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Grayfox pretty much hit the nail on the head with the Ohm's Law formulas. As he stated, 1920 watts on a "20A" circuit is a safe loading. With our Model railroad systems, we are usually running a maximum of about 8 amps to supply track power, at a voltage of up to 20 volts. When you add this up, it only amounts to 160 watts, plus losses in the power supply transformer, so 200 watts would be about the maximum here. This could be fed from a 2 amp circuit at 120 volts. Unless one has a huge layout, or numerous power supplies (or boosters, etc.), a single 20A circuit should be more than adequate. Again, if providing additional lighting, you may want a separate circuit there. One 20A circuit for layout power is more than enough for just about any home layout. Randy, The point grayfox was making about the loading on your circuit actually is correct. If all three devices were to try to start at exactly the same time, your circuit would almost certainly have tripped (due to higher starting current on the compressor motors). The odds of this happening would be high enough that you would probably never see it happen in your lifetime. As for the heater not drawing what it claims it draws, you must keep in mind that 1500 watts is the maximum load. If it's controlled by a thermostat, it may be shutting back off again before it gets to the point where it reaches the 1500 watt level. If it's a selector switch control (i.e. low, medium, high heat), only the high heat setting would draw 1500 watts. The other settings might be 500 and 1000 watts, for example. -Joe
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