Our large 3 rail conventional layout was taxing our New and or old style ZW running 6 trains at once. So we thought we would divide the layout in 2, the main level, and the under - main hidden staging level, to divide the current draw in half using (2) power master / power house systems. It appears that when a train crosses from one section to the other the power master temporarily cuts out. Do we need to have a transistion area with a relay so that the engine, or in the case of lighted passenger trains, the whole train is never in two sections at once, even if it’s just for a second. I need to get this figured out by tomorrow. Our other option is to connect the top and bottom back together and buy a TPC-400 and tie it into two powerhouses bridged. Thanks for any feedback, Dave
I’m afraid I don’t know what’s in those power-whatevers; but I would be cautious about connecting two supplies in parallel (which is of course what is happening when your train crosses the gap) unless they are identical and meant to be connected together. However, even if they are intended for parallel connection, there is another limitation to consider–the wire. With 6 trains, you are within hailing distance of 30 amperes, which calls for 10 AWG wire to be safe. Unless you have feeder wire able to carry the maximum current that your paralleled supplies can put out, there is a risk of fire.
We are using 10 gauge feeders. Dave
The top is running on one powerhouse/master and the bottom is running on another. They are both programmed to channel one so the voltages are identical.
When we used the old ZW the top and bottom were one power district running off one handle of the ZW. Dave
TPC’s are meant to be tied together with special adapter cables. I’m still trying to get a handle on trying to control multiple conventional trains off of a single power supply, no matter how many watts you need/use.
When you tried to split the track into sperate districts powered by multiple PowerMasters, did you slave them together by using the same TR number? If not, a) the voltages won’t match b) I don’t see how you are going to gaurantee the load is split evenly between the power supplies. If you split the track and power sources up, how do you make sure that you don’t have more current drawn in a given block at a given point in time?
The difference in voltage due to the load difference in each district could be what is tripping up the PowerMaster(assuming bricks & PM’s are in phase). If one district has a 5 amp load, & the other only 2 amps, then there will be a voltage differential at the transition gap.
The easiest way to overcome this is to run the two PM’s in parallel powering the entire 6 train district, addressed as the same TR, making sure the momentum setting is the same for both PM’s.
The original load was somewhat taxing on one ZW handle, it must have been right around 10 amps or more. The original PM-1’s will deliver 7 amps each continuously, 14 total if in parallel.
Rob
The PM-1’s are quite hardy. I’ve run them in parallel, no problems. I’ve back-fed them with power to the track while connected, they don’t care. If one triac is off the other by a volt or two, the load balances out the difference.
Rob