I have been out of the loop for awhile. Recently purchased new ZW for my uncle who has had several of the original ZW’s. He informed that he could not use the current ZW with his current setup of 20 years. He states that he would have to replace all of his old track, etc… Is this in fact true? If so what type of changes must be made? Thanks, Raildoc
You’ll get a much better response to this question if you post it on the Classic Toy Trains Forum,
we mainly talk about the Real things here…1 to 1 scale.
[#ditto], although you do have my curiosity piqued- what’s a ZW?
Transformer. And I’m curious, too – why would a modern version require replacing all track? I have 55-year old American Flyer transformers (their equivalent of the Lionel ZW) and they work the same with vintage track and the new stuff.
A transformer is a transformer is a transformer, regardless of its age. I don’t think Uncle knows what he is talking about. There is absolutely no reason that anything except perhaps the wire connections to the transformer should need to be changed.
Just how extensive would the rewiring be? Transformer to clamp on or more in depth? Something really seemed to spook him regarding what otherwise sounds like the perfect transformer. Are there any known downside to the ZW? Thanks.
Any “rewiring” to adapt the hookups would take less than five minutes.
I realize that this is the wrong forum for this, but this thread has continued. I have both the original postwar ZW and the NEW ZW, the new ZW uses the same finger nut terminal connections as the “old” ZW, NO DIFFERENCE in the track connections. the only wiring difference is the external power bricks plug into the wall outlet, then into the ZW itself, as the ZW does not have its own internal transformer. The "New ZW has the ability to use up to 4 power bricks with bricks of up to 180 watt output available, this gives the “new ZW” a capacity of up to 720 watts compared to the old ZW’s 275 watts capacity. The NEW ZW also has a Bell button that the original ZW’s never offered. With the exception of plugging the external power bricks into the new ZW, it should hook up to and operate any traditionally powered AC layout just like the original ZWs.
Doug