Power to Electronic flame?

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

I just bought a Brandflackern 5921 Electronic flame

It call for an a 14-16 volt output from a power unit.

I have 17.3 coming from the power pack. Am I going to burn it out if I use this?

I have 14.4 v coming from the DCC track. Can I connect to the Bus Wire?

Would that be better?

Harold

2

Harold,

I definitely would NOT power your electronic flame above the recommended range. Otherwise, you might end up with a real flame on your hands. [:-^]

Tom

3

Never connect anything other than your tracks to the DCC system.

Buy a wall wart of the size you need, keeping in mind that not all wall warts are transformers, some are switching popwer supplies, and if you get one of these the thing that you ant to attach to it may not draw enought current to stableize the circuit. You man need to put a dummy load (a lamp for example) on the circuit.

ROAR

4

+1. You Could hook up a couple of cheap diodes (about 10 cents each) in series. Each one creates a .7V drop. To if you hook 3 in a line together you would get a 2.1V drop. But if your power supply is AC you’ll need 3 pointed in each direction wired in parallel on 1 leg (wire from the power supply)

So

->| is a diode with the silver band to the right

|<- is a diode with the silver band to the left

/–>|–>|–>|\

Power supply wire --| ±----> to flicker board

|<–|<–|<–/

5

I have seen in MR alot of times when something is hooked to the bus as long as you do not drop the voltage to much. Why are you saying not you use the Bus?

Harold

6

There are several reasons not to use your bus for accessories. If you’re running DCC it robs current from your locomotives. If your accessory is designed for DC operation the DCC output is not DC. If you’re using a DC power pack the voltage depends on the throttle position.

If your accessory has a micro chip and it’s circuitry is not well filtered the DCC power can confuse the chip.

As stated above it’s not advisable to run accessories from track power.

Mel

Modeling the early t

7

Thanks Mel

Good explaination. I still am questioning if 17.3 v would really cause a problem. Some experiance I have had with Warts is the voltage varies from wart to wart unles you go to the expense of the controled voltage.

Harold

8

I wouldn’t use any voltage higher than what the manufacturer specs say, before I retired we called that type of experimenting “tune for maximum smoke”. Once the smoke escapes it’s useless.

You can’t put the smoke back in and expect it to work!

Mel

9

I have a Wall Wart that is putting out the proper voltage. It is currently connected to an arc welding animaton.

Am I correct that if I connect the flame to the same Wall Wart I would still get the proper voltage for both?

Harold

10

Check the back (plug side) of the wall wart for the voltage and current rating, most are between .3 to 1 amp (or 300 ma to 1000 ma). I doubt if either of your goodies draw more than a few milliamps so you should be good to go.

Mel

Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951

My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

Bakersfield, California

I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.