Well, whilst I wait for some of my planning books to arrive I am getting a few others ducks lined up. The duck of the day is identifying a power supply suitable for use in Australia capable of powering an 8 Amp Digitrax Super Chief (DCS200).
I have found this device from from Altronics (http://www.altronics.com.au/index.asp?area=item&id=M8224) that I think meets the specifications, especially with its ability to fix the voltage output at 13.8v (I am going to be modelling N Scale), but thought it prudent to check with our resident DCC experts that this device is truly suitable and then for any other Australians if there are other devices equally capable/robust that are cheaper.
Does anyone have any additional supply suggestions (remembering Australian socket power is 240v, 50Hz)?
I’m not sure what the cost would be in Australia, but the Digitrax PS2012 supports both 110 and 230VAC input - you just need the right power cord (would be the same as you use on a computer over there). The one you linked will work, although it might be a bit of overkill. That’s a very nice precision power supply. Since the output is DC, the 13.8 volt setting is probably a bit low, you’d probably want to run it up tot he full 15V. Reason being the input to the DCS200 (and any of the other Digitrax boosters) is a diode bridge, allowing the use of either an AC or DC power source (the common 5 amp supplies for the DCS100 and DB150 are 15V AC). So there will be some voltage loss using a DC power supply because of the diode drops. If you want 12V out on the track, you need to input a bit more than this. I don’t know anyone who has set it up like this, since power supplies output a good deal of amps at 13.8 volts are quite common - to run car electronic gear on AC power. It might be enough, barely - two diode drops from the 13.8 volts would still be 12.6 volts.
You would also want to get an 8 amp circut breaker to put in the line to protect the DCS200. That’s a 25 amp power supply - the DCS won;t draw more than 8 amps, but if somethign should happen internally that’s an awful lot of power to feed into it before that 25 amp breaker in the power supply trips. In fact if you need more boosters, you can use 3 8 amp circuit breakers and feed a total of 3 booster from that one big power supply - that’s the idea behind the PS2012 as well.
If you’re working in N scale, I hope you plan on having circuit breakers on the output side as well, and not feeding the full 8 amps into your track everywhere. You should divide your layout up into power districts with some sort of power protection limiting the current to something reasonable for N scale - 2-3 amps is probably enough unless you want to run trains with 5 units on the front, 3 mid-train, and 3 more on the back.
Well strap me to an ant hill and smear my ears with jelly!
Thanks for the replies guys, I really should have read that PS2012 manual before asking the question. Silly me. This means I can in fact import the supply from the US also.
I do plan on using breakers all over the place. My plan, electrically speaking, was to divide my track up in to about 5 power districts to give myself a reasonable level of grannualrity, and yes I was going to put breakers on each of these districts.
I dont know what Australian Money converts to US dollars but I purchased mine at around 170 USD. And Shipping would be something because this power supply is HEAVY as far they go.
Hmmm - This could be about $300+ in aussie dollars by the time you’ve finished. A 13.8v regulated supply should be less than this. I know DCC concepts here in Perth sourced a unit for about $100 which would be well worth looking into. His website is at www.dccconcepts.com.