It seems that everything that I can find both at online hobby shops and at Ebay are units that have power speed and direction all in one box. I’m from the old school of HO model railroading where there was one 12VDC power supply and then individual rheostats and DPDT switches for each “engineer”. Of course there might be more than one of the power supplies if the size of the layout warranted it. But, the prinicple is the same - one supply feeds more thanone controller unit, with the controller unit consiting of direction and speed. I really am most conforable with the concept of a power station with a voltmeter, ammmeter and circuit breaker as a part of it.
Can any one direct me to a source for this type of power supply - or am I forced to constructing it my self?
Any power pack should meet your needs…it just has an integral rheostat and reversing switch that you won’t be using.
MRC makes the Tech series, and some of them have the kinds of meters you want (or at least they did). But something else you might consider would be bench power supplies for labs or testing automotive components.
A 12V DC power supply should be easy enough to find if you were to check sporting goods or auto stores, as that’s the voltage typically used in boats and cars. Something that will transform the 120 VAC to 12 VDC should be findable in one of those vendors.
If all else fails, try Radio Shack. If you are used to the old-school approach, you may already know the maximum number of amps you’ll need for your supply.
If you are comfortable wiring individual throttles for the operators, you should be fine working with anything you’d get from those sources.
On the other hand…you might also consider looking at a DCC system, which achieves the same degree of individual throttles, but without complicated track wiring, and also provides other features (literally, bells & whistles) that can make the experience of operating model trains closer to the real thing.
You are probably going to have to build it yourself. The self-contained units took over in the 1960s because of greater flexibility in physical placement, the ability to use common rail wiring in block control, and the isolation of short circuits to just one train/power pack.
Also, rheostats fell out of favor because of their poor control of can and low current draw motors. Today’s DC “throttle” now has a transistor-type direct voltage control, and many have a form of pulsed voltage for slow speed running and starting. Often the AC from the transformer of the power supply is used in generating these pulses, so having the transformer and rectifier integral to the power pack made further sense.
The last nail in the coffin of the central power supply concept was failure of UL to approve large current power supplies for consumer use, especially with exposed accesss (like the live rails). In the '70s, the highest rating UL would typically approve was 90 VA. This was to prevent an unsupervised kid from starting fires when he short-circuited the power supply with a coin or similar and the fuse/circuit breaker didn’t blow. UL is now approving somewhat higher power limits, but using 22 or 24 gauge wiring throughout with a 10+ amp power supply is still an invitation to possible fire and “welding” of components.
Never mind history, rheostat control is a failure with today’s locomotives because of the difference in current draws from open frame motors to new can motors. And the cost of builidng a large central power supply from scratch is, well, large. Buying a 5 amp 16V transformer is not cheap. Quality wire-wound rheostats are difficult and expensive to buy, too. At today’s prices, it is cheaper to buy MRC power packs (Tech 2 or later, new or used) for each train you will be running simultaneously.
As Jacob stated, you might consider DCC as well. Once you get to 3 trains or more running simultaneously, the DC block wiring and costs rapidly approach the costs
You might be interested in something like the Voltroller or check out Ken’s Electronics Page.
If you feel you are competent with electronics, try making your own. Here’s a link to some Curcuit Diagrams.
(click on highlighted words for links)
Sounds like DCC is what you really want. Can use one large power supply, multiple throttles which control direction, speed, lighting, sound, etc. But if you don’t want to make the jump to DCC, probably got to build it yourself.