Little back ground if some has not followed tale of woes. My bench slowly but surely eats Digitrax decoders. I get any where from 20 hours which is way short to 100 hours of run time from them before they become toasted.
My command station is a Bachmann E-Z Command, it was short on power for my layout so I added a MRC Power Station 8 that put outs 8 amp’s. Every thing was fine for some time, say 6 months before I had my first problem.Tender to engine wire melted on a BLI Sound Engine. Must be a defect right? Then slowly other things started to go bad.
I have been complaining about this problem for a good 6 months if not longer. Things are not going bad any quicker but it has not gone away either. At first most people thought it was because I was asking my engines to do to much work. So I cut down on the number of cars I pull with one engine. Went from 30 cars to 20 cars, things are still going bad. I am sorry, but I think my PCM Big Boy should be able to pull more than 15 cars, other wise why did I buy a $600.00 engine? (sorry about that rant) It ate it DH 163 decoder the other day.
With the help of kind folks here, I checked the track voltage and is at 14.5 volts. Pretty much where it should be. So it must be the turnouts, well from what you folks have told me and local club, they are done right. [sigh] I was hoping that was the problem.
While you folks where helping me with the turnout problems, circuit breakers came up. It was guessed and it was right that the only breaker I have is in the power station! I have 3 mains lines with around 200 feet of track. That got to be it! Happy Happy Joy Joy.
So today I called Tony Train World ready to buy a circuit breaker system and fix my problem! [:D]&nb
Little back ground if some has not followed tale of woes. My bench slowly but surely eats Digitrax decoders. I get any where from 20 hours which is way short to 100 hours of run time from them before they become toasted.
My command station is a Bachmann E-Z Command, it was short on power for my layout so I added a MRC Power Station 8 that put outs 8 amp’s. Every thing was fine for some time, say 6 months before I had my first problem.Tender to engine wire melted on a BLI Sound Engine. Must be a defect right? Then slowly other things started to go bad.
I have been complaining about this problem for a good 6 months if not longer. Things are not going bad any quicker but it has not gone away either. At first most people thought it was because I was asking my engines to do to much work. So I cut down on the number of cars I pull with one engine. Went from 30 cars to 20 cars, things are still going bad. I am sorry, but I think my PCM Big Boy should be able to pull more than 15 cars, other wise why did I buy a $600.00 engine? (sorry about that rant) It ate it DH 163 decoder the other day.
With the help of kind folks here, I checked the track voltage and is at 14.5 volts. Pretty much where it should be. So it must be the turnouts, well from what you folks have told me and local club, they are done right. I was hoping that was the problem.
While you folks where helping me with the turnout problems, circuit breakers came up. It was guessed and it was right that the only breaker I have is in the power station! I have 3 mains lines with around 200 feet of track. That got to be it! Happy Happy Joy Joy.
So today I called Tony Train World ready to buy a circuit breaker system and fix
Maybe the subtle hint was “get another DCC system”. If there are random power surges, there is not much you can do about it. Repair would probably cost more than the booster is worth. Decoders should last a lot longer than what you are seeing, and something is killing them. Maybe investing in a meter to measure track voltage and current would help to see if something is wrong, like excessive voltage.
power spikes can come from your command stations or boosters but they can also come from your homes wiring and your electric companys system. if you don’t already have one get a surge protector and plug the units into them instead of the wall outlets. get one with the highest rating you can find. these are recomended for protecting computors, tv’s and other sensitive electronic equipment.
My first step would be to get a cheap home computer UPS - I have a 375 VA unit I got got about $30 at Sam’s Club, and My DCC power is plugged into it. If you still have problems, you know that the problem is in the EZ Command or the 8 amp booster.
Both home computers and the DCC command station are plugged into UPS’s and I have never had ‘surge’ issues on any of the above equipment. With the UPS, you have a battery to get you over low voltage as well. As far as someone ‘looking’ at you booster; without the ‘failure’ hapening right there - I don’t think anyone will find a problem. This is one of the ‘gotcha’ things about ‘intermittent’ bugs.
Keep in mind I don’t think the Tony’s people were talking about AC line surges here, but rather poor voltage regulation in the booster itself. Although that doesn’t explain the stall then smoke. Running things with just the Bachmann unit should help - a short will only have 1 amp through it not 8. If that stops the problem then we still have 2 possible causes - simply shorting with 8 amps, or an actual problem with the MRC booster.
As for AC surges - I always use surge protectors on my electronic goodies, as a precaution. But they only protect from serious surges - a burst of 200 volts will get through most surge protectors, they often only clamp at 600 or 300 volts. So thos ebig power spikes from lightning, yes. Minor power fluctuations - no. Better quality UPS units will switch to battery on both low and high voltage situations, and that is often in a rather narrow 108-130 volt range - as in, anythong higher or lower and it uses the battery. I doubt the $30 ones do this, at least on the high end. The good ones use the battery to boost low voltage, they don’t rely on he battey until the input drops even further.
