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I am an o scale guy but recently started designing a small n scale layout. I hooked up my remote switches and have everything running off of the same transformer. When I hit the switch I get momentary power loss to the running engine. Is it common practice to power remore switches on a seperate transformer? I am using a small power supply, its one of those small ones that come with an ho starter set. Any info would help. Thank you.
Stevin
Your power pack proabably doesn't have enough amps to both power the train and operate a switch machine. Those little guys take a surprisingly large amounts of starting amps to work. It's always a good idea to reserve one power pack for train power only and buy additional power packs for switches, lighting, and signals. With the switch to DCC, you can get some of the large (and powerful) MRC power packs for almost nothing on e-bay. Since I run DCC, I have one of these for all my street and building lights and another for track and grade crossing signals. I think they both cost $14 including shipping.
Stevin,
You can build a capacitive discharge unit relatively cheaply that will allow your existing powerpack to supply enough power to throw the turnouts. One of the magazines had an article recently about building the units, IIRC it was Scale Railes.
do you have a link to inmfo on building this?
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