YouTube video showing the output of the CW-80 on a scope. This has been floating around for a while. Note the delays on the bell button action AND the delay on ramp up AFTER you hit the direction button
Before DCC became popular in the HO/N part of the hobby, pulsed power packs were very popular with operators that wanted to eek a little more performance out of their trains. Lionel and MRC started to apply the same technology to their "modern" power packs back in the late eighties/early nineties. They did so partially for the same reasons and partially to avoid safety issues and reduce costs. A PW ZW has a lot of heavy gauge copper wire with a lot of exposed material that would never get approval as a "toy" under todays CPSC/UL rules.
All of the pre war/post war power supplies were based on variable tap step down transformers. All you are doing is stepping down the voltage. By varying the sine wave's form in a modern electronic power supply you can modify the delivery of POWER (volts*amps) to the device by changing the shape of the waveform. You can provide a quick jolt of higher voltage and then ramp down to keep stuff from burning up.
