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putting power to a electric LGB switch

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#22 ·
The switch motors in the EPL switches are DC motors, so DC is not at all bad for them. When AC is used, the controller uses diodes to essentially turn the AC into DC going one direction or the other depending on which button is pressed. Essentially, you've got two half-wave bridge rectifiers.

With DC, you need to reverse the current via the reversing switch as illustrated above.

When you ask about using the same 18 volts as the track, yes, that's fine. If you're using a commercial throttle, most will have a fixed DC output for lights and accessories and a variable one for power to the trains. If you're using a standalone power supply to feed a variable throttle, you'll want to tap the power off of the power supply before it goes to the variable throttle to supply power to your lights and accessories.

Later,

K
 
#25 ·
Dan Pierce said:
AC through a diode and pure DC are NOT the same!!!!!

AC through a diode gives a 50 percent duty cycle and is approx. 40 percent of the power of pure DC.
Click to expand...

If you HAVE to drive an EPL switch motor using DC, when using a DCC decoder for instance, then make sure the output of the decoder is set for a one second pulse.


If you apply DC for a much longer timde than that there is a good chance you will burn out the EPL drive - depending on the DC voltage and when the drive was manufactured.
Older drives burn out easier than the newer ones.
 
#26 ·
JeffofSpace said:
I thought as per earlier posts in the thread that dc was bad for the epl. Could I run the switches off the same 18v as the track? (I do indeed have an 18v 4amp supply).
Click to expand...
In the EPL guide it does say you can use DC with them (see the second paragraph and the last bullet point), so long as you don't hold the switch down for too long. The switching time is apparently 15ms.

I have always used DC in the past, but to be honest it's pretty easy using AC and diodes are 10 for $1 so there's barely any reason not to seeing as most controllers do have an AC out for powering exactly these kinds of things. IIRC AC fares better over longer lengths, although I'm not sure how much that would come into play at this scale.
 

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