Power spikes to the booster, that makes some scenes. That could explain why most of the of the time it works fine. Now, the DCC system is plugged into a Surge Master power strip. But, so is the computer, my Mono blocked stereo amps (600 watts a side baby) Sub Woofer Amp and a Spaces Heater! When the heater kicks on or off, I can hear cracking sounds through the speakers (Dalquist DQ 10’s in case any of you are audiophiles) when the pre amp is off! (when pre amp is on it filters out the noise)
So, spaces heater could be send it own surge to the DCC system. I wish I kept track when I lost decoders. Was it in the cooler times of the year. Lately I have had a rash of problems, but some I am sure I know what has caused them. Like the Old PK 2000 BL 2 that I added a decoder, chassis is still hot and I am 95% sure the wheels hit’s the chassis, it has had 3 DH 123’s for lunch.
I will try moving the spaces heater off the surge protector to a different outlet.
By the way what is a UPS, is that a battery back up for computers?
I have been wanting to pull the trigger for some time on a different DCC command system. Pretty much spent the extra $ cash I had on decoders. Not ones that got BBQ, but up grading my DC fleet to DCC.
On the decder melting in the PCM Big Boy! It had a right, installed a new decoder and darn thing is locked up!
Thanks for all the answers, and speical thanks to Randy and Jim.
Time to turn out the light, listen to some good jazz and look for %^&#+!$ sparks.
I’d agree with resignalmtr on this–go right to those outlets and get surge protection in there–the higher the better–we’ve put them in our layout and haven’t had any power issues since—
120 volt does not always register 120–it could be 104 to 132V then again it could do even weirder things.
Edit; Cuda-You may want to completely isolate all your power supplies in your case–the heater and your monoblocks draw enough current that they could very well create their own surge as you already noticed–isolate the circuits–monoblock in one, your power supplies in their own.
Another thing to look at is your own house and neighboring users who might have large electric motors cycling on and off, such as air compressors, freezers, refrigerators, heat pumps, and other high amperage devices that can cause voltage spikes and brownouts when they turn on and off, especially if you’re all on one power company transformer.
Heavy duty surge protectors would help alleviate some of these problems. Don’t be chintzy here and get a cheapo surge protector from Wal-mart – you need a good, heavy duty one from a more reputable manufacturer than the one that isn’t even UL certified that Wal-mart would have.
Sometimes even the power company’s local transformer can become overloaded or develop problems that cause voltage fluctuations that would destroy electronics devices without good surge protection.
I don 't think that a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) is the solution. Surge protectors, most of them will only absorb spikes, they are not too helpful with sags and power bumps.
There is a high likelihood that the DCC system is to blame here. The difference between cheap electronics and expensive electronics is the amount of engineering that went into them. Cheap ones omit a lot of things, and use cheaper parts, that will have an impact, but most people don’t notice it.
If the decoders are being damaged, there is something going on between the booster and the decoder. Could it be that the booster does not have good regulation, or the power supply it came with isn’t very good?
Blowout, what kind did you use and what problems where you having?
Far as cost, I know a good power enhancer (term used in the Audiophile world) is not cheap. A used Adcom 515 on E-bay is $125.00 to $200.00.
As you folks know, the real question is what is the real problem? Spikes from the power supply to the command system or to the booster. Or is the spikes coming from the booster or command satation, or is Tony total off base and it is in the turnouts?
Jeff, would you post a few details again on the Tail Light solution? How would I wire it, like a car with a ground or staright threw the bulb. One for each main line or just one from the booster.
This method simply involves wiring an 1156 automotive tail light bulb in between the booster and the track you are trying to protect. You wire the bulb in series with one of the booster outputs (A or B). The other side of the bulb goes to the track. The idea is that the bulb will act as a current limiter of a couple of amps (which should be fine for a bench) and will also light up if there is a short, so you will have a quick visual reference to troubleshoot. Basically it’s an inexpensive electronic circuit breaker.
Allan Gartner is a big proponent of this solution. You can find more on his site at:
Cuda- some of the problems were associated with trains just stopping. We had one burnt out decoder and , if I remember rightly, an issue with a SW1200 just bogging out–and that now that I remember seems to have tipped me to think about circuits in the house. Because the loco would bog down everytime the freezer clicked on.
What we got were/are APC’s line of protectors–and these do tend to deal with bumps and stuff–at least we don’t notice anything quite along that line that Betamax talks about. One could get line conditioners as well that do handle stuff like that.
Everything mentioned in this thread is implicated in one way or another in these issues. If I lived in a rural area that could get involved too, because it does seem that rural areas do not seem to be as stable in the line voltage as here. I have a couple of people I know that have checked their lines and seen variations of anything from 98V to 148V with dips going as low as 87V to as high as 165V. So I’m not so sure that we can quite toss out household circuitry or even regional circuitry. The cleaner/stabler the power coming into the house the less likely the issues would be burnt out circuits. Burnouts of that sort are usually associated with power spikes and unless
Here’s why my thinking is it’s the DCC system and not the AC power lines. Notice Ken has some fancy audiophile gear, and I’m sure he has other electronics - obviously a computer and probably a tv or two. If his AC line is that bad with surges and spikes, I’m sure some of the other equipment woudl ALSO be experiencing failures. His DCC system is nominally putting 14.5 volts to the track, to get that to exceed a Digitrax decoder’s absolute maximum of 22 volts would take quite an impressive surge on the AC input side.
