DFW Portable Layouts -- Mainline and Traction

[E7]

One word: Impressive! I'm sure Lorell is up there smiling!

Rich

[Dennis Holler]

That is an impressive turntable!

[R.K. Maroon]

A few years ago, Dennis Mashburn donated a large box of Lenz DCC components to our club. At the time, we had a basic DCC throttle which was sufficient for our needs, which was "run one DCC-equipped train on one of our layouts three loops". Since then, we have had a growing population of DCC equipment in the club and have outgrown our starter system. So we dug out Dennis's Lenz components and built up this "tower of power":



It's old-school technology but works very well and has a rated capacity of 12 amps. We tried to test that today. We loaded eight locomotives on the layout, including this Sunset E7 ABA set with a monster passenger consist:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nz717sucqb6jyluukaapl/20250524_114912.mp4?rlkey=5xbimgiqzeoe1umlyxta0s1yi&st=651qdyk4&dl=0

Hopefully the video link works for everybody. To our surprise, the current draw of the eight locomotives was barely above five amps. We could have added more cars behind each locomotive but didn't see the point: we're pretty sure we have all the throttle power we need for the foreseeable future.

Jim

[ScaleCraft]

If I recall, dcc current has to be measured with a dcc ammeter. There was something. Because of the waveform, a standard ammeter didn't read actual current.
That was from my brief foray into investigating dcc.

[ScaleCraft]

RRampMeter or a "true rms" meter. I think discussions back then indicated a VTVM might do, but that might have only been for voltage.

[R.K. Maroon]

Dave -- Given the presence of the control modulation on the DCC track signal, I would bet that you are correct about needing a "true RMS" ammeter to get an accurate measurement. My interest here is more prosaic: I just want to know if the stack will supply something close to it's rated capacity. For that, I am relying on the panel meter on the front of the DC power supply that feeds the DC stack. Super accurate? No. Ballpark close enough? I think so.

As an aside, I am a bit surprised that DCC controllers are designed to take either AC or DC input power. Ours is DC.

Jim

[Nortonville Phil]

Recently the DFW O Scalers have been busy working on many scenery projects. One eye catching project was installing working “ grass hopper” oil pump jacks. These were buried in the foam layout deck. Then Maroon wired them up to a power supply. The effect when these are running is really neat to see.

[up148]

Fantastic layout and action if always a crown pleaser. You and Maroon and all the rest of the guys have done some fantastic work bringing this layout back to life and adding onto it.

[Pacific Limited]

Wow what a cool layout.