I want to use it to operate three CW-80s with a remote switch that is rated at 5A, 625W Tungsten/ 8A 1000W Resistive.
Is that possible or should I purchase more remotes?
If you figure ~ 80% efficiency at a full 5 amps output continuous, a CW is still under 1 amp(about 113 watts) on the AC mains.
A postwar ZW is rated at about 2.5 amps(250/275 watts @ 115 volts).
Thanks! That’s great news.
I was afraid it would be more because of the 80Watt output on each transformer and even though I would only be running one Lionel Christmas train on each track, it would be time 3 and I didn’t want to burn it up.
I used one of these remotes on a dust collector once and it immediately burnt up even though it was sold to operate dust collectors. Anyway I can’t actually measure it yet because I’m still working on the track and connections.
What is stamped on the CW-80 for input wattage? A quick calculation of wattage for 5 amps at 120 volts is 600 watts. Unless the CW-80 input watts exceed 150 watts, with three I would not worry about exceeding your remote outlet’s rating, you could use four at 150 watts. The CW-80 has an 80 watt output on the low voltage side, but you rate the circuit for the input(120 volt)rating of watts or amps.
Nothing:
I will test a CW at full output this weekend. A good estimate is it is 113 watts, easily less than 1 amp. You could use 15 CWs on a single residential 15 amp circuit with plenty of overhead, especially since the likelihood of having them fully loaded all at once would be extremely remote.
I posted this question over on OGR forum and the answer I got was 100 watts is the power draw for a CW-80. So to answer the original question, he would be able to use twice the number of CW-80’s that he wants to use.
Thanks, I plugged the 3 CW80s into 1 remote last night and it seemed to work OK but I haven’t run any trains on it yet for an actual load. I have an old extension cord that I’m going to open up so that I can separate the conductors and measure the amps, but I still have one more track to connect before I can run anything on it.
I want some extra margin on the remote because I’m going to have these under the tree and I’m worried about fire, so I will have to measure it under full load to be sure.
The remote set has 3 outlets and I’m going to use one for the tree, one for the Christmas village, and one for the trains. I already had a little trouble with the one for the Tree lights and thought I had blown it out, but after moving thing around I realized that it was the plug on the extension cord that was the problem.
If you are using tree lights with the remote that might limit your power ability for the remote outlet. A lot of Christmas tree lights draw a bit of power unless they are the miniture lights, look on the box for their amp or watt rating. Example is; C-7 lights about 7 watts each, C-9 lights about 9 watts each, these are the older sets of lights that have screw-in bulbs.
I finally finished the track and just measured the power for three CW80 at full load (well without the cars) and with all three locos running (Polar Express, Hogwarts and Lionel Christmas train). It came to 0.8 amps or 96 Watts at 120V for all three trains.
I also have 31 C7 lighted houses that were a total of 200 watts but I just replaced all the lamps with LED replacements and knocked it down to 57 watts total.
My Pre-Lit Christmas Tree with animated Angle on top is 2.78Amps or 334 Watts is the biggest power user. I thought it would be the opposite and now I may have to plan on buying a new LED tree for next year.
Try to check the watts again with any and all lighted passenger cars and other operating accessories as that may increase the power draw a good bit. So far you will probally get away with using one 5 amp remote outlet.
Oh good one!, I forgot about the lights. I made that mistake before not realizing how much they use, Thanks I need to do that.
This might get a little expensive to do but I use the accessory voltage from a Lionel or MTH transformer or from an old race car transformer and have low voltage(under 20 volts) lighting in my houses on my layout. I use the miniature E-10 base screw in light sockets from Radio Shack with 14.8 volt light bulbs. I have the older Mazda lights from GE, many years ago. Another thing that you can do this way is to drill holes thru and run wires directly from under the table on a permanent layout to the light base. The reason I do the low voltage lighting is that I feel it is safer to have a lower voltage on the layout verses 120 volts.
The CW will not be “fully loaded” until it goes into foldback mode at 5 amps output. That would reflect the full maximum power drain on the AC mains.
I’m using porcelain houses for my Christmas Layout and they have a big hole for the C7 light bulbs. Last year I tried to modify them to run led strips inside but they just didn’t look right because of the way they were mounted.
I was pretty excited to see the LED replacements for the C7 because it really lowered the current that is the main damage maker. As long as the wiring is in good shape to confine the voltage then I’m OK with it. With this much current I doubt that I have to worry about that. My only problem is that I have a cat that likes to chew on the wires so I had to use a GFCI to plug into and enclose the wiring area to keep her out.
