RF Chokes

Here's some for less than $1 in any quantity, and they'll handle over an amp which should handle any passenger car lighting.

CHOKE RF HI CURRENT 22UH 1.28A

You install them in line with the center pickups, all the power must go through the choke before going to the lighting.

Thank you John...   much appreciated...  just ordered a bunch of em....

Rick

Older MTH cars do not degrade signal.  I have posted a list of all the cars from different manufacturers in the past that degrade DCS signal.  We done extensive work with the beta testing of this.  One choke per car for offenders.   The older Lionel cars you have are not a problem.  What version TIU are you running? 

When I was doing the beta testing on the Rev L TIU, it was great to see how most of these problems with the passenger cars went away.  Other railroad equipment will also cause a problem.  I have found the Atlas caboose and MTH rotary snow plow to be huge signal killers.

The choke John listed is a good one.

Two TIU's...  both REV L

Passenger cars are premier purchased around 2005....   New York Central; Blue Comet and NH EP5 set.

All of my engines are also from around that time give or take a year and were upgraded to PS2 this past winter.  All when running alone or pulling freight show a signal stenth of mostly 10 with an occasional dip to 7 or 8.  I add the above passengers cars and my signal drops to 1, 2 or 3.  My remote has VERY slow respone or no response and at times "can not find engine".  I switch to old lionel passenger cars and I'm back to high signal strenth.  I followed all of Barry's suggestions for wiring....  it sure looks to me like it's the cars....

Why one choke per car?  each car has two pickup rollers with their respective wires running to the board...   wouldn't I need two chokes?  one from each roller? 

thx 

Rick 

If the rollers are not common, then you need two.  OTOH, I'll bet the rollers are common on the board.  I'd probably also think about a PolyFuse with a couple of amps current handling between the rollers to prevent issues in the event of a derailment.  It's possible the reason for routing both to the board is to provide similar protection, but since I don't have one to look at...

Almost all cars in recent years have both rollers going to the lighting board. Any old cars with one roller to one bulb is not an issue to be worried about.   One car, one choke.   I would put each car on one at a time.  You have something crazy going on.  I have every one of those cars you mentioned and they are not a problem.  I did the testing on this and would like to hear what you find by doing one car at a time. 

Years ago everyone went to both rollers wired  together at  the board to prevent the lights from blinking over bad/dirty track.

I still like the idea of a PolyFuse between the two rollers.  I bought a set of passenger cars and one of them had a wire that clearly had been the benefit of a derailment, well done!   It's one of several things I'm doing as I take things apart for LED's and chokes.

John, as a man with over one thousand passenger cars, I can feel that it is not needed but not a bad idea for all the protection you might need.  I have never lost a CV board due to a short.

I just lost the wiring, the car didn't have CV lighting.   Easy to fix, but I can see it doing more damage.  I also got a second hand diesel with a melted wire that I assume was from the same type of happening.  Another easy fix, but makes me think.

I will never argue it is better to be as safe as you can.  I was recently handed an older Lionel EM-1 with TMCC.  Everything was toasted and all the boards but the Railsounds power board had to be replaced.  I spent hours thying to establish what took everything out.  I found the problem in time and all ended well. 

Ok Marty...   tomorrow I test one car at a time.  I'll pull behind my neat little NW 0-8-0 which gives me the most consistant high signal (almost all 10's) when running by itself and/or pulling some freight. 

I did try pulling one passenger (from my NH EP5 set) and kept adding one car until I had all cars behind it.  The signal started going down with cars 4 of 5...  and really down with all cars (5 of 5)....  however by this time I was getting loopy and I'm not confident I created a good/valid test.  Besides when pulling 5 Blue comet cars or seven NYC cars behind their respective engines I had a bad signal.  Hence I'm not confident it's one "bad" car....

So...  I'll try one car at a time for all 17 cars.  If for example I get good signal on all cars running just one at a time I'll try different combinations of quantity of cars...

I'll report back...  I can't tell ya both how much I appreciate your help....

Thank you Marty and John

After thought...  all mainlines (three so far) are blocked with each blocks power passing thru toggle switches I had saved from my old layout (prior to DCS)...  radio shack 6A 250V AC (R13-25A)

Son of after thought...  don't lose site that I may have done something really stupid and the solution might be simple...  just saying....  

Rick

You just hit it.  Despite what people say, Radio Shack switches are not great for DCS.  I have done a lot of work on a lot of layouts and this situation shows up.  Your passenger cars do not have CV boards.  The lighting is track power.  A very good friend of mine will hit this post stating RS switches are ok.  He has them on his layout.  I have seen many layouts with bad signal and just installing good switches will do wonders.

