I am a train newbie and am trying to use a MRC Command 2000 (thought it would be easy way to go, not so far). I have never been happy with the speed of the trains and it has seemed like something was just not working correctly. I decided to grab a voltmeter and check for voltage on the track. Now that I have it, what should it be? My voltage seems to go from around 6.5 volts (max speed) to 15 (min speed). I have no idea if this is correct or not. Any help for this newbie would be appreciated.

Dan

-- Dan Mendlik (dan@dmpcreations.com), October 28, 2001

Answers

You cannot rely on a standard voltmeter to read DCC track voltage. You need a special adapter. Use the following circuit and a standard DC Voltmeter, 20K ohms or more. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NCE-DCC/files/DCCAdapter.GIF DonV

-- Don Vollrath (dvollrath@magnetek.com), October 31, 2001.

The only real accurate method of measuring the complex square wave AC of the DCC signal is with a scope.

-- bill Moede (bmoede@tds.net), February 07, 2002.

The absolute reading of the voltage is not very interesting. The RELATIVE voltage says something. Check it at your booster connections as well. If the voltage sags that much at the booster, you are overloading it. If the voltage at the booster doesn't sag, but the track voltage does, you have too much voltage drop in your wiring. You'll need to poke around and find where the voltage is being dropped and fix it there.

-- George Schreyer (gwschreyer@mac.com), February 09, 2002.