An important series of developments in model railroading have taken place that makes it much easier to enter the hobby and enjoy it right away. DCC is part of that process since it makes it easier to handle the train operation aspects of the hobby. Other improvements have been the ready availability of correctly decorated locomotives and cars, scenery systems such, and, most importantly of all, advanced track systems. Where it once required hours to get your model railroad’s track in proper operating form, the new modular track systems have greatly simplified things. Everything just clicks together.These modular track systems ...
Kato makes a Unitrack double-crossover, their No. 20210: Kato has advised us that this unit has four solenoids in its base, each operating one turnout point set. Connecting the DS51K1 to the red / black wire pair at the base of the track will damage the decoder since the four solenoids of the crossover will draw more than the rated current capacity of the DS51K1. If you are wiring the DS51K1 internally to this track segment, it is easiest to program each turnout pair to the same address; done this way, activating one track switch address will result in the ...
Q: Is it possible to use Digitrax equipment to wire the Kato N-Scale Automatic Track Crossing? If so, how do I do it? A: The answer is a probable "No", but there may be a workaround. The Kato, USA website notes: Some Unitrack components such as the Automatic Crossing Gate and 3-Color Signal were designed with DC operation only. So, the official position is that that these devices don't work in the DCC environment. However, we are not above speculating on how to do this, nor are others. An online web search turned up this bit of message traffic by ...
I have my Kato Switches hooked up to a standard switch panel with toggle momentary switches. Can I hook up the DS51K1 stationary decoder in addition to this wiring? In other words, if hooked up the DS51K1 to the Kato Switch Machine that was already wired to another source to throw the switch, would the momentary power damage the decoder when it is operated by the standard control panel? I would like to operate these switches via DCC and by the control panel. In this situation, it would appear that using a DS64 configured for Kato turnouts (solenoid turnouts) and ...