Interesting...   Can you recommend proper/good toggle switches?  Where do I go?  I would need two kinds:  Simple on/off; and on/off/on...

Or should I go to a local electric supply?  If so..  what do I ask for? 

A consideration...  the RS toggles sit in a 7/16 hole on my control panel.  It would be great if replacement toggles fit the same hole.  I really, really don't want to create a new control panel.

I'll start with one mailine, five toggles and see what happens.  I want to take baby steps.  If this is the solution then we are talking over 50 toggles hence $$$$'s.

Thank you

Rick 

Marty, John -

Could Rick's wiring itself, as opposed to the RS switches, be the culprit? What I mean is that depending on where the switches and TIU’s are located, there may appreciably additional wiring.

I mounted my two TIU’s (not Rev-L) as close as possible to being centrally located to the tracks they serve. This required one of the TIU’s to be about 50 feet to the control center, and the other over 100 feet. The wires from the eight TIU channels to the track distribution blocks are about 12-15 feet, and from the distribution blocks to the tracks also 12 to 15 feet or so.

I turn the track blocks power on off with relays at the distribution blocks, and control the relays with toggle switches at the control center. Had I had attempted control the track block power directly with switches at the control center, I would have added one or two hundred feet of wire between the TIU’s and the tracks. I have minimal DCS signal problems once in a while, but never serious enough to keep me from running the trains.

Rick, where are your TIU’s, track distribution blocks and switches physically located?

Just a thought . . .

Alex

I use these chokes..buy 'em by the 100 as they come in at 19.999 cents each delivered

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-Radial-Inductor-220uH-221-8mm-x-10mm-10-/390302126550?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item5adfd1d1d6

Hi Alex...  thank you for your i/p....   Two TIU's... so far...  (a third TIU will be added later) at the transformers...  distro blocks also at the transformers...

It's an L shaped layout...   28 x 20

The longest wire is under 20 feet and I have only a couple of those.  How can I explain.  The TIU's/distro blocks are kinda centered.  My control panel is on the outside corner of the L.  If I look left it's the 20 feet to wall...  if I look right it's 28 feet.

I had discussed this situtation with others prior to wiring.  I was most concerned with the location of the distro blocks and the lenght of all runs....  as you mentioned.

Anywho...   some of my worst signal strength readings...  while pulling passenger car....s are on track closet to the transformer/TIU/distro block.

Moving the distro blocks would only save me a few feet and for only a couple of the wires.  That's not to say I shouldn't but it would be a LOT easier to first try replacing toggle switches....

Thanks again

Rick

Marty,

Good morning!

A very good friend of mine will hit this post stating RS switches are ok

That would be me!  

Nearly 100 RS toggles on the layout with 10's all around. RS works for me!

Barry, yes you are a very good friend.  Exceptions exist to everything.  I have replaced many on layouts to restore/obtain good signal.  All the large layout builders do not use them.  That is my personal observation from working on many large layouts.  I will recommend to anyone building a large layout to use good products and do the job one time.

Marty, Please recommend where and what toggles I should buy...  I'd like to start by replacing five toggles on one of the mainlines to see if that does the trick.

Also...  since toggles came into the discussion I went a head and canceled my order for chokes.  If I understand correctly you said chokes are not an applicable solution to my problem.

thanks  Rick 

Rick, Just a thought from a troubleshooting point.  Get some jumpers with alligator clips on each end and jump out your switches and see what you get.  This way you will be bypassing the inner workings of the switch.  I buy all my switches from a high end parts store in Needham, Mass.  The name of the store is You Do It Electronics.  Hopefully John or one of the guys will have some recommendations.  I know Mouser, Allied and Miniatronics all carry quality switches.

I have been to Barry's layout and what he stated is true.  I have seen it work and he might have received a good run of switches.  My observations is that guys like to hold the iron on the switch a millisecond too long and they go bad with extra heat.

Alex, you do thing right. I like the way you did your system.  Good information.

It would be nice if they specified a current rating.

Why..You have some high current need in O Gauge?

That depends.  There are some TMCC/Legacy locomotives that give DCS issues.  So, if you wanted to use these for such an application, you'd be thinking amps, not milliamps.  So, the answer is yes, there are high currents in O-gauge.

Marty Fitzhenry,

I have unsuccessfully tried to find your list of cars needing chokes (mentioned above).  Can you post it again or tell us how to find it?

Thanks

Bil, off the top of my head, here are the big violators.  I have all my test results on my laptop that is not with me today.

1. Recent high end Lionel aluminum cars.

2. Atlas passenger cars.

3. Weaver passenger cars.

4. Atlas caboose--The worst.

5. MTH Rotary snow plow.

6. GGD passenger cars.--Scott Mann was the first to resolve the problem.

7. Third Rail RDC.

8. Smoking caboose from Lionel, K-Line and MTH.

This testing was done with rolling stock.  Every car listed above with a choke would restore a 10 signal.

