I have a question about multiple boosters and locomotives, especially
brass steam locomotives, at the boundary between booster power
districts. My question is: how do I prevent a locomotive with
asymmetric power pick up (like most brass steam) from stalling at the
power district boundary? If I am using all Digitrax boosters and have
the ground pins all connected, does this eliminate the problem?
On my layout, I have a DCS100 which is powering everything except the
engine terminal, which is powered by an Easy DCC booster. The Easy
DCC booster doesn't have a ground pin like the Digitrax does. When a
steamer hits the boundary it stops.
As far as I can tell the DCS100 establishes the ground at half the DCC
voltage with 4 diodes in series connected in reverse polarity to the
DCC track signal between rail A and B and the ground pin is connected
between diodes 2 and 3. I once tried using the same scheme on the
Easy DCC booster and it somewhat mitigated the problem for low current
engines because while they were crossing the boundary they saw half
voltage and continued to run. But the high current engines will still
stall at slow speed. Would an all Digitrax system prevent this
problem or have I understood the design correctly and the same problem
will still exist?
Dale.
Dale Gloer