In my truckload of junk is an 18 amp 20 volt filtered DC power supply from my ham radio days.
Just a two post + & - outlet. Very clean DC, it provided over 300 watts to my ham transmitter. I’m wondering if anyone can recommend a controller that might work with this to provide good variable track power. The internet has sort of limited my ham radio activities.
Norm
I lucked onto a 24 volt , MANY amps , power supply from the removal of a burner management system at the plant once , and used it for awhile with a AriistoCraft Train Engineer system , worked really well , the 24 volts really showed how fast the LGB express trains were really !
Fuse protected to lower amperage of course , it required two strong guys to lift and move it ., it was powerfull .
I still have it , but I use a smaller power supply now , just seemed safer for the equiptment really , like maybe for instance , say , blowing out ALL the light bulbs in a previously lit passenger train !
You could use the power suply you have but , there is possible danger …
I don’t think 20 volts is too much. 18 Amps is a lot, but the only time you will draw that much is if you have a dead short on the line. You can protect equipment by putting a smaller fuse in the line - say 10-15 Amps.
The Train Engineer will work, and give you walk-around control. Aristo also makes a controller that is used with their power supplies that will also work if you want stationary knob control. And if you can find them, LGB made controllers for external supplies.
EDIT to add - I use a Ham Radio supply. I can only get about 14 volts out of it, but that’s enough for the speeds I run. I think its an 8 Amp supply. I have a larger one (30A), but something in it fried and I never got it figured out. Works fine with my TE.
Thanks Dennis and John. I like the idea of walk- around control. This power supply is not overly large, so I think it might work out quite well. I will check out the Aristo TE.
Thanks again,
Norm
Many electrical issues here.
First, if you want the lamps to be safe with a power supply ranging up to 20 volts, the lamps would all have to be rated at 20 volts.
Unfortunately, 20 volt bulbs are too dim at normal running voltages, (5 to 12 Volts?) so locos and cars are manufactured with lower voltage lamps. (e.g. 14V).
Hitting a 14 V passenger car lamp with a constant 20 Volts track voltage (for feeding an on-board TE, e.g.) will quickly burn it out.
Simply replace with higher voltage bulbs, or use some kind of voltage regulator or constant lighting circuit to keep the lower voltage lamps safe and at the right brightness.
Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Joe Satnik
I use RAM 59’s for my sound and lighrs in my cars. It takes any voltage above 9 volts and regulates back down to 9. Very handy.
The original and second versions of TE are marked 18 volts, so I personally wouldn’t recommend hitting them with more than that. The Revolution will take up to 24 by the Man. specs, but that is of course the limit, not the recommend voltage. Do the math on what you have for an amperage requirement. each loco for the sake of math is 1.5 amps, the lights are self explanatory. Unless you are running more than 4 locomotives, or have more than 250 feet of track, it is likely you won’t require more than 10 amps, which won’t even warm up some of the larger power supplies.
The TE is definitely the way to go for a single locomotive operation, others (revolution included) will be better for multi loco operations.
I just picked up a 24 volt 10 amp supply for less than 30 bucks, and will regulate it down to 18 volt for use with my TE, until the refit of the revolution units are complete. As long as the switch is installed, you can disengage the revolution unit and use the track power.
one loco down, three to go. The shay will go last because it is by far the hardest to rewire completely.
Hope this helps.
Cool find.
My junk box is never so useful.
Junk: The stuff you should have thrown away years ago.
Junque: The stuff you should not have thrown away last week.
(My dad’s definitions.)
It would run the old Aristo 27MHz TE’s nicely. You can use their newer revolution that way too. In the garden, there’s nothing like having the control there with you.