All the above would bring DCS signal from a 10 to 3-4.  In testing the rev L TIU, Jason let me keep it a bit longer and all the above trains came up with 10 signal with no choke or light bulbs on the TIU output. 

MTH and K-Line passenger cars did not cause any problem as the lighting was powered directly from track voltage.

When we see the next version of DCS, this will all be ancient history.  When the choke fix was first used, Scott Mann contacted me as he felt it was very important for him to change his lighting boards as the 3 rail DCS guys were buying his products.  He did so and has a great LED lighting board in all his passenger cars now.   Very DCS friendly with any TIU.

Are you saying the Rev. L TIU doesn't have the problem with those cars, I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the last part?

John, in testing the above mentioned cars, they would all reduce the DCS signal report without a choke.  The same cars without a choke would show a 10 signal with the rev L TIU.  These tests were done with every version TIU.  Everything was the same without the choke.  Hooking a rev L to the system resulted in a 10 signal.   John, check your email in a few.

Thanks Marty.  I have two Rev. L units, so that's not as big a concern.  I'll probably still put the chokes in new updates, no reason not to.

Hey guys, ok after extensive testing and moving and removing things and even turning off all of my breakers in my house and just leaving on my dedicated 20 amp circuit to my layout. It turns out it's not a house ground problem. Next what I did was place a single test section of gargraves track and connected the DCS system to just that track. I also connected the Legacy base to that test track as well and everything worked fine until I put a TMCC engine on the track then my signal went from a 10 to about a 8 which is normal for mixing a TMCC and DCS engine so close on a 6ft section of track. So that ruled out my DCS system and Legacy base as not being the issue. Now this time I ran a jumper wire (roughly 10ft) directly from the output of the TIU across the basement floor to my 12 port MTH terminal block that feeds all 6 of my yard tracks where is before I had a 50ft #12 stranded red and black wire from Home Depot. I removed every TMCC/Legacy engine from my yard so what was left was just DCS engines. So it turns out when using the 50ft wire which portion runs through the ceiling I get only about between 2-4 signal (give or take) then when I connected the short test wire that runs across the basement floor I get a #10 signal and the funny part is that the test wire I was using was only like 20 awg speaker wire. So now my question is what wire do you guys highly recomend to carry and retain the DCS signal (note wire has to be at least 50ft) Would the wire that o gauge rr sells be adequate for my 50ft run? I notice they only sell #14 when I usually use #12 wire for my longer runs. As for the rest of my layout I am using the same (home depot #12) and I get a # 10 signal all the way around layout as long as there are no TMCC/Legacy engines on same loop.

Sorry if my messages are long but I try to be clear as possible

Thanks guys!

The side of the wire strictly to connect the DCS signal, or the Legacy signal, isn't that significant, any size will do.  Of course, with the DCS from the TIU, typical operation is for the power to come through the wire as well, then wire size is significant.  If you're running power through the DCS, I'd probably run at least #14, and #12 would be preferred, especially for that long a run.

Sounds like something in the ceiling may be a problem with the DCS signal, have you looked how the wire is routed?

Well, first off, I can't imagine the brand of wire causing the issue.  You can run the DCS in passive mode where you don't run the power through the TIU channel, but you lose the ability to hit the big red button on the remote and do an emergency shutdown.  Some say it also affects the DCS signal, I still run the power through the TIU.

Running the power 50 feet may be one of the problems, why do you have to have it run that far in the ceiling?  Why not locate the TIU(s) closer to the layout?

In an engine I would use at least a 4 amp choke. For passenger cars,half amp ones are sufficient. In passenger cars look at the boards if it has one. If there is a capacitor you probably need a choke.

For passenger cars here is one of many that will work.

www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/E...qFgmYYVtS3HjsPHto%3d

Shown here installed in a caboose lighting circuit

www.jcstudiosinc.com/BlogShowT...=487&categoryId=

For those with large layouts,you may consider switching blocks with relays. The method has some advantages for DCS as less track power wire is required and it need not be run in and out of a control panel. Quality of toggle switch is not important.

Described  here

www.jcstudiosinc.com/BlogShowT...=635&categoryId=

Dale H

If you're connecting the chokes on the power feed to the yard, you need a much higher current choke.  There is no need to go with 100uh, the 22uh is sufficient, and it'll be smaller for the size you need to power the engine and passenger cars coming out of the yard.  I'd be looking at 6A rating or higher 22uh chokes.

Matthew,

You do realize that there's a very good chance that putting the chokes on the sidings rather than in the engines won't accomplish anything, correct?

Will a DCS signal pass through a choke?