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Dcc power booster isolating


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hello

thinking of using a power booster on my dcc layout as train speed is dropping as I approach 5 trains. 

My layout has a branch line that leads to a large fiddle yard. I want to isolate this section and install a power booster To run trains on this section.

my question is do I need to use hornby isolating track or can I use isolating fish plates. I’m concerned that as the wheel travels over the gap in the rail it will drop and connect the two rails. Not sure if the isolating track has a segment of plastic between the rails to prevent this. I suppose I could just inset a wedge of plastic if useing the isolating fish plates. 

Any thoughts 

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Isolating fishplates (IRJs) and no plastic is fine.  The booster handles the momentary contact as part of normal operation. 

 

But likelihood of needing one with 5 trains operating at the same time, some at low speed in the fiddle yard?  Very low.  When your main layout takes up all of one car spot in your double garage and the fiddle yard takes up the other, and there are lots of trains and accessories operating at once, then you may need one.  But do install the IRJs as needed for future-proofing.  For now you can likely do that then join the fiddle yard bus to the main track bus and wire both to your controller, using a 4 Amp power supply not the1 Amp (1 Amp would probably trip its overload cutout).

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A quick check of the posting history shows an Elite 1.44 controller, so most likely to already have the 4 amp power supply.

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I suppose it is possible that the Elite power supply is faulty and has lost its ability to regulate the output voltage to the track.

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One way to check would be to put a multi-meter on the AC voltage range across the track rails and monitor the voltage as you load up the power supply by starting to run more locos sequentially.

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Inititially, the voltage should read somewhere about 14 to 15 volts and not drop more than about 1 volt as the load increases. If with 5 locos running, the voltage drops significantly say to less than 12 volts, then that would be indicative of the 4 amp power supply developing a regulation fault.

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Note that a multi-meter on the AC range is not going to accurately measure DCC track voltage, it can only give an indicative voltage reading. This is because most meters (particularly the cheaper ones) are configured to read pure AC Sine waves with a 50/60 Hz frequency. A DCC signal is a bi-polar square wave with a nominal but variable 7Khz frequency and the DCC waveform will change as more locos are run. So in principle, a 1 or 2 volt measured drop is acceptable and is probably more of an indicative reading error due to the changes in the waveform rather than an actual true voltage drop on the rails. I base this statement on my own observations taking AC voltage multi-meter readings on my own Elite powered layout.

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In an ideal world, one would prefer to monitor the 15 volt DC output of the power supply itself, rather than the track voltage. The DC output of the power supply can be measured with greater accuracy. The issue is that one would need to make a DC connector adaptor to go between the power supply output DC coax plug and the Elite input power socket to allow the meter probes to access somewhere to measure the voltage.

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As others have said. You can use bog standard Insulated Rail Joiners to isolate the separate power domain. Boosters can handle the transient (short but brief) interconnection of power domains via rolling stock metal wheels. What you can't do, is permanently connect a Booster output to the main track layout in parallel with the controller output.

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More likely the power supply....... using laws of probability.

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It is the power supply that handles voltage regulation, not the Elite.

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Good to hear......It may be just an optical illusion as the brain tries to keep up with the movement of multiple trains.

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Perhaps a stop watch timing the different locos over measured track lengths would prove changes to speed one way or the other. Start with all 5 locos running, take the timing measurements for each loco individually, stop one of the locos and time the remaining 4 locos and compare against their previous timings. Stop the next loco and repeat. Repeat until only 1 loco is left running. Then analyse the table of timings you have created to see if a pattern in speed increases can be observed as the number of running locos decrease.

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