Don’t forget those lighted buildings that you tacked on to the
track bus.
I recommend building your layout with power districts in mind
– based on what area of the layout is likely to be under the
control of a single operator. This way, you can split sections off,
using circuit breakers as needed.
If you need more power, your booster will tell you by shutting
down during peak operations. Add another booster and move
some of the circuit breakers over to it.
4. The highest current booster is best
Initially, this makes sense. You add up your power needs, factor
in something for future expansion and buy the booster that fills
that need, say 10 amps. Then you use circuit breakers to break
it up into reasonable districts.
Points to consider are
:
This makes the operation of your layout dependent on a sin-
gle item – the large booster. If you were to use two smaller
boosters and one failed, a jumper cable would have the sin-
gle booster delivering power to the entire layout for running,
perhaps in a diminished capacity.
“Two or three smaller boosters and power
supplies will be more useful than one large
booster. In the event of a booster failure,
you will be able to jumper from one district
to another and keep running, perhaps with
a reduced roster. One large booster and the
necessary power supply may NOT be less
expensive, either.”
