What will Cruise Commander Lite run?

Tack,

   I would suggest the Cruise Commander. With any type of load the starting amperage might exceed the 4 amps of the cruise lite. Hope this helps.

Bill 

I'm with Bill on this one.  I have one in a pair of K-Line Interurban units and it hung up on a switch and cooked the board in seconds.  They apparently don't tolerate overloads well.  With the full Cruise Commander OTOH, I've had many installs and I've never cooked the board on any unusual happening with those.

What I'm now doing for all CC-Lite installations is putting a PTC in series with one motor lead to protect against overloads.  I use a 1.30A trip, .65A hold unit and it's never tripped on any of the installs, I have them in five different locomotives now.  I bought a supply of these, and they'll be in all my CC-Lite installations.

Is the lite safe for say a starter set 0-8-0 or a Hogwarts? Is Boxcar Bill going to get more of these in stock?

IMO, that's fine.  My Hogwarts that I posted previously here got the CC-Lite.  Note that I am installing the above named PTC to prevent a repeat of the stall that took out the drivers on the one board.  They did enough damage to the board and traces that I wasn't able to fix the board.

With the PTC, I haven't seen any adverse effects of them being installed, and I also haven't lost any more boards.  The K-Line Interurban set has run for several hours since replacing the board, still kickin'.

Here's what the board looked like, and it only took a stall where it got hooked and stopped a couple of seconds on a switch to do this.

Does anyone have a part number for these from either Digikey or Mouser? "in series with one motor lead" -- assumes this means between the motor and the CC Lite.

Thanks.

jackson

I was talking with Ken from ERR last week about ordering boards for a few of my engines and he recommended for engines in small starter sets such as Lionel 0-8-0 engines that ERR's Cruise Light board be used and ERR' small steam Railsounds Commander if you want sound. 

The small steam is the high pitched whistle that's like European locomotives.  Some folks don't like that, so it's best to listen to the sound clips from the ERR Purchase page and decide on the sound set you'd like for your upgrade.

Jackson, here's the ones I use at Digikey: http://www.digikey.com/product...65/MF-R065-ND/259966

These  are the ones I am using. I put cruise lite in a Williams NW2 being aware of the risks. No worries Bill, if it blows up I am taking full responsibility. After installation I did some tuning on the engine getting the no load current down to .8 amps. Being a switch engines I don't expect to pull long trains with it. I wouldn't consider using it in an F3 with the passenger trains I run with those.

Pete

Anyone have a full cruise commander they would trade for a CC lite and some cash?  ha ha

I need one I can put into an F3!

Jeff,

   I will get more in. Here's is a video from weekend at the movies. I upgrade a two motored starter set engine with the Cruise lite and railsounds for chessie1971.

http://youtu.be/p5Z9q4ufMB4

Bill

I know that several folks use PTC's with their installs.

How do you select what PTC to use?

For something like the CC Lite, with the board rated at 4 amps, I would presume that one would need something that trips at a lower amperage. Would a trip amperage of 3.6 or 3.7 be doable?

I'm not sure I understand what the hold amps are? Is this the minimal amount of current that needs to flow through the PTC for it to operate?

Jim

Bill, Is that your basement?  G

George that video is at my club.  

Did you see the ones I recommended above?  They're .65A hold, 1.3A trip.  In truth, it takes a long time at 1.3 amps for them to trip, but at 4A they'll go right away.  I've got these in five different configurations now, and I've never had a false trip, and I haven't lost any more CC-Lite boards.

I personally believe the ones that Pete selected don't offer enough protection, by the time a 3.7A PTC actually trips, the damage is probably already done.  It only took a few seconds for that picture I posted above, it happened in a flash!

John,

Not an electronic wizard here, is this a fuse or a type of circuit breaker, self- reset able or do you replace it?. Seeing that I have fried a few Mini-2s this is of interest to me. I sure like having folks like you on this forum to bail the rest of us out.

Thanks

Ray 

Here's a page that describes them: Resettable PTCs

They're basically a circuit breaker that resets itself after the overload is gone.  They don't need to be manually reset.

The engine I put those 3.4 amp PTCs was my own and I know they would likely be too slow to open in case of a sudden lock up. I decided that risk was low and would likely only happen if something managed to get stuck in the gears. For someone else I would either use the low amp PTCs or just recommend a full blown Cruise Commander.

Just to elaborate on PTCs (Positive Temperature Coefficient thermistors), the resistance increases with temperature. For many thermistors the change is closer to linear, ie 10 degrees F might increase resistance by 10 ohms. These must be a special version which exhibit little change until the maximum current rating is reached and then suddenly have large increase in resistance.

Pete

Fascinating item, John. Where does it get installed? Does it go on the mini cruise commander board Or somewhere else? Is it a simple solder job?

John,

I'm still trying to grasp how the PTC's work (I do understand that they work on resistance) and how one decides on which ones to use.

Lets take the 1.30A trip, .65A hold unit, for example. 

Does this mean that the current reaching the board it is protecting would be limited to no more than 1.30 amps?

What does the hold amperage mean?  Will current get to the electric device protected by the PTC below the hold, example here being 0.65 amps?

How do you size a PTC for different modeling applications?  With my MRC Dual with the meters, can I just put the engine or car on the track, crank up the transformer to 18 volts and use the amp meter reading to guide my selection?

Thanks,

Jim