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Hi,
I've noticed that both YamoRC and Digikeijs show connecting their command stations directly to the booster and then directly to the feedback modules.
What is the recommendation for adding circuit breakers or not? (eg NCE EB1, not PSXX apparently)
And if I use a booster wherever I would put a circuit breaker, would I even need a circuit breaker?
Thanks.
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Hi,
?
May I ask a counter-question for my own understanding ?? As in Europe it is not very common to use circuit breakers at all, we all rely on the short-detection in Command Station and Boosters.
In what circumstance would one use circuit breakers ? and at what current you expect them to trip ?
Greets,
Karst
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Thanks for the resonse.
I suggest that others will have a better understanding of this topic. I am doing an American layout so most of what I read is based on their practices which are often NCE and Digitrax. However here are a few points:
1. A circuit breaker will isolate a smaller section of track. Several circuit breakers can be combined into one booster power district. This allows a short circuit to effect a smaller part of the layout than a booster.
2. LIke a booster it will protect against excess current but the PSXX can actually limit a configurable maximum current over time. They argue that it protects the booster because that current can be below the booster trip value. This is supposed to help with 'keep-alives' charging up (eg the ESU PowerPack). Tony's Train Exchange explains this:?
https://tonystrains.com/news/new-psxx-current-limit-performance.
3. I think that some also protect against voltage spikes and act as a transient peak limiter. I have no reference to quote for this. I saw it on YouTube on a DCC Guy (Model Railroading) channel.
However, since I am now getting into Railcom, its protocol apparently is not compatible with the PSXX. The PSXX sees Railcom switching off the track power rapidly and doesn't like it. But NCE EB-1 is not so effected. I have no idea if it's a better circuit breaker overall however.
My counter counter question is: since your boosters are 'only' 3 amps as opposed to the 5 or 8 amps of something like Digitrax, perhaps this isn't as important any more since we would need twice as many of your boosters. My design scribbles show me actually using as many of your boosters as I currently have in PSXXs.
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Karst,
In the US we use circuit breakers extensively to make power districts. We also tend to be more operations-focused and have larger layouts. The challenge?in matching up European and US DCC equipment is that we typically use 5-8A boosters here with circuit breakers set in the 3-4A range. A lot of our boosters are also older designs that take 125ms to trip, versus more modern faster booster designs in Europe. Our circuit breakers take anywhere from about 30ms to <1ms to trip. We also tend to need more current in a given power district, due to extensive use of multiple unit lashups, often all with sound.
Layouts in the US will often have anywhere from 2-6 circuit breakers per booster, sometimes more, and there are several examples of club or very large private layouts with 50+ circuit breakers installed. It's not always possible to design a layout in such a way, but ideally, we like to have no more than two operators in a circuit breaker district at one time, so that if one creates a short, it only affects one other operator, not several.
Many layouts are comically over-boosted. I often see 3-6 5A boosters installed on HO layouts that need 1-2. Many booster designs don't handle the startup inrush currents well, some newer designs can handle it, or the PSXX breakers manage startup current, allowing more layout to run off of a single booster. There are also many modular layouts where the distances involved require several boosters, Free-Mo can push DCC power down ~50ft of modules over 14 gauge wire, a group up here can push DCC power through up to 100ft of modules with 12 gauge wire.
Circuit breakers are used for short management via power districts the vast majority of the time, the new PSXX breakers handle inrush current management as well, but they can also be used for detecting track blocks and turning power on and off in staging or fiddle yards as a stationary DCC decoder in some specialized applications.
Alex
Hi,
?
May I ask a counter-question for my own understanding ?? As in Europe it is not very common to use circuit breakers at all, we all rely on the short-detection in Command Station and Boosters.
In what circumstance would one use circuit breakers ? and at what current you expect them to trip ?
Greets,
Karst
-- Alexander Wood Hartford-New Haven, CT Modeling the modern era freelanced G&W Connecticut Northern in HO Digikeijs DR5000 - JMRI - ProtoThrottle - TCS UWT-100 - TCS UWT-50p - Digitrax Simplex
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Alex and karst,
A few comments to add to the mix...
