# Booster question



## mopac (Feb 24, 2011)

I am planning a new layout. Around the walls type with right at 80 feet of walls.
I have over the years purchased most of what I will need. I am going DCC and have
purchased a digitrax super chief set and a booster. This is where my question comes in.
How to best use the booster? The layout will have 2 seperate railroads, both double mains.
Do I power half the room with command station and other half with booster or should I power 1 railroad with the command station and the other railroad with the booster? Or does
it make a difference? I have 1 pm42 and plan on buying another one to break layout into sections. Thanks for any advice.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

The command station feeds the Booster. The Booster feeds busses
that feed the drops from your tracks. Your command station will
control what trains do so you don't have to isolate the 'railroads'
unless you prefer to so that a short on one won't affect the others.

On large layouts, some prefer to set up power blocks, Each is fed
from the buss thru a circuit breaker of some sort.

Though you can have more than one controller, they all must go
through the main and thence to the booster.

Don


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## mopac (Feb 24, 2011)

Thanks for the reply Don. I understand that all the commands go through the command station and fed to booster. But won't I have buss wires from the command station and from the booster to the track? Just different sections. I am going to use the power blocks. Thats what the digitrax pm42 is. I bought a 8 amp command station and a 8 amp booster. Maybe a bit overkill but the 8 amp was only 20 some dollars more than the 5 amp. That other 3 amps will be the cheapest power you can buy. I also bought the bigger ones so they will not work as hard and maybe less heat generated. I have heard that maxing them out will cause alot of heat. Anywho, my idea was to get 4 amps to each of the 4 mainlines.


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## JerryH (Nov 18, 2012)

Yes, each DCS200(SuperChief) or DB200 booster feeds separate bus lines creating power districts of tracks. Power districts are double gapped where they meet and need to be phase checked ( A to A and B to B at the gaps). A PM42 can break a district into sub districts or zones. A chassis ground is common to all but not to any bus lines. The DCS is also a booster but can be configured as a booster only. Only one DCS is used as a DCS on a layout. All others are booster only. In effect, one DCS is sending data to its own internal booster and to all other boosters via the loconet cable. Generally, the placement of the boosters is to reduce the length of the bus runs or even out the load. If you have a congested area with a lot of locos(a large yard), that might be one district and the other district could be the main layout. If the layout is evenly loaded, then place the DCS and the extra booster to minimize the length of the bus runs on each half of the layout. You can use the PM42s between a booster and its buses to separate the RRs so a short on one RR won't effect the other. I would think the 80 ft of length would be the main factor in your electrical scheme planning. I would place each booster with a PM42 at the mid point length wise of each half of the layout. With two 8 amp boosters, you should be able to run up to at least 32 HO locos at the same time.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

Mopac

I don't have Digitrax, but the only way you can control your locos in DCC
is to feed all Boosters by the main controller. The boosters then can
power various districts.

I would think that your Digitrax owner's manual would show you the
correct way to connect your gear.

Don


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## JerryH (Nov 18, 2012)

The Digitrax manuals do show different ways of doing this but they can be confusing because of that variability.


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## golfermd (Apr 19, 2013)

Our club uses power districts exclusively. If my layout is going to get that large I will go that route as well. Less headaches when I trouble shoot (and trouble shoot at the club). Even on smaller layouts it's a good idea to put some isolators around your track so a short in one place won't bring down the whole layout.

Dan


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## mopac (Feb 24, 2011)

The instructions do show how to connect CS and booster just not so much on breaking the power up. I have heard keep buss lines shorter than 30 feet. I might have to put CS and booster across the room from each other. Other wise I will have 40 foot buss lines.
I am going to use 2 pm42s, that will give me 8 sub districts. Does long loconet cables cause problems?


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## JerryH (Nov 18, 2012)

I believe there is an extender for loconet but you are not anywhere close to needing one. If you space the boosters/PM42 in the middle of each half, your longest bus run would be 20 feet. You can T the buses if needed but the PM42 splits the bus runs.


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