I have a couple of questions about wiring walk-around fascia plates for my MRC Prodigy Advance. The MRC literature says the system can support up to 6 cabs as is, and that powered extension plates are needed for every 5 cabs after that. I want to wire 4 extension plates (a total of 8 jacks) on my layout, but I only intend to run a max of 3 cabs at a time. Can I do this with the system as is, or to the jacks themselves require the power? Also, how do these y harnesses work? How do I run the wiring? And the extension plates only come with 10 feet of cord. I need longer runs to ger around my layout. Can I buy longer cables? Better yet can I make my own? If so, where do I get those mongo plugs they use on this system? Please help a DCC novice out. Thanks.
from your description i’d say you can run the 3 cabs you want to run . you should be able to make your own cables , take one with you to home depot or an electronics supply store or radio shack to see if they have the same connectors and a crimper for sale
Keep in mind, every fraction of a second the software reviews each cab number. You assign the number of cabs with the Prodigy Advance. I forget at the moment the minimum number of cabs maybe it is 3, maybe 5, whatever, if you want only three, speed up your system by telling it not to look for more cabs than the minimum.
As to the facia’s, these should be plug and play, mine are still on order. MicroMark has them at a fairly low price. Creating your own extra length cables may be more expensive once a crimper and connectors are considerered than just daisy chaining more facias closer together. If you are walk arround your tether is a six foot cable, maximum between facias maybe should be 10 feet? Or even less, you want to unplug and replug at the next. Prodigy Advance keeps the speed in memory until you plug in again. Remember practice a few times without a train on smoothly transitioning, running or lunging to plug and un plug. Wireless is a blessing in this regard.
Soccer was rained out so I am back. I have recently installed 3 PA extension plates around my layout. I thought that I would be able to daisy chain them around the layout, but realized that each port on the command station only has the power to control 3 jacks. So when I daisy chained two together, the last port in the chain would not work. In order to set up all three I ended up connecting each one to a separate port. Theoretically you could hook up 4 but you would need some extra cat 5 wiring.
Ok, so you’re saying that theoretically the 3 recepticles in the command station could support 9 total jacks, correct? Can you split wire the extension plates such that one jack is powered by one recepticle on the command station, and the other jack is supported by another? And how do you wire these to “daisy chain” two together? I know each extension plate has 2 cables. Is is a simple matter of plugging one into the command station and running the other to the next plate, or is there something I am missing here? Thanks for your help.
The extension plates that I bought only come with one cable, but two jacks in the back and two ports in the front. (MRC 0015001, this is different from the one for Prodigy) You are supposed to be able to plug one end of a cable into the command station and the other into the extension plate, and then plug one end of the cable for the next extension plate into the other jack on the first extension plate and then into a jack on the second extension plate, etc. But when doing this I did not have power on secont port of the second extension plate. After testing some more, since the documentation that comes with them is sparse I determined that it was a lack of power to the port.
So I determined that one port on the command station can control 3 ports on the extension plates. So for me, I could run the wire from one port on the command station to one extension plate, then connect the other jack on the back of the extension plate to a second extension plate. Then from another port on the command station run the cable to a third extension plate, and then run the cable from the second jack on the back of the third extension plate to the second jack on the second extension plate. This would give me power to 6 ports from just 2 ports on the command station, leaving on fre on the command station to power 3 more ports. (It is hard to explain in words so I will try to draw a picture and post it later).
For those who looked at this with interest, check out MR’s DCC Corner column in the September issue. This is two months in a row that this column has answered a pressing question for me.