To LUGNET HomepageTo LUGNET News HomepageTo LUGNET Guide Homepage
 Help on Searching
 
Post new message to lugnet.trainsOpen lugnet.trains in your NNTP NewsreaderTo LUGNET News Traffic PageSign In (Members)
 Trains / 18658
18657  |  18659
Subject: 
Re: Basic Train Electrical Questions
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.trains
Date: 
Sat, 14 Dec 2002 00:07:43 GMT
Viewed: 
619 times
  
Do we have the answers to these in the FAQs? This question comes up
alot...

Jan-Albert van Ree wrote:

Justin Pankey wrote:
Hi All,  I've had a HUGE town display with train, monorail, etc.;  but am
now curious about some issues.  For instance...

How many motorized engines can be hooked together to maximize power, but not
over-burden the controller?

2 is the max with the default powersupply.

Hmm, I haven't done pull tests, but we've successefully run at least 4
motors on a single controller without overheating.

Can you hook up more than 1 controller to a track for added power without
harming the engines?

Won't harm the engines, but possibly damages the controllers. Not
recommended. Better is to replace the wall outlet power supply by a
heavier one, the controller can handle a larger amount of current. That
way up to 4 train engines can be powered.

I'm not sure using a larger wall wart gets you much, but I'm not
familiar with all the guts. I'm guessing that the overload protection is
current based though, which means a larger wall wart doesn't help.

Connecting the outputs of two controllers has almost no risk. A real
power supply (idealized as a constant voltage supply) always has
resistance in series with the power supply. This resistance means you
never have a real short. Besides, if too much current started to flow
(because you had the two controllers set to opposite extremes of the
output range), the overflow protection would kick in.

Frank



Message has 3 Replies:
  Re: Basic Train Electrical Questions
 
(...) Might add these indeed.... (...) But they will run slower than normal and with less power. Which isn't surprising since the 7VA limit is quite low. One motor uses 250 mA according to LEGO Train depot website. Two motors = 0.5 Amps => 4.5VA on (...) (22 years ago, 14-Dec-02, to lugnet.trains)
  Re: Basic Train Electrical Questions
 
(...) Frank, I'm cross-posting this to .faq. That's the best way to bring to my attention something that needs to be added. Thanks Cary (...) (22 years ago, 14-Dec-02, to lugnet.trains)
  Re: Basic Train Electrical Questions
 
I wrote an artive on powersupplies some time ago. Find it on www.hot.ee/sonnich/lego/ under modifications. There are link to 2 other pages describing that, electrical details and power changes. BR Sonnich Frank Filz <ffilz@mindspring.com> wrote in (...) (22 years ago, 14-Dec-02, to lugnet.trains)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: Basic Train Electrical Questions
 
(...) 2 is the max with the default powersupply. (...) Won't harm the engines, but possibly damages the controllers. Not recommended. Better is to replace the wall outlet power supply by a heavier one, the controller can handle a larger amount of (...) (22 years ago, 12-Dec-02, to lugnet.trains)

7 Messages in This Thread:




Entire Thread on One Page:
Nested:  All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:  All | Brief | Compact

This Message and its Replies on One Page:
Nested:  All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:  All | Brief | Compact
    

Custom Search

©2005 LUGNET. All rights reserved. - hosted by steinbruch.info GbR