1. Yes my layout design uses 8 unit trains each double heading ie 2 locos per train. They spend most of their time sitting in Layover Tracks (aka Shadow Stations, Fiddle Yards, or hidden sidings). When I did euro modelling the DB locos were individually more powerful than the US locos so maybe that's why that is less 'European' in flavour.
2, With YaMoRC boosters being rated at 3 Amps, it's a different design for power distribution than American systems. Since it's viable to put in a booster wherever I would have considered using a circuit breaker (cost is comparable), I am contemplating a design where each Feedback module is directly linked to its own booster ('comically' or not:). I could only have about 3 trains per booster anyway. iTrains makes it worse since many more trains can be on the move at one time.
3. A design inefficiency would lie in the fact that not all 16 feedback inputs would be used pairing one feedback module with each booster. In fact for a reversing loop only 1 input would be used. Your feedback modules only connect to one power/booster district.?
Anyway, I hope there is enough information to make a recommendation - do I bother with circuit breakers when I would "comically" over supply my layout with boosters? Thanks Alex for making it obvious to me that my design is comically overboosted..... lol
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Oldngrey,
It's true that 3A boosters require significantly more booster than 5A or 8A boosters in order to ensure that enough power is available to any given power district. At least if you're using the boosters as your power districts, then you're getting something out of the additional cost of excess boosters, whereas a layout that is using PSX/PSXX breakers off of 5-8A boosters gets nothing out of excess boosters. More smaller boosters may have some technical advantages, and it does simplify wiring, but they are going to cost significantly more than fewer larger boosters with circuit breakers on an amp for amp basis.
The cost is NOT comparable. A YaMoRC YD7403 is US$127.50, whereas a PSXX-1 is US $50. Meanwhile, in the US you can get an 8A Digitrax booster for about the same as the YaMoRC YD7403, you do need to add a power supply, but you can get a $20 laptop brick off of eBay. Digitrax also has the DB220 dual 8A booster, which is significantly cheaper on a per-amp basis than just about anything else on the market. There are certainly advantages to more smaller boosters managing their own power districts, but cost is not one of them. The only thing that comes close cost wise is the Tam Valley booster at $60. There used to be a lot of really cheap used Digitrax boosters, but post-COVID the prices of everything train related on eBay seems to have gone way up.
There are also some key differences between European and American boosters. A lot of European boosters don't use a booster common, almost all American boosters do. Most European boosters are opto-isolated, some American boosters are, and some aren't. A booster common is required for proper operation if a booster common isn't present, although there has been discussion about the DR5033, as it doesn't use a booster common, and appears not to be opto-isolated, which makes the LocoNet the return current path.
Another issue that comes into play is that most American boosters do not support the RailCom cutout, whereas many European boosters do. If RailCom is something that you want, then at least for now, you're better off with more smaller European boosters.
The reality is that the vast majority of home layouts would be fine with a single 5-8A system feeding the entire layout. Even layouts with a dozen operators usually aren't drawing more than a couple of amps at most in HO scale. And a lot of home layouts that only have a couple of operators would be fine with a single 3A system feeding the entire layout.
Alex
Alex and karst,
A few comments to add to the mix...
1. Yes my layout design uses 8 unit trains each double heading ie 2 locos per train. They spend most of their time sitting in Layover Tracks (aka Shadow Stations, Fiddle Yards, or hidden sidings). When I did euro modelling the DB locos were individually more powerful than the US locos so maybe that's why that is less 'European' in flavour.
2, With YaMoRC boosters being rated at 3 Amps, it's a different design for power distribution than American systems. Since it's viable to put in a booster wherever I would have considered using a circuit breaker (cost is comparable), I am contemplating a design where each Feedback module is directly linked to its own booster ('comically' or not:). I could only have about 3 trains per booster anyway. iTrains makes it worse since many more trains can be on the move at one time.
3. A design inefficiency would lie in the fact that not all 16 feedback inputs would be used pairing one feedback module with each booster. In fact for a reversing loop only 1 input would be used. Your feedback modules only connect to one power/booster district.
Anyway, I hope there is enough information to make a recommendation - do I bother with circuit breakers when I would "comically" over supply my layout with boosters? Thanks Alex for making it obvious to me that my design is comically overboosted.....
