Power & Bus layout

[Jamie Smith]

Hi all,

 

Hope we are ll having a lovely bank holiday weekend and staying safe.

 

I have a few questions regarding power & bus layouts which I would really appreciate the collective groups input on.

 

Bit of background...

I'm in the process of building an end to end layout, based on the Bluebell railway in East Sussex with both the Sheffield Park & Horsted Keynes stations, and then a small loop running around the perimeter of the board (just for a bit of added interest). I've almost completed the track laying and now moving on with the wiring. For the turnouts (approx 25 odd) I'm using Cobalt digital point motors.

 

Now, I've done lots and lots of research on which control system to use, and with a bit of invaluable & amazing help from a fellow forum member (you know who you are) have decided to go with the Roco Z21 with 2 DigikeiJs DR5033 boosters.

My plan is to run 2 power districts, one for each of the stations with a main bus wire and then break these down into sub-districts (for the main track, sidings etc - purely for fault finding). I want to then run a third accessory bus to serve the point motors & any future lighting, and plan to use the Z21 main track output for this.

The other reasons for using two boosters is that the track length/bus wire within each district is approx 6-8 meters and therefore the total may be in excess of 10 meters, and I would also assume running a few locos with lights/sound etc all at once will probably exceed 3 amps across the whole layout!

 

I've drawn an incredibly crude sketch of my plan to help visualize...apologies for the quality!

 

Now for the questions!

• Is there any advantage/disadvantage in using the Digikeijs boosters rather than the Z21 boosters?
• What is the best method for powering the accessory bus? Is this from the main track output from the rear of the Z21 box? Ideally I don't want to lost the functionality of point switching from the Z21 app.
• Can anyone see any major flaws with what I'm proposing above?

 

Regards...Jamie

 

 

Bus layout.pdf

[Guest Half-full]

1 hour ago, Jamie Smith said:

Hi all,

 

Hope we are ll having a lovely bank holiday weekend and staying safe.

 

I have a few questions regarding power & bus layouts which I would really appreciate the collective groups input on.

 

Bit of background...

I'm in the process of building an end to end layout, based on the Bluebell railway in East Sussex with both the Sheffield Park & Horsted Keynes stations, and then a small loop running around the perimeter of the board (just for a bit of added interest). I've almost completed the track laying and now moving on with the wiring. For the turnouts (approx 25 odd) I'm using Cobalt digital point motors.

 

Now, I've done lots and lots of research on which control system to use, and with a bit of invaluable & amazing help from a fellow forum member (you know who you are) have decided to go with the Roco Z21 with 2 DigikeiJs DR5033 boosters.

My plan is to run 2 power districts, one for each of the stations with a main bus wire and then break these down into sub-districts (for the main track, sidings etc - purely for fault finding). I want to then run a third accessory bus to serve the point motors & any future lighting, and plan to use the Z21 main track output for this.

The other reasons for using two boosters is that the track length/bus wire within each district is approx 6-8 meters and therefore the total may be in excess of 10 meters, and I would also assume running a few locos with lights/sound etc all at once will probably exceed 3 amps across the whole layout!

 

I've drawn an incredibly crude sketch of my plan to help visualize...apologies for the quality!

 

Now for the questions!

• Is there any advantage/disadvantage in using the Digikeijs boosters rather than the Z21 boosters?
• What is the best method for powering the accessory bus? Is this from the main track output from the rear of the Z21 box? Ideally I don't want to lost the functionality of point switching from the Z21 app.
• Can anyone see any major flaws with what I'm proposing above?

 

Regards...Jamie

 

 

Bus layout.pdf 877.76 kB · 4 downloads

You would be better posting this in the Z21 thread in the DCC Discussion section for more help

[Jamie Smith]

Ok, thx. Will do.

Didn't know there was a specific Z21 thread.