# A question of power



## Cab1 (Jul 26, 2009)

I've been playing around with DCC for awhile now. I haven't actually put down any permanent track yet, but I will eventually. I have a small area to work with. It will most likely be setup around three walls of a 9 x 12 room consisting, hopefully, of a three main line dog bone with yards on each end. I have a Digitrax Super Empire Builder Xtra with a 5 Amp power supply. It came with the DT402 throttle. I have lots of locos to play with, so the idea is to get as creative as I can with the track layout. I know realistically that I most likely will be restricted to running no more then three locos at the same time - if that. Maybe I can squeeze one or two tankers in the yards as well. My question is how much power will I need to pump onto the tracks? How will I know when it's time to add a booster? Where should I put them?


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## Brakeman Jake (Mar 8, 2009)

You have a powerful system to start with that I believe should be capable to power more than three locos without a sweat.OK,scale will differ in power requirements though.In N scale you should be OK with close to ten locos,and my guess is that 6 HO locos should run on 5 amps if not more.Then,if you have older locos or have sound equipped power,these numbers will go down some.Modern engines don't usually draw much current,but it may vary with models.

Your layout is of what I call a fair dimension so this system should perform well.Pay attention to the quality of your wiring throughout so you don't lose power through sloppy joints or too small wires and it may be that you'll never need any booster.


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## NIMT (Jan 6, 2011)

I second Brakeman Jake's opinion!
5 amps threw proper wiring, #14 mains #18 drops, should do quite well.
Double check that your input transformer is giving you a full 5 amps at min 12 volts, AC or DC, I feed my system 28volts to eliminate any power loss issues from input voltage potential.
I've ran 14 engines on a 20' x 16' with a 8 amp system with no issues.
How you can tell if your over doing the system is either your engines will slow down or the system will actually tell you via the controller screen.


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