G'day all, Does someone know how much newer Lenz decoders 'dirty trak' feature is usefull for ? For instance, if one doesn't power point rails (painted Atlas Nscale code 55 track turnout) or frog, will this electrical gap be overuled by 'dirty track' or not ? How long is an engine supposed to keep running through 'unpowered track' ? marc
Hi Marc. There are two different issues to the “dirty track” feature. The one is to power the loco when it looses power from the rail. The other is the Lenz “USP”, which allows the decoder to read DCC signals on such sections. “USP” by itself does not overcome dead track sections. From your questions I assume you are interested in the first, which is not just a Lenz feature. All you need is an external power source to keep the decoder, motor and lights powered until power is restored from the track. This is usually accomplished with capacitors and can be successfully used with ZIMO decoders for years. You have to know though where to connect the capacitor to the decoder (there are instruction in the ZIMO decoder manual to give you some idea). How long a loco will run on dead track depends on the current consumption of the loco, the stored energy of the capacitor and the length of the dirty section. Special capacitor circuits increase the storage capacity and that’s why Lenz and ZIMO make special little energy modules available. In N scale however, you are rather limited for space and I can’t see that this could be easily fitted inside an engine (but maybe in the next permanently coupled car). Regards, Art Zimo Agency of North America http://www.mrsonline.net/
Art, Thanks for your detailed reply Capacitors fitting will definitely challenged my poor mecanic skills, so wiring points rails and frogs stay the only option AFAIC Otherwise, I guess FWIW that batteries designed to fit engines frames with radioed DCC signal would be the biggest techny breakthrough in our hobby since 110V AC and would draw crowds to RR modelling Any project in this regard at ZIMO marc