-- Alexander Wood Hartford-New Haven, CT Modeling the modern era freelanced G&W Connecticut Northern in HO Digikeijs DR5000 - JMRI - ProtoThrottle - TCS UWT-100 - TCS UWT-50p - Digitrax Simplex
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Alex,
*sigh* you are right. I was too hasty in comparing the PSXX to a 3 Amp booster in terms of price. The PSXX-3's I have cost around the same price as a single YD7403. So 3 times as much per protected area.
At the moment I have a DCS240 with an 8 Amp power supply feeding the lower level and that is divided into 6 circuit breaker zones using a couple of PSXX-3's.
I've been buying or going on wait lists to covert to the YaMoRC / Digikeijs universe and trying to figure out what gets removed or replaced on the layout. That's why I was asking about circuit breakers. It's a fairly steep price to pay to use start using Railcom but that's my decision - cost being secondary to functionality and fun. Do I need Railcom? Of course not, but do I want it? Yes :)
I don't use Keep Alives or PowerPacks so that's not a factor in my case. It was the main reason the PSX was replaced by the PSXX if I read the blogs correctly.
What I am seeing here though is an answer to my initial question. It has become a discussion about the number of boosters needed to do the job. However, I do intend to have a lot of trains running at one time with iTrain. My UWT-100 will keep me busy running the 'local', switchers and manifests while the unit trains keep the mainlines busy. A visitor can use a phone or my DT602d. When product from YaMoRC becomes available I believe I will be completing the transition without PSXXs or EB-1s. I will try to limit my use of boosters, but I will be using them to isolate areas of the layout irrespective of how many Amps are needed.
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Oldngrey,
Just about anything will be a lot more expensive than an 8 amp Digitrax system. So it really depends on what features are important to you. RailCom could add a lot to automating your layout. You'll also have to figure out how much you really need all six power districts. Generally, more power districts are better, but it could cost a lot with individual boosters for each power district.
Another option would be to add a RailCom cutout device and keep the DCS240 either as the command station or a booster. I believe the way Digitrax creates the DCC signal, there aren't enough preamble bits to do full RailCom, but you could get locomotive IDs.
Alex
Alex,
*sigh* you are right. I was too hasty in comparing the PSXX to a 3 Amp booster in terms of price. The PSXX-3's I have cost around the same price as a single YD7403. So 3 times as much per protected area.
At the moment I have a DCS240 with an 8 Amp power supply feeding the lower level and that is divided into 6 circuit breaker zones using a couple of PSXX-3's.
I've been buying or going on wait lists to covert to the YaMoRC / Digikeijs universe and trying to figure out what gets removed or replaced on the layout. That's why I was asking about circuit breakers. It's a fairly steep price to pay to use start using Railcom but that's my decision - cost being secondary to functionality and fun. Do I need Railcom? Of course not, but do I want it? Yes :)
I don't use Keep Alives or PowerPacks so that's not a factor in my case. It was the main reason the PSX was replaced by the PSXX if I read the blogs correctly.
What I am seeing here though is an answer to my initial question. It has become a discussion about the number of boosters needed to do the job. However, I do intend to have a lot of trains running at one time with iTrain. My UWT-100 will keep me busy running the 'local', switchers and manifests while the unit trains keep the mainlines busy. A visitor can use a phone or my DT602d. When product from YaMoRC becomes available I believe I will be completing the transition without PSXXs or EB-1s. I will try to limit my use of boosters, but I will be using them to isolate areas of the layout irrespective of how many Amps are needed.
-- Alexander Wood Hartford-New Haven, CT Modeling the modern era freelanced G&W Connecticut Northern in HO Digikeijs DR5000 - JMRI - ProtoThrottle - TCS UWT-100 - TCS UWT-50p - Digitrax Simplex
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Alex,
?? I thought your comment about cost comparison between YaMoRC? and Digitrax was interesting
A number of years ago our club converted to DCC and we choose Digikeijs at the time.? Mostly due to cost ? We decided we need 7 - 3 amp boosters plus a spare and 1 command station plus a spare.? We looked at Digitrax, NCE and ESU and compared apples to apple prices to buy a total of 20 amps of booster power and included 7 PSXX circuit breakers and 1 command stations plus 1 spare, booster, command station and circuit breker..? It was clear that Digikeijs was the winner. ?? ?
