fact that the layout will be set up in two different rooms may be reason enough to divide the layout into two booster districts, one booster
Well I’ve been using the layout a lot more and still having the same problems. I tried to buy a DSC210 but apperently bought the wrong one, and that stalled my power booster and district efforts for a while. Is it possible the DB150 is just getting old? Should I get a new command station? Or is just a combination of volts and amps, and I’m pushing to demand for to many amps.
if each engine draws ~1/3 amp, 3 operators running 2 2 engine trains is 12 engines and ~4 amps. the DB150 is rated at 5 amp. perhaps the unused engines with sound are exceeding the limit.
our club has 2 (~7 scale mile) mainlines and often has opens houses with 3 multiple engine trains running on each. the club has three 8 amp boosters. the mainlines run roughly parallel to one another and are divided into 3 sections each with a booster.
you might just need a booster that powers half your layout, i believe the club has DB210 Boosters