Please Help... Digitrax Zephyr and Kato Unitrack

[skates94]

Greetings,

I'm getting ready to put together my first layout and I purchased both a Digitrax Zephyr and Kato Unitrack track set.  The track should arrive in the upcoming week.

Now the question (I searched the forum first but could not find the exact answer):

On the Kato website it shows the Kato Power Pack attached with a jump to the Digitrax Zephyr for DCC. I thought the Zephyr is also a power pack..... why would you need both??? Do I need both???

My layout will be pretty basic and inspired by the Maggie's Cove HO layout from the February 2001 issue of Model Railroader.

Please excuse my stupidity but I'm kind of confused by Kato's illustration with both the Zephyr and their power pack.

Thanks, Chris

[jeffrey-wimberly]

 The Digitrax Zephyr uses an external power supply for it's power. The Zephyr unit itself is controller and booster. You don't need to use the Kato power pack as a jump throttle.

[skates94]

Thanks guys. I appreciate your help..... you just saved me $65.00. Now for some more train stuff.

[rrinker]

 I think the intent was that maybe you had the DC layout with the Kato powerpack and then added DCC later. If you did have the Kato power pack, or for that matter just about any other DC power pack sitting around, you can connect it to one of the jump ports on the Zephyr to use as a second throttle. You select a DCC decoder address and assign it to the jump throttle, then the speed and direction control on the old power pack controls the speed and direction of that loco, and while you are running that one you can select another loco on the Zephyr console and run that one - two trains under control at the same time.

 If you don;t have a handy DC power pack and want to be able to control two trains at once, don't go out and buy one - now that you have DCC you'd be better off getting a UT4 throttle so you and a friend can runs trains at the same time.

                                            --Randy