Lionel ZW and MTH Z 4000

[Dave632]

 Just purchased a Z 4000 to go along with my old ZW.

I was surprised to see the difference in size.

Here is a photo of the 2 side by side.

Quite a difference and at least 10 lbs. heavier.

[phillyreading]

I like the old post war ZW's by Lionel, nice dependable transformers, plenty of power for me. No need to worry if one will short out internally or not. Or the old 250 watt Z transformers, they had four controls for power to the track, no whistle.

[lion88roar]

One thing about the Z4000 is that it could control DCS enabled engines without having to buy the DCS Remote.

I haven't seen the new ZW from Lionel to know if it controls Legacy/TMCC engines without the remote, if it does not it is a serious short sight on Lionel's part... a serious short sight.

[ChiefEagles]

I'm still using PW ZW's [4, over kill but have them].  The new transformers are great, just haven't spent the $$$.  I do use fast acting resettable breakers though.  I think the "new stuff" gives you that protection.  Use the old PW KW's for accessories and etc.  Got them all at a good price.  Rebuilt them myself as easy to do. 

[Dave632]

I do like the quick trip breakers in the new transformers.

The old ZWs have been around for a long time and they sure are reliable.

I was running all my lighting off one of the adjustable posts on my ZW and the transformer was getting  a little warm from this. The Z4000 handles the 6 amp draw with no heat when doing the same thing.

[gunrunnerjohn]

lion88roar

One thing about the Z4000 is that it could control DCS enabled engines without having to buy the DCS Remote.

That's news to me.  While you have some basic capability to control some features of PS/2-PS/3 locomotives, the Z4000 doesn't have any DCS capability.

[lion88roar]

gunrunnerjohn

lion88roar

One thing about the Z4000 is that it could control DCS enabled engines without having to buy the DCS Remote.

That's news to me.  While you have some basic capability to control some features of PS/2-PS/3 locomotives, the Z4000 doesn't have any DCS capability.

 

You can fire most, if not all of the sounds by pressing the different colored buttons, and the speed control works just fine. Fife has an all conventional layout and has numerous PS2 engines that run flawlessly on his layout with just a Z4000.

Beyond the sounds (station announcement, tower com, etc) and speed control I do not know, I have also never seen DCS in operation...

[Dave45681]

lion88roar

You can fire most, if not all of the sounds by pressing the different colored buttons, and the speed control works just fine. Fife has an all conventional layout and has numerous PS2 engines that run flawlessly on his layout with just a Z4000.

Beyond the sounds (station announcement, tower com, etc) and speed control I do not know, I have also never seen DCS in operation...

The functionality being described regarding access of P2 functions is not specific to the Z-4000.  The combination bell/horn presses used to access some P2 functions can also be achieved using any PW transformer combined with two 5906 bell buttons (wired to act as bell/horn, so one is backwards when they are in series with the center feed to the track).  I always found the timing difficult to master when I used to use this method to program subway sets for auto-mode (stopping automatically on the layout where you tell them to - within reason).

Now the real benefit of the Z4k is for the Protosounds 1 engines.  For those, the programming is much easier with the Z4k so you don't have to manually raise/lower the throttle 35 times to toggle some feature.  (I picked 35 out of the air, but those who are familiar with protosounds 1 know the routine I am refering to).

As to the ZW-L, it needs the Legacy Base/Remote for for Legacy features the same way the Z4k needs the TIU/remote for most of the PS2 features.  So no short-site there on Lionel's part. ;) 

It would be an interesting photo to have the ZW-L with the other 2, as it's just a little bigger than the Z4k.