Does anyone know how many TPC 300 can be daisy chained together? Is there a limit? Thanks!
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I don't think you will find a definitive answer to this question. Dale Manquen has done a study how many devices it would take to load down the driver circuits and there was not a hard and fast rule to the number of devices. He created a device that would extend the number of devices. I am currently using his device but I use it to connect legacy, a computer, TMCC and a port to driver two TPC's, nine ASC's and four BPC.
We are trying to daisy chain 6, possibly 12 TPC 300's together on a large modular group layout. We have just begun to experment with this. I should have an update in the next day or so. Thanks for the reply. Maybe Dale can add his thoughts.
Check out this post. Might help a bit. JonZ talks about the drive capabilities of the SER2
Are you using TMCC or Legacy? With TMCC you should have no problems at all. Legacy has issues with transferring serial data with a lot of boxes, which I will never understand. Marty's link is pretty informative about that. I had fourteen control boxes on my last layout with TMCC and they all worked flawlessly together. 2 TPCs, 2 BPCs, 5 ASCs, 2 OTCs, 2 AMCs, and 1 ARC. Again, I can't understand why Lionel Legacy isn't as stout as TMCC for handling these boxes, but it seems they are working to iron out the issues.
Originally Posted by William 1:
Again, I can't understand why Lionel Legacy isn't as stout as TMCC for handling these boxes, but it seems they are working to iron out the issues.
My guess would be cost. Probably a lot cheaper to use a generic RS232 chip out of China somewhere than one that provides even the meager output supplied by the TMCC unit. As far as the limitations, I believe that Dale Manquen was mentioned as having a signal amplifier device ready made, or you could make your own with some very basic parts.