So I did some quick calculations to see what YaMoRC gear would cost compared to Digitrax, if we were to buy today for the club.? I used prices from Iron Planet Hobbies. Prices for Digitrax gear is cheaper now than what I used for my original pricing in 2019 and YaMoRC parts are more expensive than Digikeijs.???
Its $1,105 for Digitrax with 7 circuit breakers, 3 - 8amp boosters and 1 command station and $1,172 for YaMoRC for 1 command station and 7 - 3.5amp boosters..??
If you include the spares the club required for backup in case of a part failure, its 1,714 for Digitrax vs $1,579 for YaMoRC.???
So for a club sized layout I would say the cost is about even, but if you include the requirement for spares YaMoRC is marginally cheaper.
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Wow Guys :D?
THANKS !
What a simple question can do :O?
It's clear to me now, and indeed a completely different vision between US and EU, not only with modelers, but also with regulation.
European Union rules forbid equipment that can deliver more than 3.5 Amps. That's why we limited it to 3000mA
I get the "American" way of thinking though. And then CB's make sense.?
?
Greets,
Karst
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Andris,
So first off, I don't think that the only metric for comparing products should be lowest cost, and it is an apples to oranges comparison, as the YaMoRC booster works with RailCom, while Digitrax boosters do not. Digitrax also has unusually inexpensive boosters,?especially the DB220 dual 8A booster.
That being said, I don't think your cost comparison is fair. Most boosters in the industry cost US $30-$40 per amp, and the YaMoRC YD7403 falls within this range at? $36.43 per amp including RailCom. On a raw per-amp basis including a Meanwell power supply, the DB220 costs $14.44 per amp, when you add 4 PSXX circuit breakers (2 breakers?per booster output) the cost is $26.94 per amp, and if you go to 3 PSXX breakers per booster output, the cost is $33.19 per amp. So there's no perfect apples to apples comparison, but you should be able to get better utilization out of the DB220s.
When you compare the YD7403 to ESU and Digikeijs, it compares?favorably cost wise. Any of those are cheaper than NCE's boosters,?which don't even have RailCom. The new TCS B-106 costs an astronomical $61.67 per amp, but it has Lenz-quality power output, LCC tie-in, current limiting on startup, and a global RailCom reader, so it's more of a high end product.
The only thing that can even come close to the DB220 on a cost basis is the Tam Valley booster at $25 per amp, plus it has a peak capacity of 5A, which would put it at $12 per amp, since boosters are often sized for peak startup loads. Neither support RailCom in any way.
So my conclusion is that the YD7403 is competitively priced and appears to have a great featureset making it attractive at that price point, but it's not as cheap on a per-amp basis as Digitrax and Tam Valley boosters.
Alex
Alex,
?? I thought your comment about cost comparison between YaMoRC? and Digitrax was interesting
A number of years ago our club converted to DCC and we choose Digikeijs at the time.? Mostly due to cost ? We decided we need 7 - 3 amp boosters plus a spare and 1 command station plus a spare.? We looked at Digitrax, NCE and ESU and compared apples to apple prices to buy a total of 20 amps of booster power and included 7 PSXX circuit breakers and 1 command stations plus 1 spare, booster, command station and circuit breker..? It was clear that Digikeijs was the winner. ?? ?
So I did some quick calculations to see what YaMoRC gear would cost compared to Digitrax, if we were to buy today for the club.? I used prices from Iron Planet Hobbies. Prices for Digitrax gear is cheaper now than what I used for my original pricing in 2019 and YaMoRC parts are more expensive than Digikeijs.???
Its $1,105 for Digitrax with 7 circuit breakers, 3 - 8amp boosters and 1 command station and $1,172 for YaMoRC for 1 command station and 7 - 3.5amp boosters..??
If you include the spares the club required for backup in case of a part failure, its 1,714 for Digitrax vs $1,579 for YaMoRC.???
So for a club sized layout I would say the cost is about even, but if you include the requirement for spares YaMoRC is marginally cheaper.
