Locating NCE UTPs by Mark Gurries.

>Just curious -- when adding a power tap to the command bus, where is it

best to wire it in, farthest distance from the command station or midway along the run?

The command station is able to supply some cab bus power.  Without knowing much about your layout, a logical place to start would be to split the two legs in half. Power one leg with the power supply and the other be powered by the command station.

There is actually a way to figure out how much power you need and where to put it, but it really only a concern on large layouts or if you plan to run lots of ProCab's as in more than 4 at a same time.  Tell me what your throttle count and type will be and hom many will be active at any given time.

As far as where to connect and how, that were those NCE or TTX panels come into play again.  They have a jack on the back that accepts a off the shelf wall adapter and you plug and go!  Just make sure the adapter is powered of the same AC power source the command station is.  It is also important that you follow proper jack in and out organization.

http://www.ncedcc.com/pdf/utp.pdf

download this manual

http://www.ncedcc.com/pdf/utp.pdf

and look at the diagrams.  Page two covers the proper order of the cables.  Another manual with more detail is available from TTX.

http://tonystrainexchange.com/technews/utp.htm

I use the TTX panels myself.

Failure to follow the right order will not allow the wall adapter power to flow in the right direction and off load the command station as you wanted it to.  No damage but no benefit too.

>I will build and install a filter as soon as I can manage it.

No hurry. You may not need it.  Try it out first without the filter.

Again this is only for people with noise issues.  At the same time it cannot hurt to add it anyway.  It’s up to you.

Best Regards,

Mark Gurries

Linear Technology

Power Supply & Battery Charger Applications Engineer/Manager