What Wattage Would One Want?

D

DanLarn

I'm New, Please Be Gentle
OK, so I am finally home after what seems like years away and I have a good spell ahead of me to make a start on a project.

I am potentially looking at running 2-3 locos with light and sound and reasonable amounts of carriages etc., and as discussed in one of my previous posts I may well have a go at putting together my own controller.

What kind of Wattage would one want? I was thinking about going big and going for 360W (24V @ 15A). That way I could probably power the whole layout using a bus but no boosters.

Any ideas?

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So, analogue I presume??
You will want to split things up for fault isolation..
You will (probably) want separate track sections (and possibly controllers) for different trains??
A bus for power to points / signals / lights, perhaps??

By all means have a large, single power supply, but do break-down feeds out to the layout, and install sensibly sized protection devices. - Fuses cheap, point-motors and loco's not so.
 
PhilP said:
So, analogue I presume??
You will want to split things up for fault isolation..
You will (probably) want separate track sections (and possibly controllers) for different trains??
A bus for power to points / signals / lights, perhaps??

By all means have a large, single power supply, but do break-down feeds out to the layout, and install sensibly sized protection devices. - Fuses cheap, point-motors and loco's not so.
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Hi Phil,

Yes, I suppose I didn't really offer much in the way of pertinent information there.

I was actually thinking of coming up with a DCC controller, and yes I will have to come up with a way of isolating sections and ensuring proper protection for equipment.

Right now I am just trying to get an idea for what kind of components to buy, the first thing I need to know is what kind of PSU I will need.

My concern about having a smaller supply power would be that it may end up being under powered, although there are no real gradients in my garden I'd like to be able to potentially take it elsewhere in the future where that extra oomph could come in handy.

If my PSU is too big, I have to make sure everything is well protected and to be honest I worry about short circuits and potential damage to children, pets and other items (in ascending order of concern).

What kind of Wattage do most people run at, and how well can they run what they have is what I am asking. On reflection it may have been easier just to say that from the outset.

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LGB MTS is nominally 5A and Massoth is rated for 12A, with the facility to add a booster.

I know of only one Grailer who has overloaded his Massoth and had to buy a booster, but he does have a large layout and several locos....
 
You can turn the limit DOWN on the Massoth Central Station..

As for building your own DCC system?? :o

Do you mean that, or just the transformer part, which will feed into a commercial Central station?
 
I was going to build everything, I have found a few good resources which explain the requirements of the system and the NRMA code is readily available. Building an analogue controller is really simple, even going to the level of adding PWM motor control and a pseudo inertia system. So hopefully within the next 6 months or so I should be able to produce a working prototype of a DCC controller. I will have to see.

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It is the combination of intelligence, and power output, that I would be worried about..

A custom throttle/cum-control-pad thingy, to allow point switching, and the like, I like the idea of.. Custom built decoders for switching also. - Both available as resources on the web.
There is a 'build it yourself' DCC system out there. - Possibly JMRI?? Same people who do the SPROG ??
 
I think it should be doable, at work we use a 2300V power/data telemetry system. We made a test unit to check Rx and Tx of comms and it worked reliably, although I don't want to imagine how much that build cost. This will be slightly different but I am confident we could make it work, I will be drawing on my pool of engineering buddies to help me on that bit, I am more the technician level solder things and stick it with gaffa tape kind of guy. Hopefully I will be able to do more on the software and programming side.

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I have looked at both JMRI and SPROG, both will prove useful resources especially when it comes to outfitting and programming the locos.

I may test the loco using the JMRI software and SPROG to program and test the DCC capabilities before then getting it running on my own frankenstein creation.




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As a very rough rule of thumb allow 0.5A per motor.
Naturally it varies between brands and also such things as weight of trains, sound units, amount and type of coach lighting, and smoke units.
 
If you want to build your own dcc central station then i would recommend you join the Model Electronic Railway Group (MERG)
 
muns said:
If you want to build your own dcc central station then i would recommend you join the Model Electronic Railway Group (MERG)
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That's the one!
I just could not remember which Extended Three Letter Acronym (E-TLA) it was..

I knew it wasn't an Expanded Extended Three Letter Acronym (EE-TLA).


Sorry! 'old school' computer joke. ??? ::) ;) ;)
 
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