Uksid

Are you overloading the DR5000. It will only drive 3 amps I think off the top of my head. If you have a lot of sound locos the power on surge may overload the DR5000.

I was really pleased with the results I got using a spreader on my n gauge code 55. Like someone else said, you tend to get ballast left on top of the sleepers, but one Charlie (Chadwick Model Railway)’s videos has a great tip about tapping the rails with the bottom of a teaspoon after and all the ballast on the sleepers walks itself off and it looks great.

I use 1 of these with my DR5000 and it works perfectly https://tonystrains.com/product/dcc-specialties-psxx2-circuit-breakers Not sure how easy they are to source in the UK. One runs the track bus and the other runs my DCC Concepts accessory decoders. The great thing about these is that when there is a short it keeps retrying to power back up until the problem is fixed. I had a power up issue with the DCC Concepts decoders and frog power, for a split second on power up it all shorts out, this device worked like a charm and now I don’t need to keep switching things manually.

I used it on my n gauge layout and it worked really well. I managed to get 2 tracks side by side going up it, which you probably couldn’t do if you are in OO. Because it’s a uniform gradient it looks way better than I could have achieved in wood. Before laying track I covered it with masking tape, which was something I saw on YouTube somewhere. That allowed me to ballast the track after it was laid and it will help it to merge into the surrounding scenery when I get around to adding some.

I wish mine ran that well. The pickups on mine don’t seem to stay on the wheels. I bent the out a little, but 2 or 3 times around the layout and they’ve bent themselves back in again.

I have a DS74. I’m not impressed. When I bought it new it wouldn’t throw a Peco Pl10 at all, even one dangling in the air, not attached to a set of points. I’m in the US, so Digitrax had me send it to their Florida HQ for repair. Now it’s back it just manages to throw the points, but it’s only just! I’m using it with a Digitrax 14v PSU the internal CDU switch is on. I won’t be buying any more of these. I managed to get a DCC concepts decoder (a little difficult here in the US) but it is way better than the Digitrax.