PSX circuit breakers (CB) arrived yesterday.
They have to be re-programmed for digitrax: which is easy and only requires moving a program connector and powering on/off the system.
I tested them, as the instructions say, by shorting out the 2 output terminals.
Momentary shorts no problem but a 3 second short causes the command station to short and the command station then shuts down voltage which shuts down the CB's. The tech man says the short was too long and normal and 'under normal shorts' they will operate correctly. Doesn't seem normal to me as it seems this will shut down the entire layout. He gave me Larry's email, who developed the circuitry so I emailed him about it and awaiting a reply. See below for train test.
Since I had the CB's, I installed them (right side, 8 total) and will conduct a 'on going' test of them.
One can route just one set of hot/ground wires to all the inputs to the CB's but I wanted to still be able to run DC so the block toggles were grouped into 8 districts and routed, via new terminal strips, into each of the CB's.
The tech man says I can run DC through the CB's; the CB's just won't detect shorts in DC mode.
I used green tape to indicate districts and, since multiple blocks now go through
one CB, all related district block toggle wires were bundled into one wire and routed through its respective CB.
Only one block toggle is needed to activate that district so it was also marked green. This reduces any DCC toggles to be turned off, in case of isolating a short, to only 8 toggles. Not counting the 3 track reverse loop which is controlled by a PSX-AR.
So far, one train has been run from Seattle to the return loop.
All 8 district toggles were turned off to test isolation of each district, so as the train entered the next district, the train stopped until the next district toggle was activated.
I did have a couple derailments and the engine kept running. I'm guessing no short resulted from the derailment.
I'll have to run some cars through a closed turnout and watch what happens to a train on the mainline.
Lots of testing to be done, yet.
