Quick LGB 55090 booster questions.

andyspencer

andyspencer

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Hi all,

I'm looking at getting a 55090 booster for my soon to be garden railway as I feel I'll be pushing the 5amp limit of the CS. I know that I need to use isolated fishplates between the CS feed section and the booster feed section, but why? Is it a safety thing that should the mains plug for the booster be unplugged but the CS was powered, you'd then get a back feed of mains to the unplugged plug? If this is the case, and you used the insulated fishplates, but left a loco or coach bridging the gap, you'd be in the same potential situation?

Am I correct in thinking that I will just have a power feed to the booster, a track connection to an electrically separate section and a cable from the CS, and no other connections? And as I'm running an 55006P, I;d need a parallel enabled booster?
 
I'd have thought you need the isolating fishplates so that the booster only feeds power to locos on its section of track, and likewise the CS only feeds power to locos on its section. That's the whole point of power districts and having separate boosters, the load on each booster is only some of the active locos not all of those on the layout.
 
I was thinking it might be something like that, but wasn't sure what would happen if a loco/coach was left parked over the joint or a long slow moving train with coaches with lighting passed over. Would this cause any issues? Are the units designed for very short overlap between sections?
 
You need to isolate BOTH rails to create a separate power district..
You connect a ribbon cable between your existing CS and the 55090, to provide the control information. You need to connect the isolated track to the red and blue connectors, but you also need to connect a transformer (50110/50111) to the black and white connectors on your 55090.
So you will need (at least) one pair of isolating rail joiners. A set of power connectors, to get power to the new section. A 55090 booster and a 50110/50111 transformer. - You can use a DC transformer, but may find you have to reverse the wires into your booster if you have a problem.
 
The overlap will not be a problem, but you do need to maintain the convention between sections, so if your inner rail is connected to the red terminal of your original CS, then make sure the inner rail of the new section is connected to the red terminal of the booster. - See not eon above post re using a DC output transformer into your 5090 booster.
 
I would get your railway up and running and then see if you need a booster. A booster is only useful if you are running several trains at once so that some will always be in each section. If all your trains are in one section then the booster is not doing anything!
 
Many thanks for the info Phil. My setup will basically be a twin track oval, with a gradient down to a terminus station with loco sheds. The thought process was to have the twin oval on the booster and the gradient/terminus on the CS. From experiments on my temp setup, running a swiss OH loco with 6 coaches with lighting on is quite power hungry. Potential for two 6car sets to be running on the main, with other train movements up and down the gradient, with other loco's sat idling 'on shed' with sound enabled.
So I won't have any issues with trains moving over the insulated plates between the CS and Booster sections? Looking to be a single track section on the end of the gradient for the section end.
Also Phil, did I read on another post you are able to make up the booster ribbon cables if I don't have one with the booster?

Cheers, Andy
 
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