It’s been a long time since I’ve done any electrical house wiring professionally and I’m not up on the latest codes, but I heard that the new homes are equipped with AFCI circuit breakers for arc-fault in addition to overload and short-circuit protection. I don’t know much about them, but I plan on looking into these to see if they are worth installing.
I have to admit that I haven’t heard the term “foldback mode” before so I had to look it up. So I’m assuming that on my little level track without inclines, I would have to have a derailment and short the track for it to go into foldback.
I wish it would have occurred to me at the time to use that number instead, because I already lost one remote since. My grandson derailed two trains at the same time in a tunnel and even though I pulled the power immediately, I was having trouble with that remote. It didn’t occur to me at the time what caused it and I thought it was just a defective part.
I ended up borrowing my 15 amp remote system from my shop to use until I buy another set. My shop system has 5 remotes that I used to turn on vent fans, shop lights and my stereo.
I do some electrical wirng and try to keep up with the National Electric Code, however a GFCI will not protect you from your cat’s chewing of wires, you will still get fried kitty! A GFCI’s main porpose is to protect from moisture or water in a wet area. The AFCI is rather new and I don’t know what it does for sure. The best bet with any cat; keep the cat out of your train area! Surge protectors sold at most hardware and electronic stores are just feel-good pills, buy a surge protector recommended by an electric power company like; Con-Edison, PP&L, FPL.
Well that’s not exactly true. It has nothing to do with water at all except that water can conduct electricity to ground through the pipes. It actually monitors the current of each conductor and if it gets unbalanced as if to take another path then it will trip. And yes if the only path is through kitty then it will hurt kitty without tripping.
I’m counting on the kitty to be grounded to the concrete floor through its bare feet in which case current will have at least a small amount of 5–30 milliamperes of current taking another path and then be able to save kitty within 25-40 milliseconds by tripping off.
If kitty were to wear rubber boots or be standing on a rubber mat, then the damage will be isolated to across its mouth and depending on kitties resistance at the time, it may only be a shock. If Kitty were to bite completely through the wire during a heavy load then the sudden stop of current flow will cause an arc which will cause burns and the heavier the load or current flow the worst the burn.
Whether a particular remote switch will handle a number of CW-80 transformers is a difficult question. One problem is that we don’t know what interpretation of current the current rating of the switch refers to. I suspect that they’re saying that it will handle the specified RMS current with a resistive load. However, the CW-80 is a very non-linear load, because of its phase-control technique. In fact, it regulates the output voltage by rapicly turning the output off and on. The result is that the input current flows in short pulses, which are stronger than the smooth current waveform of a simple transformer. This can result in substantially higher current, whether measured as RMS current or peak current, compared to a simple transformer.
So, working backwards to estimate input current from the output power is not an easy problem. There’s just not enough information to do it accurately. What saves this situation is that the optimistic assumption that the CW-80 is working like a simple transformer produces such a low estimate and such a large safety margin that it seems unlikely that we need an exact analysis to have high confidence that the proposed remote switch will work in this situation.
I was using an RMS meter to measure the current. I suspected it wasn’t going to b that easy. I may have to just buy another set with a larger capacity and have a separate remote for each CW80.
If I wasn’t concerned about fire I would not care if I destroyed the remote because the whole set was under $20. I did move the train remote out from under the layout to an open wall outlet away from flammables just in case.
I just changed the equation anyway because I just ordered a MTH bump-n-go trolley with a MTH 40-200 Z-DC-1 Transformer that I will be adding to the layout and I’m thinking about buying a second bump-n-go trolley to run on the same track so when they bump into each other they both will change direction.
One thing I learned the hard way about (20 amp GFI breaker) the GFI circuit breaker, this was a panel mounted breaker, is that both wires the hot(or so called hot wire in A.C. voltage)and nuetral or return have to come off the GFI unit to be wired to the outlet or it will trip the breaker. I ran the hot wire from the breaker and used a regular nuetral from the box and not the breaker and kept popping off the breaker, digital multimeter read 120 volts without any load, so I thought I was fine, tried to use an electric drill but it kept popping off. One other thing I learned about GFI breakers, if they are over 15 years old replace them at the first sign of any load problem; like a hair dryer causing it to pop off.