Model Railway Forum

Hi, i have an old laptop power supply that i was going to use for testing points. Is 20 volt pushing a points motor/coils?? or should it be OK.
Thanks

Should be perfectly ok as long as you only power it for a very short period, 1 second or less.

As Rog (RJ) has stated it should be fine.. Ensure the lever or switch is of the Momentary type - that is they cannot remain On when the lever or switch is released - it returns to the Off position. If a solenoid motors coil has power applied to it for more than a second or so the coil will very quickly burn out rendering the solenoid motor useless. One good reason for using a CDU is that once its discharged it cannot recharge again until all operating levers or switches are in their Off positions. Thereby protecting all motor coils from accidental coil burn out.
You can often feed a CDU with DC voltages up to around 22-24 volts depending on the voltage rating of the CDU capacitor(s).

Thanks guys, this made testing a bit easier.