Power Pack or Transformer, Need help

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I will have about 120 feet of 0-27 guage track going around the room on a shelf 8 feet up from the floor.

What kind of power pack or transformer will I need for this kind of lay-out?
Would this be a large lay-out or what ? I have no idea what to send away for.

The engine is going to be a MTH 2-8-8-2 USRA STEAM ENGINE W/PROTOSOUND 2.0 - UNION PACIFIC.

What should I buy.

Thanks for your help.

[Roger Bielen]

Welcome to the forum Railroad Mex.[#welcome]

The first question I'd like to raise is, is the 2-8-8-2 spec'ed for O-27 curves? As for a transformer, if you are only running one engine and haven't any intention of going to a larger layout something in the 100 amp range should be sufficient. For the power supply to the track I would run buss wires and connect to the track about every 6'.

I'm sure before the day is over you'll have several more opinions/recommendations/options to choose from.

[Anonymous]

Roger, thanks for your help.

I'm using 0-27 gauge but using the 054 dia. curved track for this engine, sorry I didn't say.

The other part is what I needed to know about getting the right size of transformer.

Then you said to put buss wires every 6 feet. Can I run 1 wire halfway around one direction and then another wire halfway the other direction with cutoffs from the 2 main wires, every 6 feet. Or how do I do this? I hope you know what I'm trying to say here.
I don't think I would want to run like 20 separate wires going to all these spots.

Anyway thanks for your help

[jefelectric]

Before you start wiring, it is best to decide if you will ever want to use DCS because you would want to use DCS compatible wiring from the start if that is a possibility. They recommend a 'star' type wiring system as opposed to the bus type which works fine for conventional and TMCC.

[jefelectric]

I just realized I didn't really answer your question. An MTH Z-1000 would be my recomendation for the one locomotive. If you are planning for expansion then go for the Z-4000.

[lionelsoni]

One hundred amperes is way too much. I think Roger meant 100 watts.

Use a single pair of wires, looping all the way around. How frequently you need to connect the track to it depends very much on how good your track connections are. I would start with perhaps every 20 feet, then add additional taps as needed until nothing slows down between taps. Done this way, AWG12 will give you a total resistance of about 100 milliohms to the farthest point, which should result in well under a 1-volt drop.

[Roger Bielen]

Sorry about that, yes I did mean WATTs. Boy think of the trains you could run with 100 amps. .[:O] The buss can run from two different directions with taps about every 6'. As John says the MTH DCS system has different requirements, I use TMCC. The buss system is good for TMCC and conventional.

[Anonymous]

Thanks jefelectric, lionelsoni, and Roger Bielen for your help. I'll only be using the conventional way. Nothing more than a train going around on a shelf.

Thanks again,