-- Alexander Wood Hartford-New Haven, CT Modeling the modern era freelanced G&W Connecticut Northern in HO Digikeijs DR5000 - JMRI - ProtoThrottle - TCS UWT-100 - TCS UWT-50p - Digitrax Simplex
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Karst,
That's... fascinating. How are Zimo and Massoth boosters with 12A outputs being sold in the EU? Or Digitrax and NCE products with 8A and 10A boosters, respectively? And what about large scale? Are they into a different regulatory category requiring more testing or approvals?
If you really want to blow your mind, I operated on an O scale layout with 85A of NCE boosters, 80A of track power at around 18V, and 5A for accessories. I visited another O scale layout that was computer controlled with TrainController and had 280A of NCE PB110 boosters at 16V.
Alex
Wow Guys :D?
THANKS !
What a simple question can do :O?
It's clear to me now, and indeed a completely different vision between US and EU, not only with modelers, but also with regulation.
European Union rules forbid equipment that can deliver more than 3.5 Amps. That's why we limited it to 3000mA
I get the "American" way of thinking though. And then CB's make sense.?
?
Greets,
Karst
-- Alexander Wood Hartford-New Haven, CT Modeling the modern era freelanced G&W Connecticut Northern in HO Digikeijs DR5000 - JMRI - ProtoThrottle - TCS UWT-100 - TCS UWT-50p - Digitrax Simplex
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Alexander,
Simple, they do not / are not allowed to sell it as toy-ware.
"... 280A of NCE PB110 boosters at 16V..."? simply insane :O ( IMHO )
What kind of layout needs this ??
?
Grtzz,
Karst
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Karst,
Ok, that makes more sense, probably why there are warnings that they are not for use by people under the age of 14. What is the incentive to sell as a "toy-ware" versus electronics for adults?
This is the layout with?85A of boosters: It has an 800' double track mainline, and radio dispatching with signals controlled via JMRI.
This layout has 280A of boosters:
It can run up to 35 trains at once using TrainController, many with 3-5 units equipped with Soundtraxx and NCE decoders, as well as lighted coaches. It's located in an old grocery store. It uses NCE DCC for track control with two Lenz command stations?providing feedback via Lenz feedback modules connected to Chubb DCCODs. IIRC, it has 10AWG?bus wire and 300+ detected blocks. It is the only layout that I've ever seen that actually needs multiple 20A mains circuits (120V power in the US gives you a maximum of 2400W per 20A circuit or 1800W per 15A circuit) to handle the power consumed by the trains themselves. I've seen a lot of layouts that are comically over-boosted, but that one really isn't.
My photos of the layout. I only had time for a brief visit for a few hours, I could have stayed there all day:
Alex
Alexander,
Simple, they do not / are not allowed to sell it as toy-ware.
"... 280A of NCE PB110 boosters at 16V..."? simply insane :O ( IMHO )
What kind of layout needs this ??
?
Grtzz,
Karst
-- Alexander Wood Hartford-New Haven, CT Modeling the modern era freelanced G&W Connecticut Northern in HO Digikeijs DR5000 - JMRI - ProtoThrottle - TCS UWT-100 - TCS UWT-50p - Digitrax Simplex
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Alex,
?? cost per amp for a system's booster is an interesting metric but when I did my cost comparison for the club my goal was a low total cost of the "whole" package at the time.? In our case the requirement to have spare parts as backups make Digikeijs, and if bought today, YaMoRC to be a better deal, because theses systems have a cheaper single unit command station and booster vs the Digitrax and NCE plus the extra cost of a circuit breaker.?? Also, I did not hunt around for suitable and cheaper power supplies for Digitrax/NCE/ESU gear.?? We only priced their off the shelf power supplies for their systems since we were new to DCC with no electrical engineers in our club to make the safe workable alternative choices.
? ?
?? The other reason we were drawn to Digikeijs and it applies to YaMoRC too is that we could spread the 3 amp boosters around the layout and have the power near where we needed it.? In our particular case because of the design of our layout, if we bought? big 16 amp or 8 amp booster to get low $/amp it is then offset by the extra cost of the power bus that has to be run to the far reaches of the layout from 7 circuit breakers.?? We would have at minimum 30 ft runs from each circuit breaker, not good to ensure no loss of signal or voltage drop.??? It was cheaper to run the flat 6 wire telephone cable for the loconet between 7 boosters then spend extra cash on 12 gauge power bus wire from 2 or 3 big booster....and you well know copper these days is not cheap.
