Can I use an MRC Power Station 8 inlineiwth my DCC System? I understand the the Power Station is a DCC booster; It also seems to have the ability to adjust the outlet voltage - should I be concerned? if the voltage is too high, does that 'cook' decoders? The Techmanual doesn't provide any guidance about adjusting the voltage, that I could find> (Online search)
Not likely that it goes high enough to cook many decoders - although there are some that will fry before reaching what the NMRA standards define as the maximum voltage a decoder should tolerate.
All you need to adjust is a meter and probably a screwdriver to turn the adjustment, unless it's a knob on the outside. A cheap Harbor Freight meter is fine for this. If your existing system is also goign to feed the track, then you need to gap both rails between the section powered by the MRC and the section powered by your existing system - you never wire two boosters in parallel, it doesn't work like that. In this case, you want to measure the voltage ont he rails fromt he existing system, and then measure the voltage on the rails powered by the MRC, and adjust it to be the same, otherwise there will be a change of speed as locos cross the gap betwene the two. If the only track power will come from the MRC, just adjust it to somethign scale approriate - 14.5-15V is typical for HO, 12.5 for N.
The real elephant int he room though is the 8 amp capacity. You do NOT want 8 amps goign right to the track. 8 amps at let's say 15 volts is 120 watts. More power than a 100 watt light bulb - and you can't touch a lit 100 watt bulb. That kind of current flowing through a derailed loco truck can easily melt the palstic sideframes, or melt the wires inside, or fry a decoder. That power should be delivered through some sort of circuit breakers, dividing the layout into multiple power districts with a circuit breaker set to a more safe setting. Plus then a short in one section won't shut down the entire layout.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
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