Power On Track Causes Short on PSX Breaker

[JPD]

This is a problem I have seen posted elsewhere on this forum. Basically, I now have four tracks in my yard that I can turn off to silence and deactivate my DCC sound locomotives (with functioning LEDs to indicate track status, thanks guys who helped me with that). However, when I turn the power on to the track, with some of my larger sound locomotives, the sudden onrush of power and the charging of the sound system capacitors, causes a short on my PSX breaker.

 

One solution I found is to wire the on-off track power switch before the PSX breaker, but given the design of my layout and the central location of all my PSX breakers, this would be impractical.

 

Another solution is to add another PSX breaker near the yard tracks I shut down and place the switches before that breaker and then wire the tracks to that breaker. However, I would like to avoid the cost of another breaker and I am not sure how this could be wired so that I could have four toggle switches for the individual tracks.

 

I am wondering if activating the delay on the PSX breaker for my yard if this would solve this problem. This would involves setting CV55 to 1 and adjusting CV65 to 128. Would this work? Would it give the locomotive enough time to charge up before the PSX detects this as a short?

 

I had to adjust CV55 on my mainline PSX breaker in the past because it is adjacent to a PSX-AR I use for a wye. I know I did it using my old Digitrax Zephyr, but I did not save my notes about how I did it. I do not want to struggle with recreating this process if changing CV55 is unlikely to solve this problem. What do you think? Is it worth a try?

 

I should add that my PSX breakers are connected to a Digitrax Evolution system.

 

As always, I appreciate any assistance I receive.

[snjroy]

Let me help by bumping this thread back on top.

I assume that when you say "short", you mean a surge that shuts your system off. I'm no expert, but it looks like a breaker capacity issue. Simple solution would be to break your section of track in two (to reduce the load), or to increase the capacity of your breaker. 

Anyway, let's see what the gurus will say.

Simon

[richhotrain]

How many locomotives are inside that power district and how many have sound?

Rich

[JPD]

The support person at Tony's Trains confirmed that adjusting CV55 and CV65 should solve this problem. These are just short sections of isolated tract, not large districts. It only takes one sound locomotive to set off the short. Adding a delay will give the sound locomotive enough time to charge before Digitrax triggers a short.

[snjroy]

I'm surprized that a single engine can cause this... 

Simon

[JPD]

I finally got around to programming my PSX circuit breakers and indeed turning on the delay by setting CV55 to 1 and verifying that CV65 was set to 40. This solved the problem. I had to assign numbers to each board before altering the CVs. The PSX manual explains how to do this on a Digitrax system.

[MisterBeasley]

What do you have he trip current on that PSX breaker set to?  If that's too low, it might trip he breaker on startup.

[JPD]

MisterBeasley

What do you have he trip current on that PSX breaker set to?  If that's too low, it might trip he breaker on startup.

 

 

Since I did not modify the trip current, I assume it is set to the default, whatever that might be. 

[richhotrain]

JPD

 

MisterBeasley

What do you have he trip current on that PSX breaker set to?  If that's too low, it might trip he breaker on startup. 

Since I did not modify the trip current, I assume it is set to the default, whatever that might be.  

The current trip level default is 3.81 amps on the PSX.

Rich