ZW-L Basic Questions For People Who Have One

Bought a new ZW-L in the spring; no problems out of the box; used it to run a small 7 foot oval with 2 lines of track controlled by a 990 Legacy control remote; 1 Big Boy and 1 scale Berkshire; had no issues but, of course, this small layout didn't really stress the unit.  To measure voltages out of the terminals, you will need a True RMS meter to get a good voltage read if that entertains you.

I have the ZW-L and use it for my home layout and for when I am running in my modular club. My home layout is 7X11 and a side spur with 19 turnouts, 4 blocks, and wired accessories. I love it! I run Fastrack on the base level with my elevated rail being tubular. I run everything from pre-war Lionel, Ives, American Flyer to post-war Lionel, and modern Legacy and DCS engines with no issues. I have run the modular layout often times with one power feed and we run trains for several days at a time with no issues. I love the performance and I frankly will not run anything else if given the choice. While it might seem overkill now on a small layout the performance will alleviate those concerns plus it will be the last thing that you need.

I use it on a 10 x 24 about 300' of atlas track layout with 5 or 6 legacy locos, and never had a problem the last 2 1/2 years of use.  I run the trains every day for a couple of hours in our store.

The fellas above have hit the nail on the head.  For now, the ZW-L is overkill for my small floor layout; but, my future layout will be about 20' X 15' with 4 track lines.  I figured if I got the ZW-L now, I would not have to worry about power later.  Also wound up with 3 CW80's (don't ask) for future accessories.

Best investment I've made. Awesome transformer. Runs everything I have with authority, and the circuit protection is the best.

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The Pittsburgh Independent Hi-Railers use a single ZW-L to run all of our layouts, including our current 30' x 48' Kennywood Holiday Lights layout.  We run Legacy, TMCC, MTH and Williams engines, and they all perform well with the ZW-L (and can all be run with our TMCC and Legacy remotes).

One of the things we love about it is that once we turn it on, we don't have to touch it again until it is time to turn it off.  Being able to remotely reset the breaker after a derailment allows us to stay outside of the layout during the current event and let the layout shine all by itself.

It is a wonderful transformer and will be my transformer of choice when I build my own layout.

Andy

Thanks guys!