Model Railway Forum

Evening Gents, I am using an NCE Powercab with the basic 1.5 amp power pack, how many locos can I run from this setup?

I am looking at the 5amp booster for the future

Regards G

The scale would help as gauges vary with motor draw, do you what to run sound locos ?. A standard powercab will easily run 4/5 locos at once unless all sound fitted. The size of your layout is also important. If you can control more than 4 locos at one time your doing well

Thanks Brian I am in OO gauge, I do have a couple of sound locos at present, yes

Would you recommend going up to the 5amp booster what would that allow me to run?

My layout is in the loft so about 10x10 I would say

I personally have never needed a booster, my last layout was 30ft x 16ft with a lot of track, and i could run more locos than i felt safe with, you need several pairs of eyes . So if you get to the stage that your drawing too much power add a booster then. Running more than one sound loco at a time defeats the object IMHO.

I run a 5amp Booster plus 4 train (2 each way is doable) there are 60+ Cobalt point motors connected to the DCC Bus and 1- 6 way and 3 - 2 way Frog Juicers (Tam Valley) reversing loop modules, the Ramp meter rarely goes over 2 Amp, the loco's are modern with just Lenz dcc chips fitted, also have 3 controllers working.....when the 5 amp booster is in use, the NCE Power Cab becomes a dummy unit as the dcc firmware is in the Booster, so the power supply for the NCE Power Cab can run a single section of track and just plug the Power cab in to set up a loco, use UPT panel adapter around the layout to move controls about i have 6 and once a train is running unplugging the controller and moving to another UTP does not stop any trains running....hope this helps...

Thanks Tinker all good sound advice from all, needs thinking over but have feeling I will go in that direction, have to discuss with SWMBO for funding options however lol

G

Before you spend any money why don't you monitor how many amps are currently being drawn on the layout by using the PowerCab Track Current display. This way you can see how close you are getting to the maximum output of the basic PowerCab and when you might need to upgrade.

If you haven't seen this functionality press PROG/ESC 6 times and when SHOW TRACK CURRENT appears press 1. Press ESC and the display will then show how much current is being drawn on the top right of the screen. If I remember correctly you will have to set this each time you switch on as I think it loses this setting when you power down.