I run part of my layout in DC still, and have a MRC 260 that I use for it. Yesterday while I was at the Urbana, Illinois train show they have once a year at the mall, I ran across a MRC Tech 4 250 Transformer that was on display. It looked brand new and the vender said he could show me that it worked and hooked it up and ran a few engines in forward and reverse. This pack has all kind of buttons on it for voltage start, Programming, brakes, momentium, direction, and a few others. The price tag of $20.00 seemed cheap for this pack and it worked fine.
I brought it home with my 2 other bags of train items and hooked it up, it had no general instructions on the use of all the buttons, but I figured out most of them. The LED display seemed nice to show where you were at on your throttle also. This pack seemed really nice, so I tried to do some research on it and there is not much out there on it. It was made only for a a year or so from 2004 to 2005. Does anyone else have or use one of these for the layout, that could email me some factory directions or have any personal opinion on it? I ran a 35 car drag with 2 powered engines for 2 hours this morning, and it does not even get warm, so it has allot of power.
It did have a list price of $99.00 new. I wonder why MRC only made this for a year? They also had a 350 model that had a very similar look to it, but more power.
Any help would be nice.
ICRR
This is what it looks like.
It appears that MRC has a manual for the Tech 250 that you can find on their website. See http://www.modelrectifier.com/train-controls/dc-power-railpower.asp. It will be listed on the left side under the manuals for discontinued items heading.
Regards
Maxman,
Thanks for the info, it helped me figure out some of the missing fetures I was missing.
I have used this for about 5 or 6 years. I bought it used on ebay along with a new walkaround controller. I love it. For 20 you got a great deal. However, I didnt get the manual with it, but have never really needed it as I run a medium size switching layout.
ICRR1964They also had a 350 model that had a very similar look to it, but more power.
These comments are for the 350, I cannot speak for the 250.
I purchased an MRC 350 to replace a 2400 Tech 2. I discovered that more than 2-3 engines, depending on the type, would open the circuit breaker so I returned it to the LHS for a second unit.
The same thing happened with the replacement. I took the second one to work and hooked it up to a variable load in the electrical lab. I cannot remember the exact value the breaker would open but it was quite low.
I called MRC and they admitted to me a mistake was made by the EE who designed the unit. This was causing the breaker to open far before the rated amperage. They told me they would fix it if I sent it in to them.
One thing I did notice which really concerned me was that high end motors, such as Kato and Atlas, buzzed terribly at low speeds. The pulse scheduling was too aggressive and could not be programmed out.
I was not going to pay shipping on a 1-day-old high dollar unit which over pulsed my expensive motors. I returned the second one to the LHS also.
I ended up buying some long shank anti-tamper torx bits so I could get inside my old 2400 Tech 2 and fixed it myself. It was a shame because it seemed like a nice unit. The 350 soon disappeared from the MRC Tech 4 ads.
Hope you have better luck with the 250.
Jim
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