I have a friend just starting out in HO and he plans to put in an all Kato Unitrack layout and also DCC from the beginning. Is the Unitrack system compatible with a 5 amp DCC setup? The Kato website is a little fishy on this subject, saying a limitation of their Unitrack is 12 volt, 3 amp. Does that mean that it cannot handle anything heavier than that? Anyone with experience with Unitrack and DCC? Thanks for any guidance or input!
Welcome to Trainboard. Kato Unitrack is compatible with all DCC systems. Stay cool and run steam.....
I use DCC on temporary Unitrack layouts and MR did a series recently using it for an 8x4 layout (Black River Junction) with a Digitrax Zephyr. See Feb 2007 for the trackwork section. I find the engines slow down noticeable as they get 6ft or so from the feed points. I've not checked the voltages, but the rail is pretty light I think, there are joints every foot or so, and NS is not a good conductor, so I put it down to just volt drop. This is with just single engines. So I'd say if you tried to pull more than 3 amps you'd probably lose a lot of volts and be going nowhere in a hurry . But just because your DCC is a 5 amp system (mine is) doesn't mean you'll be using that - most HO locos only pull about 0.5 amps most of the time. Whatever, you should use plenty of feeder points as the contact through the joiners won't improve with time.
PSG.... Thanks for the definitive answer re Kato & DCC. I can now cheerfully help my buddy in the direction he wants to go.
I solder a set of feeders on every section of Unitrack. I use three sets of feeders for each turnout and four sets of feeders on crossovers. It's a lot of work, but the results are spectacular. The JJJ&E has been in full operation for over seven years and there haven't been any electrical problems. The voltage is constant over the netire layout. Stay cool and run steam.....
Bob Do you use power routing or is all of your UNI track live? Do you have any switch wiring information? thanks Steve
All the Unitrack is live. There is no need to turn power off on any part of a layout that uses DCC. The wiring of Kato Unitrack turnouts is routine wiring. There is nothing fancy or difficult. All the turnouts on the JJJ&E are wired to stationary decoders. There are some 50 loco's sitting on track on the JJJ&E. When their loco address is called up, they become active. The JJJ&E has about 12 blocks which I use for signaling, block occupancy detection and feedback. Stay cool and run steam.....
I have unitrack and DCC as well on the advice of Bob and am very happy with it. My feeders are about a foot apart and the engines run great. I even run a non DCC engine on it and it has no problems. I would highly recommend it. Alan
Thanks for the information. This is a timley thread as in 5 minutes I'm headding down stairs to tear up track and start the uni layout. Steve
Well the tearup of old bad track did not go to well. The ballested track refuses to be removed so the entire layout will be scrapped. Going to pull it out from the basement tonight and off to the dump it goes. Starting from scratch now. Steve
You'll be very happy with Unitrack. There will be many hours of uninterrupted running of your trains. You won't have any track issues at all. You can easily weather and ballast the Unitrack. http://www.trainboard.com/grapevine/blogs/viewblog.php?userid=3206&entry=55 Stay cool and run steam....
Steve: You just hook up the two wires from the Unitrack turnout to a stationary decoder and two wires (red and black) from the decoder to your common red and black bus lines. That's all there is to wiring a Unitrack turnout for DCC. Stay cool and run steam....
Digitrax also makes a stationary decoder that controls two Unitrack turnouts. Lenz makes an accessory module that can control six Unitrack turnouts. Stay cool and run steam.....
There are several stationary decoders available, but one I find particular interresting for Unitrack is the Digitrax DS51K1. You can actually install it in the roadbed of the turnout.
Do you have a photo of the DS51K1 decoder installed in the roadbed of the turnout? Stay cool and run steam....
Here is a picture of the DS51K1 installed in a turnout. (You can click on these pictures to get a larger view.) It would be a much neater installation if I would ever get around to triming the wires. Here are two pictures with the bottom cover off of the turnout so that you can see where the wires go. The yellow wire is the programming wire and normally is not hooked up, I just have the end of it stuck in the glue to keep it in place. The orange and gray wires go where the Kato connector wires went and the red and black wires connect to two copper pads that pick up current from the rails.