The lightbulb method may work but it’s not absolute protection. At least it will be obvious if a short occurs on the track. The downside is that 2.5 amps will still flow through that short - possibly still allowing the decoder to be damaged if a short is what is causing the problem. Still, it’s a whole lot better than 8 amps going through it, and certainly a step in the right direction. Dick Bronson has a slightly modified version of this on his RR-CirKits page which allows an initial short at 2.5 amps but cuts it down to .4 amps after a short delay. ANd it’s almost as simple as just the light bulb - the PTC fuse he uses costs like 50 cents. http://www.rr-cirkits.com/Notebook/short.html
…about 2 years ago when I was asking you why you were running 8 amps with your DCC system. I suggested going with something of quality, but you stuck with the MRC unit…
Dave how stable is/are MRC units anyways? The problems I’m hearing about sound like spiking and if that is so then-----?
Randy, you may be right but my experience was that that may not necessarily be so. I have a couple of monoblock tube amps in my house that are over 20 years old and have worked even in places in the country where spikes, drops, brown outs and all manner of stuff occur and still have not blown anything, as well any other pieces of equipment don’t pop like those. I’m always finding that you can’t always say it is one OR the other. With my decoder in the SW1200 for example it would go south when the freezer clicked on. We put the whole train layout on another circuit --put a line condx/surge bar on line and no problems after that. And this was over at a friends layout–I’ve since done this on my own with same results. Makes one wonder sometimes is all—[%-)]
You mentioned running part of your layout on DC. Are you sure that the DCC and DC are not getting tangled up together somewhere? That might create some spectacular failures as the two power sources would try to over power each other.
Other than that, I suppose it’s possible your booster could be misbehaving, but the things that really destroy decoders are output shorts, like a motor lead getting shorted to a rail or to the other motor lead, or light outputs getting shorted to the common return or each other. Is there any chance that wires are getting loose and bumping into conductive stuff inside the locomotives? Pinched wires? Uninsulated solder joints? Unisolated or poorly isolated motors? If this is one or two engines in particular, maybe the motors are taking too much current in stall, possibly bad motors.
You might look into TCS decoders. I am too embarrassed to send them decoders that I smoked in sheer stupidity, but I think they have a goof-proof warranty and would replace a decoder with an unexplained failure. Besides, I really like their decoders.
Also, some decoders are rated for more current than others. You might need a heavier-duty decoder for a particular engine.
Randy, 8 amps is not the problem, it is when the 8 amps are out of control, then there a problem. If I was not having a short, spike or just over taxed my engines then 8 amp should not cause a problem. I don’t see any reason to think if there is a short, spike or over taxing my engines 5 amps would be more forgiving than 8 amps when decoders max is 2 amps peak.
Now this “something of quality” thing is something new you have added Randy. As far as I can remember you never said MRC is junk, just that it was to much power. If you have warned MRC lacks quality in there gear I would have but me heed to your warring’s.
Jim, I wish it could be that simple! But, my bench main lines are completely isolated from each other with plastic rail joiners on both sides of the rails where they interconect. Politary is correct and there is no problem when a engines crosses over to the other main. All the track is still DCC power, I have not hooked up the DC power supply to the B line yet.
Randy and the other fine person that brought up the tail light fix again, thank you for the links. After reading the links I understand the fix better.
Barry, a fellow audiophile! Are you a Mac Man? With the power my DQ 10’s demand, I am soild state usining Adcom 555’s bridge mono. I thought the DQ sounded good with a mer 200 watts a side, then I went mono blocked, it was turly hearing them for the first time after owing them for 21 years.
Thanks for all the great efforts from the kind folks here.
You are right about the amps, in a way. 5 directly applied would fry a decoder just as easily as 8, although since when teh breaker in teh booster trips, it SHOULD pulse on, if there’s still a short, trip, rather quickly. I’m not sure how well the one in the MRC booster works. No, it’s not ‘junk’ but I wouldn’t rate it as high as a Digitrax, NCE, or CVP booster. It could be that it doesn’t trip fast enough. A good test is the ‘quarter test’ - another reason the booster might not trip is if your wiring is not adequate and a decoder shorting across the tracks via the loco wheels only draws 7 amps - plenty to fry the decoder and melt plasctic but since it’s less than the booster’s 8 amps the breaker never trips! The quarter test will cost you 25 cents. Set a quarter on the rails, testing various parts of the track. If you set the quarter on the track and the booster trips, you’re good. If it doesn’t, you need to check the booster to be sure it works properly, and assumign that is the case, check the wiring - you may not be using heavy enough wire, or have enough track feeders connected to the bus. You shouldn’t have to push down on the quarter,
I was hoping that was the problem.