How many tracks does legacy allow?

Why do you need 3 bricks per main line? Are you planning on running 3 trains on each mainline? That's so much power that you're not going to need. I've got a 58 by 16 layout with 3 main lines and each main only has one brick. One legacy base runs the whole Shabang and you can only use one base per layout. One legacy base will run a huge layout 

I don't really see a nees for 3 bricks per mainline either.. 2 should be plenty with that size of layout. I know that's not an "answer" to your question, but that much power is just overkill. Big time.

What are you using to control the voltage to the track?  Are the ZWs the modern ZWC types with built in power masters?  If so you will be limited to 8 tracks.  If you have a ZWL or Legacy power masters you have up to 96.  The modern ZWs still use the TMCC limit.  The newer Legacy items can be addressed above 8.

You only need a power master bridge if you plan on using the old "stand alone" power masters as the CAB1 was communicating directly with them.

Doug, its not just over kill but it could be dangerous to your trains. If you derail between 2 power districts powered by two different bricks you've got 20 amps of power with next to no circuit protection (the breakers on the bricks wont trip reliably if at all sometimes if you've got two in parallel). Ive smoked out a brand new legacy loco due to this.

Matt Makens posted:

Doug, its not just over kill but it could be dangerous to your trains. If you derail between 2 power districts powered by two different bricks you've got 20 amps of power with next to no circuit protection (the breakers on the bricks wont trip reliably if at all sometimes if you've got two in parallel). Ive smoked out a brand new legacy loco due to this.

Matt,

I may be misunderstanding you comment, but I am not sure what the problems is.  Are you saying if an engine with two pickup rollers derails, with one of the pickup rollers on each side of the insulating pin between power districts, that the engine will get 20 amps to it?  This would be an issue wherever you cross between one block powered by transformer A and another powered by transformer B, and I have not heard of problems before.

There have been many discussions on the benefits of power districts a long mainlines (I personally don't do that), and those that recommend this have not stated this as a problem.  If it really is a problem, how do those that use power districts solve the problem? 

On the question of overkill, you can never have too much power

I have a 2 level 34 X 34 area layout... 6 loops and lots of sidings. I can run 7 long passenger trains with no problems.

I use one ZWL and one Legacy  command system. No issues.

our bricks pop long before the circuit breakers pop.

CAPPilot posted:

Matt Makens posted:

Doug, its not just over kill but it could be dangerous to your trains. If you derail between 2 power districts powered by two different bricks you've got 20 amps of power with next to no circuit protection (the breakers on the bricks wont trip reliably if at all sometimes if you've got two in parallel). Ive smoked out a brand new legacy loco due to this.

Matt,

I may be misunderstanding you comment, but I am not sure what the problems is.  Are you saying if an engine with two pickup rollers derails, with one of the pickup rollers on each side of the insulating pin between power districts, that the engine will get 20 amps to it?  This would be an issue wherever you cross between one block powered by transformer A and another powered by transformer B, and I have not heard of problems before.

There have been many discussions on the benefits of power districts a long mainlines (I personally don't do that), and those that recommend this have not stated this as a problem.  If it really is a problem, how do those that use power districts solve the problem? 

On the question of overkill, you can never have too much power

Ron, if I'm not mistaken, I'm the one who advanced that concept to Matt. I had a pretty good disaster in which I fried all the wiring in an engine. It was a perfect storm scenario.

I use 6 amp polyfuses for my over current protection. What I only recently learned was, they are very slow acting. They take 10 seconds to kick in and cut the power. That's too long, and I am going to have to find something faster.

Back to the derailment: the engine split a switch and came to rest with one truck in one power district and the other in a second district. I use 20 amp power supplies. Both districts are fed off the same supply. I don't know how many amps went through those wires, my guess is a minimum of 12, but it may have been the whole 20, because of the slow reaction time of the polyfuses. The wires inside the engine were probably 18 gauge and can only handle about 2.5 amps. The smoke was horrific! If I had had a fire extinguisher handy back then I might have reached for it. No desire to relive that and the extinguishers are in the house.

In a separate, more recent incident, the derailment was so bad that it took out the fuse on the primary (wall) side of the power supply. Amazingly, the engine escaped unscathed, but that only reinforced the deficiency of the polyfuse for this application. It literally "doesn't cut it".

The bottom line is, if you aren't very careful, it is possible to get unexpected and / or undesired results.

Elliot,

Thanks for explaining the issue.  I think your comment "I use 20 amp power supplies" says it all.  As many have stated on this forum, that's a lot of amps to our toy trains.  

I use TPCs powered by two PH180s, which also outputs 20 amps.  I use this setup for each mainline track (power district), and each power district is broken up into blocks to support DCS.  For circuit protection, I use the very fast acting and resettable PSX-AC circuit breaker.  It has multiple settings and I use the 15.4 amp setting.  This works well for my express passenger train which pulls between 11 and 12 amps (3 power engines, and 11 incandescent lighted passenger cars.)

We've really gotten off of the OP's original question concerning how many tracks Legacy allows.  MARTYE did provide the right answer:    "Are the ZWs the modern ZWC types with built in power masters?  If so you will be limited to 8 tracks.  If you have a ZWL or Legacy power masters you have up to 96."

