The DCC track signal is NOT a sine wave, it is a high frequency square wave.
The RRAmpMeter from Tony's Train Exchange is specially engineered to measure DCC voltage and amperage.
richg1998 Dudes and maybe dudettes, go to the below link and do some home work. Search this forum for dcc amp meter I recently posted. http://tinyurl.com/269omcn Rich
Dudes and maybe dudettes, go to the below link and do some home work. Search this forum for dcc amp meter I recently posted.
http://tinyurl.com/269omcn
Rich
Your link seems to go to a page with a bunch of other links. Which one should we be looking at?
And I understand that the AC is sinusoidal, but are we saying that a "normal" amp meter is not capable of reading DCC amperage, or are we saying that there is an accuracy issue with amperage as well as voltage? And if it is the latter case, what is the degree of inaccuracy?
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
maxmannorcalmodeleri know that you can not use an amp meter on DCC that is not designed for DCC. So far as I know, amps are amps. I've never heard that you need some special amp meter for DCC. The discussions I've heard always concern the volt meter. Even there, the discussion concerned "accuracy" of the voltage reading. For most of us a regular meter capable of reading AC volts is good enough for what we have to do.
norcalmodeleri know that you can not use an amp meter on DCC that is not designed for DCC.
So far as I know, amps are amps. I've never heard that you need some special amp meter for DCC.
The discussions I've heard always concern the volt meter. Even there, the discussion concerned "accuracy" of the voltage reading. For most of us a regular meter capable of reading AC volts is good enough for what we have to do.
so, you think that i could just use and inexpensive amp meter on the track power side?
As far a volts, i could use a regular test set on "AC" and should be able to measure DCC volts
Just had a thought and am throwing it out there.
i have a layout where i was planning on running a digitrax dcs-100 (command / booster) and 3 db150's.
as i am building the layout i am breaking it down into many districts and sub districts.for troubleshooting and possible detection and signaling in the furture.
my questions is, i want to measure power usage (amps) of the boosters. i know that you can not use an amp meter on DCC that is not designed for DCC. could i put a amp meter between the power supply and the booster
so the order from the wall outlet would be like this:
plug for supply in to wall outlet - supply - amp meter - booster - wire to track
the digitrax 20 amp power supply has one built in. thinking same principal just separate each booster.
this way if one booster is working working harder, lets say at 4 amps and one at 1 amp. i could just switch some of the districts over and get them running at 2.5 amps each.
what do you think????