Wisconsin Railfan wrote:Well I work in IT, and have several old power supplys laying around, my question is, are their any good tutorals on converting these power supplys to work on a layout?
if they're ATX power supplies -> on the 20-pin motherboard connector, take a momentary-contact switch and attach one lead to the GREEN wire, and the other lead to any of the BLACK wires on the power supply. There, you turned it on [:), now you just need to connect whatever to the 3.3, 5, or 12v rails.
To shut it off - plug the power supply into the power strip everything else is plugged into, and just flip the switch when you're done (or have the outlet controlled by the same switch as the lights or something)
-Dan
Builder of Bowser steam! Railimages Site
If you ever want to get adventurous I designed a circuit that can provide three different outputs to power accessories with DCC contol for variable and switched on/off outputs.
http://www.thebinks.com/trains/decoder%20adapter.html
Engineer Jeff NS Nut Visit my layout at: http://www.thebinks.com/trains/
An old DC control unit is what I use as well...one each for each dozen or so. And then I use a 20A regulated power supply to power all the lights. It's good if you separate them and watch the amp drain, otherwise, it will trip if you have all the lights on and then try to switch tracks.
As for battery powered lights, nothing beats the Ikea's battery owered Xmas lights! It's like $2 each with switch and a dzoen or so light bulbs all wired in parallel! It can't get any cheaper than that!
However, I am still yet to convert mine but if you don't want a lot of wiring, a function only decoder is probably the best way to control lights feeding power from tracks.
I'm using old train transformers, but my most recent addition was a wall-wart. You know, one of those power supplies for everything from cheapo computer speakers to battery-powered screwdrivers. I've got a whole box of these fool things, because they generally out-last whatever it is they came with. They've all got labels with their voltage and current ratings on them. I've got a 12-volt one that powers my Kadee electromagnetic uncoupler.
A number of people use old computer power supplies. Like wall-warts, they are usually left over after the motherboard either fries or becomes obsolete.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
I'm going to use an old power back from a Bachman or Lifelike train set to power my turnouts. The lights, etc, I'm going to use the power supply from an old computer. There's enough juice in one of those babies to power a couple cities--and it's 12v. I may power the turnouts with it as well, but I'm only planning on 2-3 tortoises.
Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
To my beginner's dismay, I see that my Zephyr DCC controller has no AC terminals to power accessories/lighting etc.
1. What stand alone product would you recommend to power accessories....I am looking for a simple inexpensive transfomer for this.
2. I am also interested in a simple battery powered stand alone LED setup to insert in structures in place of/to simplify and eliminate some accessory wiring in a layout. Do you know of any sort of gizmo with, say, a AAA battery and soft white or yellow LED for structure wiring? Otherwise I will build these myself, I guess. Thanks for your help.