AC Power Supply?


R

Richard Boddington

Member
Greetings,

I just finished re-configuring my layout.

I now have five switches which are powered by the AC off of an un-used standard DC train controller. I have this wired under my train table and I am taking the power from the AC accessories screws to run my bank of five switch controls. Works fine.

Also wired into that AC outlet are four houses with bulbs in them. Bought from hobby store you all know the type.

Now when I use a switch all the power goes out in my houses. Ooops! Just for a second while the switch operates. Then the lights come back on.

Now one of the houses I just added into the series has a light but it is very very dim. It's on but you can barely see the light bulb glowing.

So it's clear I need more power, no?

The control unit I am using says the following Output 19 VAC 0-18VDC 5.5 VA. The new house I just added says on the box "12-16 V Bulb AC".

Is there a dedicated AC power supply for HO that can give me all the power I need to run multiple lighted houses and my switches?

Perhaps that little control unit was only designed for one AC accessory and I am running four off it.

Thanks
Richard

My DCC unit is the Lenz system, does that thing provide any AC juice for accessories off the back?
 
On my layout(HO) I run all of the house lighting w/DC bulbs & hook them up to the track voltage(DC) on the transformer. That way I can control the lighting & the switches are AC, so I connect those to the Acc. side of the transformer.
 
If you happen to have an old "wall wart" plug-in transformer like the ones used to power cordless phones and other electronic gadgets, try wiring the lights to that. Use your existing power pack just for the switch machines. You can control switch machines from the Lenz DCC system, but would need to buy accessory decoders which could be expensive.
 
I second Larry's suggestion. I have two older (but still servicable) MRC powerpacks. I use one to power all my constant AC like switch machines, traffic lights, and signals. The other has the lighting bus connected to the variable DC terminals and I can use the throttle to vary the light intensity. I'm up to about 110 bulbs now for street lights and building lights and it's way easier than series wiring them all. You can pick up good powerpacks on e-bay for as little as $10.
 
UP2CSX said:
I second Larry's suggestion. I have two older (but still servicable) MRC powerpacks. I use one to power all my constant AC like switch machines, traffic lights, and signals. The other has the lighting bus connected to the variable DC terminals and I can use the throttle to vary the light intensity. I'm up to about 110 bulbs now for street lights and building lights and it's way easier than series wiring them all. You can pick up good powerpacks on e-bay for as little as $10.
Click to expand...

Would you mind providing me with a link or item number to such a unit on ebay if you get a spare moment. I'm not 100% sure what you are referring to.

Thanks
R,
 
One of the best power supplies, reasonably priced, is second hand laptop computer power supplies.
Most computer suppliers have them.

Ian
 
Iansa said:
One of the best power supplies, reasonably priced, is second hand laptop computer power supplies.
Most computer suppliers have them.

Ian
Click to expand...

Thanks, so they output 12-19V AC I assume?

I do have a spare control unit from Atlas. It says output 17VAC. This is the what I am using for my lights and switches right now.

Ok well I guess I'll unwire the lights and install them into this spare controller and see if I get any more brightness from the bulbs.

I just thought maybe there was a dedicated unit for this?

Also, since I have installed this bank of five switches I notice that switches become very rough to move after only a few uses. I already had to replace a brand new one I barely used. Now I have another one that felt really smooth, that has become rough when you move it.

Any one else experience this, how about WD-40 would that help?

Thanks
R,
 
Richard, Do you have seperate momentary buttons(switch controller) for each turnout or trying to switch each controller w/the AC transformer.
To use the transformer you are going to have to use DC bulbs on the track side & tie your hot wire to the AC side for the turnouts.
Am I saying this right for you?
 
Richard, 17 volts is way too much voltage for bulbs in things like buildings and street lights. Not only will they be too bright but they'll be too hot and burn out in no time flat. Trust me, wiring your lights to a powerpack with a variable rheostat, like the one in the link I provided, to control the voltage is the easiest and cheapest way to go.

You're going to have to clarify the switch question. Are you talking about the electrical switches themselves or track switches? If it's the electrical switches themselves, what type are they? You should be using a three pole momentary switch with the center off and the other two direction only getting voltage for as long as you hold the switch in that direction. Too much voltage for too long will burn out switch motors.
 
I wired the lighted buildings into the AC of the spare controller I have. Same issue, bulbs are dim, especially in one house. I am using the AC accessories screws from an Atlas train controller.

Will these bulbs run off the DC side of the controller? Or do I need new bulbs?

On the plus side the lights don't dim when I use a switch for a turn out now.

On the switch issue, yes, the actual switch not the turnouts. The switch has three screws in front for the three wires and needs to be depressed in order to work. One feels very rough when used like rusty metal on rusty metal.

R,
 
Larry, you don't have to run DC bulbs on only the DC terminals. Low voltage bulbs will work fine from either AC or DC. The only exception is LED's, which must have DC (and usually resistors) to light properly. Another issue is how many volts the AC side puts out. 18 volts AC will light burn out 12-14 volt rated bulbs pretty fast.

