I plan on having 4 districts protected by circuit breakers. I am planning on using a PSX-2 breaker that will be very near two of the power bus wires under the first two districts and booster. The other two districts are on the other side of my layout and therefore I will need to wire from the first PSX-2 (its interconnect terminals) to the second PSX-2. I will be using 14AWG wires, same as the power busses. Should these "interconnect" wires be treated like the power busses, i.e., run side by side, or can they be lightly twisted together (1 twist/foot) until they reach the second PSX-2?
Thanks for any and all suggestions. I am new to DCC, and have purchased a Digitrax Superchief Xtra Radio system. I am trying to get my wiring scheme worked out prior to actually doing it to save backing up and starting over! I am currently working on a wiring diagram to aid design and troubleshooting later.
Many thanks for your suggestions!
Al
The PSX-2 is actually two PSX-1's that simply haven't been seperated (the board can be seperated into two PSX 1's). The interconnects are used to daisy chain the PSX-1's together off a single set of wires from the booster (if you wanted all your circuit breakers in the same location). this allows you to have a cleaner wiring setup. You do not need to wire the inputs of the second PSX to the interconnects of the first PSX. they can both be wired directly to the power bus.
For example I have one set of wires coming from my booster to the upper deck of my layout. They input into my PSX-3. I have daisy chained the three PSX-1's that make up the PSX-3 together (using the interconnects) at a central location and the district bus wires fan out from there. I have another PSX-3 along with a PSX-AR for the lower Level. The lower level PSX-3 and the PSX-AR are daisy chained together but are not daisy chained to the Upper level PSX-3. They are actually powered by a separate booster.
I would not use the interconnects in your case to connect your two PSX-2's together. If the breakers are in different locations i would simply run a line from the power buss to the breaker and then to your district (for both of your PSX-2's). There will be an interconnect used at each PSX-2 location (remember a PSX-2 is actually two PSX-1's and you will need to interconnect the PSX-1's to get power to each district.)
I hope I haven't confused you.
The difference between my drawing above and your scheme would be that the upper set of breakers would be attached to the DCS 100. Again the interconnects are only if you are trying to keep your breakers all in the same location (cleaner wiring).
As far as wiring, main buses should have a light twist to them as this reduces interference (although with short runs its generally not necessary).
I hope this helps.
Colorado Front Range Railroad: http://www.coloradofrontrangerr.com/
Here is a PSX-4 wired up. The left set of terminals connects to the booster. the top terminals go the different power districts. if I had another PSX 4 I would wire them directly to the booster. I would NOT continue to daisy chain them off this set.
Yes, what you show is exactly what I plan to do. Maybe I didn't explain that I am using a single 8A booster with 4 districts. I have never actually seen a PSX-2 or -4 breaker, so your photo above really helps. I actually now am looking at using a -2 for districts 1 and 2 and maybe a -2 for districts 3 and 4. There is about 10 or 15 linear feet between districts 1-2, and 3-4.
All good advice. The short answer is to treat all the wires between base station, boosters and PSX units just like any other part of your track bus, because that's what they are. The advice I've heard is to run track bus wires parallel, not twisted, so that's what you should do with interconnect wires to the PSX units.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Anybody actually ever split these boards apart? I made a mistake with my PSX 4 and drilled a whole right threw one of them. Needless to say, I have to replace it and need to remove the unusable board (its 2nd from the left). Anyhow, Im a bit nervous to separate them although the directions say they are 'pre-scored' so you can just snap them apart. Looking at them, they dont really look pre-scored except the small tabs at the corners.
Anybody separated theirs? I was thinking a metal straightedge and a utility knife may do the trick. A sabre saw sounds a bit butcherlike.
Ok, so I got the boards apart, no problem. Just firm, easy, constant pressure the score points on a countertop edge did the trick. Very easy.
Yeah, it's kinda touch to cut pc board material so just take your time and make multipel light cuts. Or use power tools.
I'm willing to bet they actually only ever have the factory make boards for the -4 then split them as needed, it's usually more economical, at least when you have your own boards made. Some places have caught on and don't allow multiple circuits per board, or charge extra, but a lot of times the situation is like the next size board is 2x the cost but has room for 4 copies of the circuit.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.