new layout

[TONOFFUN80]

my grampa pased away in july and i have inherited his layout.
its about 8x8 with a 4 foot leg. i was wondering if a mrc prodigy advanced would run that without a booster. it has two main lines and a secondary line with a six line yard, i'll get piucs befor i dismantel top move it.

[gc53dfgc]

my grampa pased away in july and i have inherited his layout.
its about 8x8 with a 4 foot leg. i was wondering if a mrc prodigy advanced would run that without a booster. it has two main lines and a secondary line with a six line yard, i'll get piucs befor i dismantel top move it.

I don't know how many amps it has but yes it will be able to power the whole layout. The track is not the thing that uses power it is the loco's that use it and the amount of amps determines how many trains can run at once. Boosters are only used so that more trains can be run and in some cases for realy large layouts where the power is a problem. this is asuming you have DCC trains to run on it.

[MattyVoodoo]

That is what I find is the biggest confusion to most people about DCC, and gc53dfgc is right, it's the locomotives and accessories that draw the power, as long as you have feeders to longer reaches (if needed) then your track should be fine, but a 8X8 should be fine with minimal connections. It's the amount of loco's you can run at one time that is the draw on your amps.

[TONOFFUN80]

Thanx guys i will be moving this so rewiring is in the works anyways.So as long as i run wires to the far track sections i should be fine.

Next question the track is dc right now so its sectioned can i leave this in and just wire all sections or should i make one continues track

[TONOFFUN80]

gc53 the prodigy is listed as 3.5 amp system

[MattyVoodoo]

Yep, leave the sections as they are and if they are switched controlled leave those on, and you'll be fine. You won't need to many feeders to the far end, the distance isn't that far, so I wouldn't be overly concerned. Most conversions from home size HO layouts really don't need much wiring changes to convert from DC to DCC, most of the time you can just hook them right up and unless you have reversing loops or wye's, there's no changes at all!

[TONOFFUN80]

there is one y on the shorter main line. there are switches on the line but you can switch between to controls and i was going to rewire anyway as some of the track leads are falling off the track.