We have been a long time reader of the forum, but have not posted much since we have not had a permanent operating layout. We definitely appreciate and respect the opinions of forum members. We are now in the process of building a 6’ x 36’ layout. The benchwork is assembled and we are working on wiring.
After reading many posts on the forum we ordered four new PH180s from Lionel to power the four channels of the TIU. We are running both Legacy and DCS. We had an older (late 1990s/early 2000s) Z4000 that we would like to use to power our accessories, uncouplers, etc.
Our new powerhouses came today, so we decided to check the phasing. All of the powerhouses showed that they were in phase with each other. The Z4000 is not in phase with the powerhouses. We have read that the earlier batch of powerhouses had the polarity reversed and Lionel actually provided an adapter plug to reverse the polarity. Ours show a date code of 2017 09. We also read a thread about some early Z4000s being reversed. When we tried an engine in conventional mode with the Z4000, the whistle and bell work correctly.
Any way to know which is correct? Any advice would be appreciated.
Hubert & Marti