Ron you're right, 20 amps is a lot. These aren't toy type supplies either. They were designed by an electrical engineer that I once knew, for my display at Mall of America. There were actually 9 of them, but for this layout I'm only using 6, and that may be overkill. With modern equipment, can motors and LED lighting, power consumption is way down from the postwar and MPC days. My layout is still huge, with over 3000 feet of track, and 75 power districts. The number of trains being operated will depend on the number of people to run them, but there could easily be upwards of a dozen trains moving at one time. I wired it this way so running short of power was never a possibility. My problem, as I stated earlier, is getting proper protection in place.

Greg, with all that I have described above, one TMCC base is all it takes. With so much track, I have added a signal booster, but "normal" people probably don't need one of those. Unfortunately, I have no experience with the power supplies that the train manufacturers sell.

MartyE posted:

What are you using to control the voltage to the track?  Are the ZWs the modern ZWC types with built in power masters?  If so you will be limited to 8 tracks.  If you have a ZWL or Legacy power masters you have up to 96.  The modern ZWs still use the TMCC limit.  The newer Legacy items can be addressed above 8.

You only need a power master bridge if you plan on using the old "stand alone" power masters as the CAB1 was communicating directly with them.

Thanks for all the responses.  I have zwc transformers which sounds like I am limited to the tmcc limit of 8.    If I had a zwl would I be able to use cab 1s with a bridge?    Regarding planning I have crossovers between mains so I think I have the possible power spike issue with derailment no matter what   Hopefully the 180 brick fuses will work.   

What I think I am hearing is that a single 180 brick could run a long mainline with multiple trains??!!   I would estimate the length of each loop to be about 280-300 feet.   Any confirmation or concerns about this single brick approach would be appreciated.   

Greg.

Stackm746 posted:

MartyE posted:

What are you using to control the voltage to the track?  Are the ZWs the modern ZWC types with built in power masters?  If so you will be limited to 8 tracks.  If you have a ZWL or Legacy power masters you have up to 96.  The modern ZWs still use the TMCC limit.  The newer Legacy items can be addressed above 8.

You only need a power master bridge if you plan on using the old "stand alone" power masters as the CAB1 was communicating directly with them.

If I had a zwl would I be able to use cab 1s with a bridge?    

Greg.

If you use the ZWL and assign as an engine ( the ZWL can be set as an engine or track)  you could access more tracks but they would be addressed as engines.  You would not need a bridge in the scenario.  The only function of the power master bridge is to allow Legacy to "talk" to the old power masters.

Using the CAB1 you would still be limited to TR 1-6.  Why 6?  Because when you assign the ZWL or ZWC to TR 6, the B,C, and D handle get assigned automatically to TR 7,8, and 9 respectively.  So technically you have 9 channels of TR but you can't really use anything above 6 because of the above addressing.

ZWL Manual

I wouldn't use any of the old CAB-1, original PowerMaster, or original CommandBase on a new, large, layout (so if you have small layout, go for it).

But - what is your intent? if you only plan on being able to turn the power on and off, you can use other devices 'on-the-lam'. Not surewhich device it is, but I think it is the Block Power Controller, you can change it from a TRain to an ENGine, then you can address 0-99.

And I am sitting here typing and wondering, didn't the new Legacy PowerMaster have the ability to be addressed as an ENGine? Or was that the IC Controls and/or the TPC?

[Technicality - there is actually TR10, TR11,...TR15 and ENG100,ENG101,...,ENG127, but you would need something besides a CAB1 to address them. Does that software with the orange command buttons address these?)

illinoiscentral posted:

And I am sitting here typing and wondering, didn't the new Legacy PowerMaster have the ability to be addressed as an ENGine? Or was that the IC Controls and/or the TPC?

Both of these units can be addressed as an engine. 

[Technicality - there is actually TR10, TR11,...TR15 and ENG100,ENG101,...,ENG127, but you would need something besides a CAB1 to address them. Does that software with the orange command buttons address these?)

I didn't want to muddy the waters as none of these can be addressed from a hand held remote.

Stackm746 posted:

 What I think I am hearing is that a single 180 brick could run a long mainline with multiple trains??!!   I would estimate the length of each loop to be about 280-300 feet.   Any confirmation or concerns about this single brick approach would be appreciated.   

 

Greg.

If you have a ZW-C with external 180W bricks, I can only be assigned TR 1-6 like stated above.  If you added a Legacy PowerMaster or ZWL later, those can go past that.  So a ZW-C assigned to 1-6, and the ZWL 10-96, at the same time, no bridge is needed.

As for the 180W brick, I've run 4 legacy locomotives (One of which the VL Big Boy.) on the same loop with the one brick.  I probably had the smoke off, but there were no issues otherwise.  It was a freight train, so adding lit passenger cars would probably require me to reduce the number of locomotives.  The length of the mainline is not the issue, as long as you have enough power drops.  It'll be the the number of locomotives and lit cars you have on the loop.  I have a ZW-C with 4 180W bricks on it, each brick will power a loop.  My biggest loop is O72 on a 6.5 by 15" table, track near the edge.  It'll have 4 power drops, and I'll be running between 1-3 trains on it at a time, a total possible of 4 locomotives.  One 180W brick will run it just fine, I've tested it already.