? So there are plenty of other considerations when buying a system, but every customer has different requirements and a different layout and in our case I was just pointing out that in general a YaMoRC system is cost competitive for our specific requirements and circumstances.
Andris
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Andris,
I don't think that DCC should be done entirely as a low-bid contract, but if that's the only metric you're looking at Digitrax just dominates almost everything else.
If anything, the smaller the boosters, the more total amps you'll need, and the higher the cost will be for the smaller boosters. I don't think spare boosters are really necessary, and I don't think it's fair to include them in a cost comparison. A spare command station makes more sense, in the Digitrax world this could serve as a booster during normal operations. The command station could also normally run with no load, or a lightly loaded accessory bus, and also be the backup booster. Or a lightly loaded district could be identified to cross-tie if a booster does go out, which AFAIK, is a very rare occurrence.
The Digitrax power supplies are ridiculously overpriced, it's one of the few things that they do poorly on cost wise, most of the rest of their stuff is quite cost effective. There are a lot of alternative power supplies available, and they are often MUCH cheaper, especially for the DB220s. I have a ~$25 power supply running my DCS240 that's specifically advertised on eBay for the purpose.
The cost of bus wiring is an interesting and salient point. The whole "DCC goes 30 feet" thing is a BS myth, there are many layouts pushing DCC power well over 100', and it works fine given the proper wire gauge. You are correct, however, to point out that copper is not cheap, and nor is the wire. It gets really squirrely really quickly, but when you get into things like accessory buses, it is often cheaper to "waste" the "precious" DCC power on accessories that don't need DCC, or can be powered separately via DC than to run yet another bus that uses more expensive copper wire. So running 14 gauge buses from the YaMoRC boosters may well save a significant amount of wiring cost versus running larger, longer main 12 gauge buses to circuit breakers that feed 14 gauge track buses. There are probably also some technical advantages to having the boosters closer to the districts in terms of electrical noise and signal quality.
Overall, from what I've seen of the initial pricing, YaMoRC appears to be quite competitive price wise, in keeping with what Digikeijs has done, and arguably shouldn't really be compared to a legacy system like Digitrax, and only to its modern system peers in Digikeijs, ESU, Roco, and TCS.
Alex
Alex,
?? cost per amp for a system's booster is an interesting metric but when I did my cost comparison for the club my goal was a low total cost of the "whole" package at the time.? In our case the requirement to have spare parts as backups make Digikeijs, and if bought today, YaMoRC to be a better deal, because theses systems have a cheaper single unit command station and booster vs the Digitrax and NCE plus the extra cost of a circuit breaker.?? Also, I did not hunt around for suitable and cheaper power supplies for Digitrax/NCE/ESU gear.?? We only priced their off the shelf power supplies for their systems since we were new to DCC with no electrical engineers in our club to make the safe workable alternative choices.
? ?
?? The other reason we were drawn to Digikeijs and it applies to YaMoRC too is that we could spread the 3 amp boosters around the layout and have the power near where we needed it.? In our particular case because of the design of our layout, if we bought? big 16 amp or 8 amp booster to get low $/amp it is then offset by the extra cost of the power bus that has to be run to the far reaches of the layout from 7 circuit breakers.?? We would have at minimum 30 ft runs from each circuit breaker, not good to ensure no loss of signal or voltage drop.??? It was cheaper to run the flat 6 wire telephone cable for the loconet between 7 boosters then spend extra cash on 12 gauge power bus wire from 2 or 3 big booster....and you well know copper these days is not cheap.
? So there are plenty of other considerations when buying a system, but every customer has different requirements and a different layout and in our case I was just pointing out that in general a YaMoRC system is cost competitive for our specific requirements and circumstances.
Andris
-- Alexander Wood Hartford-New Haven, CT Modeling the modern era freelanced G&W Connecticut Northern in HO Digikeijs DR5000 - JMRI - ProtoThrottle - TCS UWT-100 - TCS UWT-50p - Digitrax Simplex
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Oldngrey
karst.drenth