And I'm with John. Until a good solution comes along - but I also want a reasonable price. You can't compare a bulb with a good circuit breaker. But. The price must be within my budget. And that bulb

Sorry. You said bus wire when I think you mean feeder wire, thus the confusion. Scott Haycock Modeling Tarheel country in the Land of Enchantment

Hi Blair, In my opinion, there can never be too many feeders to any rail. It may seem like a lot more work on paper, but I have found, once you get the rhythm going, it is no big deal. On my layout I

Why is it that no one reads the original post any more? As I said, there is a relay, and a block detector, for one rail of each track. My question was focused on the best wiring of the

I did this exact thing for the exactly the same reason. In doing so, it prevents the command station from seeing a surge in voltage and therefore, a total power shut down. To make the routing of

that was covered by the fact that I'm wiring one rail individually, and switching them when selected.  (i.e. when a turnout is aligned for a track, at either end, the track is energized).

One reason to have each track separately wired would be to prevent all the sound equipped engines in the yard from starting up at the same time when you power up! Scott Haycock Modeling Tarheel

thanks, Steve, for the sanity check.  That's what I thought, but...  So the only reason I might run separate runs is if I want to provide the flexibility to split the yard across two boosters at

Ted, It sounds like your AR1 is not reversing when it should. I think it is adjustable. Try adjusting it. Allan Gartner Wiring for DCC

Maybe swap in a different AR1? It's possible the relay contacts are welded in the unit, and it's unable to properly switch states. Or, the circuit is fried completely, and unable to

What else changed in your system Ted? Maybe new Booster? New Short Detection? (add a PSX-1 or other?) anything? I know for me.. and the HMRC (Housatonic Model Railway Club) layout.. I had a great

Nothing at all to prevent you from using a "common" bus for the other rail on each of those tracks. If you think about it, whether you install a second "block" bus for that other rail or tie them all

Had used a Digitrax AR1 Auto Reverse Controller, prior to upgrading bus to 14 gauge from 16 gauge, on one reversing section and it worked fine. Now it allows locos thru one end of the loop but shorts

I have a 12-track staging yard; in order to implement detection, I need to run one bus wire for each track's front rail, having run that wire through both an on/off switch and a current detector. All

I have to agree with Morgan. I do run NCE but the 1156 did not work for me. I use the 1157’s brake filament. One filament of the 1157 is equivalent to the 1156 and the second is a higher current.

Just for those of y'all that don't use NCE. I use a 1157 bulb with my Digitrax and it works like it's supposed to. I mounted it at the center of my layout/command station, visible all long my shelf

Thanks Ken.

This is what the NCE sites says about protection of the Powercab "The Power Cab has built in overload for basic self-protection that will continuously try to reset until destroyed if left uncorrected.

That makes a lot of sense Blair. Thank you.

Dave, It's a function of prior-current, I suspect - if the bulb was already seeing significant current(i.e. a couple of locos running at speed), then the filament is already warming, so