We use a ZW-C with four 180 watt bricks. They power two mainlines of 110' split into two power districts each. More than enough to run two trains on each loop, including passenger trains. We have had a derailemt or two at the split of the power district and both bricks pop instantly. We've never had an issue with too much power burning up an engine, but thats a huge difference between 20 amps and 10 amp power supplies.

Thanks for all info.  I am a bit confused on a ZWC only being able to address 6 and not 8 tracks.   If all I have is 2 ZWCs each with 4 180 bricks what keeps me from being able to address 7&8?   

If I had a third ZWC that I did not program and just used the handles to deliver power for say a yard could I still address tmcc and legacy engines in that yard?   

Thx

Greg. 

MartyE posted:

Stackm746 posted:

MartyE posted:

What are you using to control the voltage to the track?  Are the ZWs the modern ZWC types with built in power masters?  If so you will be limited to 8 tracks.  If you have a ZWL or Legacy power masters you have up to 96.  The modern ZWs still use the TMCC limit.  The newer Legacy items can be addressed above 8.

You only need a power master bridge if you plan on using the old "stand alone" power masters as the CAB1 was communicating directly with them.

If I had a zwl would I be able to use cab 1s with a bridge?    

Greg.

If you use the ZWL and assign as an engine ( the ZWL can be set as an engine or track)  you could access more tracks but they would be addressed as engines.  You would not need a bridge in the scenario.  The only function of the power master bridge is to allow Legacy to "talk" to the old power masters.

Using the CAB1 you would still be limited to TR 1-6.  Why 6?  Because when you assign the ZWL or ZWC to TR 6, the B,C, and D handle get assigned automatically to TR 7,8, and 9 respectively.  So technically you have 9 channels of TR but you can't really use anything above 6 because of the above addressing.

 

ZWL Manual

Can you explain the last paragraph? Why can't you address 7,8,or 9?

Legacy allows up the 99 for trains, only the CAB1 restricts you to 9.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Legacy allows up the 99 for trains, only the CAB1 restricts you to 9.

That is only true with Legacy locomotives and Legacy devices.  TMCC devices are still limited to 9.

cjack posted:

Can you explain the last paragraph? Why can't you address 7,8,or 9?

Because you need those open for a ZWC.  When you assign a ZWC and address say 1(which is the A handle) , the other 3 handles are automatically assigned 2,3,4.  So if you are limited to 9 in the TMCC universe, if you assign the ZWC to 6 (the A handle), the other handles become 7,8,and 9 respectively.  If you assign it as 7 or above, you run out of TR addresses for the other handles.

WRT frying the internals of an engine, I've done it twice on derailments on switches with the club's Z4K 10 amp output doing the cooking.  Current to the site of the short is carried from the roller on powered track to the short and the internal wiring and circuit board traces in the engine heat and burn faster than thermal circuit breakers trip.  I have experienced/observed numerous problems with engines or lighted cars transitioning in and out of yards where current on one side of an insulated block is routed to the other side of the block via the car's internal wiring.  If you have a short or high amperage load on a block, that current is going to be passed from the adjacent block by any dual roller car/engine spanning the insulating pin.

The modular layouts I operate are bigger than most home layouts (the NCT layout at York this week is 117 ft long) and each main line is a single block powered by a 10 amp Z4k.  We typically run two trains per main line.  With command control, I don't see a need for power districts on main lines.  A single power source for each main line can do the job. 

The risk for equipment damage can be mitigated by instant trip breakers on all blocks.  I bought a quantity of Airpax magnetic breakers for my home layout, and the previously mentioned PSX-AC looks interesting, but I haven't deployed the breakers as I once anticipated.  The use of districts and breakers requires more complex wiring.  My club's resolution of DCS problems showed that the simpler the wiring, the more reliable the signal gets.  My recommendation is keep the power and wiring as simple as possible and avoid power districts on on main lines.

On really large layouts, Ohm's law dictates a voltage loss with the length of the power feed wiring, and a remote power district may be the answer if 12G wiring cannot supply enough power to the furthest track feed point.

One reason I like the Lionel PowerHouse 180 breakers, they trip far faster than any thermal breaker.

Thanks for all the replies.  

On the programming of ZWC handles can't I program the second ZWC as track 5 and then that would give me tracks 5-8 on that ZWC?

Regarding making each mainline a single block,  I am planning to have the power in the center of the layout which would result in a max 12 gauge wire run of 100 ft.   I then run 14 gauge to terminal blocks which could b 5 ft and then 18 gauge from the terminal blocks to the track which could be up to 10 feet.    The furthest point of course is a 2.8% grade on a 180 degree curve of 72,89&96.   Will this still work a single brick on each main?

Thanks

Greg

Stackm746 posted:

Thanks for all the replies.  

On the programming of ZWC handles can't I program the second ZWC as track 5 and then that would give me tracks 5-8 on that ZWC?

Yep.  Should be able to.

Thanks

Greg