Hello. I am building my first DCC layout. It will be a dogbone with a center reverse loop. I plan to use the Digitrax db150 with the PM42. The layout is divided into 3 sections plus the center reverse loop. I was wating some suggestions o how to wire this. I am almost finished with feeder installation and will be running the main bus soon. Any comments or help would be appreciated.
otp777 Hello. I am building my first DCC layout. It will be a dogbone with a center reverse loop. I plan to use the Digitrax db150 with the PM42. The layout is divided into 3 sections plus the center reverse loop. I was wating some suggestions o how to wire this. I am almost finished with feeder installation and will be running the main bus soon. Any comments or help would be appreciated.
I also Have a DB150 and two PM42's and I just followed the instructions. Though in the future I will have to redo all of the wiring as the layout has changed.
I will use one of these Break Out Boards on each PM42 when I do so. They are not inexpensive, though priced very well for what they do, but not having to solder a lot of wires makes it worth it.
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Ken G Price My N-Scale Layout
Digitrax Super Empire Builder Radio System. South Valley Texas Railroad. SVTRR
N-Scale out west. 1996-1998 or so! UP, SP, Missouri Pacific, C&NW.
Friendly reminder to check Digitrax website, as they no longer are recommending using the PM42 for both circuit breaker and reversing at the same time. They are recommending a separate auto reverser.
Mike
What they don't recommend is using one section of the PM42 as a breaker feeding to another section of the same PM42 used as an auto-reverser. Having sections 1-3 as breakers and section 4 as auto-reverse is fine, but there will be no breaker capability on section 4 then.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Hello Mike. I looked at the Digitrax website but only saw them recommending using two PM42's or one PM42 and an AR1. They seem to like both options. Is there a reason you know of that would not be beneficial to use the PM42 as designed? Not trying to be a wise racker but I want to do this the best way.
Thanks,
Kansas City Steve
I think it comes down to timing when one section of a PM42 is connected to another section of the same PM42, which is how you would get both autoreverse and circuit breaker functionality with a single PM42.
I went through all this about 10 months ago and got a lot of great replies in my thread you might find useful. Just to mention, for me the PM 42 breakout board was well worth the additional cost for the ease of wiring.
I used 2 ARI's for my two reverse loops with the PM 42 outputs 1,2,and 3 of 4 dedicated only for short protection (output 4 not used....).