Richard, all your bulbs should be the same brightness running from a constant low voltage AC source. Is each bulb wired directly to the lighting bus? If not, and you have some bulbs tied together inside a building, you are creating a series circuit, which will make all the lights dimmer, depending on how many bulbs you have wired together. A two bulb set will be brighter than a four bulb set. Another possibility is that some bulbs are simply lower current bulbs than the others. A 15 milliamp bulb, for example, will appear dimmer than a 30 milliamp bulb. Even with the same milliamp rating, hobby bulbs are not made to high production standards, so you may have significant differences in light output between bulbs. If having all the bulbs be equally bright is important, the only way to assure that is to wire all the bulbs to a temporary bus and pick out the bulbs that appear to be the same brightness and discard the dimmer and brighter bulbs.

Are the switches toggle switches or slide switches? Slide switches tend to have rougher operation over time as dust and other crud gets under the slide. I don't know what conditions are like in your layout room but, if it's a dusty environment, that's not a good place to use slide switches. If they are toggle switches, where did you get them? Poor quality momentary toggle switches don't feel right from the get-go. You may just need some better quality switches. Radio Shack sells decent quality toggle switches at reasonable prices.
 
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UP2CSX said:
Larry, you don't have to run DC bulbs on only the DC terminals. Low voltage bulbs will work fine from either AC or DC.

Thanks Jim, I 've learned something today. Now I can start using up all of these automotive 6 volt mini bulbs that I've been saving all these years.:D
Click to expand...
 
UP2CSX said:
Larry, you don't have to run DC bulbs on only the DC terminals. Low voltage bulbs will work fine from either AC or DC. The only exception is LED's, which must have DC (and usually resistors) to light properly. Another issue is how many volts the AC side puts out. 18 volts AC will light burn out 12-14 volt rated bulbs pretty fast.

Richard, all your bulbs should be the same brightness running from a constant low voltage AC source. Is each bulb wired directly to the lighting bus? If not, and you have some bulbs tied together inside a building, you are creating a series circuit, which will make all the lights dimmer, depending on how many bulbs you have wired together. A two bulb set will be brighter than a four bulb set. Another possibility is that some bulbs are simply lower current bulbs than the others. A 15 milliamp bulb, for example, will appear dimmer than a 30 milliamp bulb. Even with the same milliamp rating, hobby bulbs are not made to high production standards, so you may have significant differences in light output between bulbs. If having all the bulbs be equally bright is important, the only way to assure that is to wire all the bulbs to a temporary bus and pick out the bulbs that appear to be the same brightness and discard the dimmer and brighter bulbs.

Are the switches toggle switches or slide switches? Slide switches tend to have rougher operation over time as dust and other crud gets under the slide. I don't know what conditions are like in your layout room but, if it's a dusty environment, that's not a good place to use slide switches. If they are toggle switches, where did you get them? Poor quality momentary toggle switches don't feel right from the get-go. You may just need some better quality switches. Radio Shack sells decent quality toggle switches at reasonable prices.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jim, I will try the DC side for my lights and adjust the power control to see what happens. Yes my bulbs are wired in series, one lead wired to another lead, and then back to the power in a loop. There is one LED in there on the water tower.

My switches are aqua coloured switches I see used every where. I just noticed that the one that was sticking bad seems better now that some WD40 has worked its way in.

Now for my DC lighting experiment :)
 
Ok so I moved my lights to the DC side and cranked the power to max, exact same results. Dim lights, with one in particular being very dim.

I dunno? As an experiment I should wire the one dim bulb direct to the AC power on the controller and see if it changes any thing. At least that way I will know if it's the bulb or the power source.

I know people run a lot of lights off the AC side of their controllers, how should it be wired? I am obviously doing it wrong, series is not the way to go it seems.

R,
 
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Richard, you're not getting the point. If you have the bulbs wired together inside a building, all the lights in the series will be dimmer than any light wired directly to the two wires coming from the powerpack, usually known as a bus. You need to have each bulb's wire's directly connected to the bus to have them at about the same brightness. An easy way to do this for multiple lights is to run two wires up from your bus and wire each bulb to those two wires, like a ladder. You don't want to have the wires from each bulb go anywhere except it's own spot on the feeder wire. If that bus is wired to the variable DC terminals of the powerpack (sometimes labeled "Track Power"), moving the throttle will increase or decrease all the brightness of all the bulbs by exactly the amount.

I have no idea what an "aqua coloured switch" is. Is it a slide switch, where you move the switch up and down inside housing, or a toggle switch, with a longer handle that sticks out and you change the switch using that handle?

This is a typical toggle switch:

Togglesw2.jpg


This is a typical slide switch:

js_7d5efb874fc3e87f1b961ffd106f5dbe-en.jpg
 
They are slide switches. The reason I say aqua coloured is because I have seen these same switches on many layouts.

Right now my lights go in a chain from the power supply and back again, they are not directly wired to a bus or the AC or DC terminals.

R,
 
RGSfan said:
Richard, Is this the aqua colored switch you are referring to?
56.GIF
Click to expand...

Yes that is the very one! The plastic aqua switch gets very rough to move on some, others are nice and smooth.

So I wired in the dim bulb of the one house direct to the AC of the controller, now it's VERY bright. So that's the issue, series is not a good idea.

I need to work out a parallel circuit I assume.

Thanks
R,
 
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