Defective New Merchandise

[kvp]

Most electronics are not protected against power being fed back into their outputs. The Tomix unit might be, but i wouldn't try to power it from the outputs. In the best case nothing will happen or the unpowered unit could route power to where it shouldn't go (based on its last state when it got powered off) or just cause a short or in the worst case, the control electronics could burn out.

 

You can use multiple units together, but you must always allocate their own sensors, turnouts and isolated power blocks to them and turn them on and off at the same time. The latter is usually done by plugging all units (including speed controllers) into the same power strip and turning it on and off with the main switch. This is the same what Maerklin, Trix and Piko suggest for european equipment, so this is not specific for Tomix and Kato.

 

If you want to use two controllers but only need one active at a time, then just follow the rules above and switch the unused one into manual mode, but keep it powered up. This should work as long as both controllers control their own districts and there are no shared blocks, sensors or turnouts between them. The trains can cross into the power district of the inactive controller, but they will be running on manual control (setting a fixed direction and speed should be enough as long as manual mode tracks are single direction only).

[keitaro]

just my two cents but

 

As long as the N600 power controller is connected to the Auto unit and all sensors in that unit are on that block and are Insulated to the other block i.e. the second N600 and Auto unit, then there should be no problem. This would mean both N600 would need to be on and controlling only switches etc in that block.

 

The other way i thought was to use a power splitter from the n600 to the second TCS unit.

 

I think you could also try splitting power but then how does the second tcs unit know who is driving the train on that same line.

 

If you look at this layout here http://rtmrw.parallel.jp/layout/rtm-tokai/rtmtokai-4.html pretty neat actually.

 

You can see he used a power unit and auto controller for each line.

 

But each line is pretty simple only a few manual switches were needed for putting away the trains.

 

His yard is crazy.

Edited March 30, 2015 by keitaro

[velotrain]

Someone posted a link to that layout recently as an example of TCS Mode 3, with using jumpers across sensors.

 

What I want to know is if the two layouts are connected to each other (seems unlikely), or if he wants to run the bottom one he removes the top one first - which looks like no mean task?

[velotrain]

OK - I hadn't scrolled down to see the helix, just saw the separate controls on the bottom level.

 

It sure looks like tight access on that lower level - hope he doesn't have many derailments.

[katoftw]

they are connected by the helix in the middle.

 

edit// in before me.

Edited March 30, 2015 by katoftw

[E6系]

So sorry to resurrect this thread, but I had meant to contribute earlier.  I read that you are using Tomix controller.  If it is CL type (constant lighting) please be aware that this feature can cause some models to be noisy.  I find it affects some, but not all.