MRC AH362 Power Supply

[timber2]

Can someone tell me how many Tortoise switch machines can be powered by the AH362 DC power supply made by MRC?

I'm trying to avoid using 2 DC power units as discussed in Circuitron's instructions.

According to circuittron's instructions, one 12V DC power supply from Radio Shack can power up to 30 turnouts.

any help on these questions will be greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

[cacole]

Even MRC's web site provides no technical specification for this product as far as how many Amps of power it has or how many slow motion switch machines it might be able to operate, and their picture of it is so blurry that the output power rating is unreadable.

Their web site also indicates that it is OUT OF STOCK. 

Each Tortoise switch motor draws something like 15-16mA of current, and the Tortoise documentation says that up to 30 machines can be powered by a single 1/2 Amp power supply.  So if you know the current rating of the MRC supply, you can calculate it from there.

 

[rrinker]

 If it's on the label, just take the power output in milliamps (1 amp = 1000ma, 1/2 amp = 500ma), and divide by 18ma for worst case for the tortoise, That will tell you how many you can connect. Round down and use a cople less so the power supply isn;t runnign at capacity at all atimes - ie if you do the math and the result is 18.3, don't put more than say 15 Tortoises on that one supply.

 The dual poer supplies shown in the Tortoise instructions has nothing to do with capacity, what they show is a way to use 2 power supplies and a SPDT switch to operate the Tortoise. With a single DC power supply you have to use a DPDT switch.

                               --Randy