gunrunnerjohn posted:There has been more than one report that the high current draw of the BCR at startup has caused the charging circuitry of the 5V PS/2 board to fail. While it hasn't personally happened to me, enough has been said about the possibility that I'm a bit loath to recommend the BCR for 5V PS/2 installations. I use the BCR in PS/1 locomotives, and a supercap clone for 3V PS/2 boards, but I stick to the NiMh battery for 5V PS/2 boards.
Something that is tangential to this BCR causing the charge circuit to fail on startup has been on my mind for some time. What is the rise time of Wall Warts and Bricks that people are using to power DCS and TMCC layouts ? Or worse yet people who use a standard transformer "ME, ZWs" that is permanently set on 18V and switched on and off with a master switch. NOT ME, I dial the operating voltage up and down each operating session and have high speed breakers as well as TVS diodes. To this, consider the life cycle of any electronic device. At what moment are all these devices most likely to fail when operated within design parameters ? Power up ? Certainly not the only point of failure but I'm fairly sure it leads the parade. When I power up I dial the ZWs up to 17V in somewhere between 3 and 5 seconds. In addition, I always pre-charge my home rolled BCRs before I install in the loco. This would lead me to the question, what portion of the charge circuit failures occur when a full 18V is applied to the track on start-up as opposed to a more gradual power-up. Could some of these failures be prevented by pre-charging the BCR or a more gradual power up ? j