07-31-2011, 12:48 PM
Those old rheostat packs won;t work with newer, more efficient motors - the rheostat doesn;t have enough resistence. Crack the throttle and the loco will take off. If you rememebr they used to have 2 product lines - one for HO and one for N. Try an N scale loco on the HO pack and it woudl be uncontrollable. Transistor packs don;t have this problem.
7VA is really not much power at all. It's essentially watts, which is volts time amps. At 12 volts, a 7VA pack can only produce a little over half an amp. Fine for modern locos with decent motors in them. My old MRC Tech II was built like a tank, unfortunately they're long out of production and without some facility to truly test it I am leary of used power packs. ANd even if it works, there's always the condition of the line cord. Generally not too much of a problem with 20-30 year old items, but a really big concern with Lionel transformers. A newer current model would be the Tech 4 series. The Railpower ones are better than train set power packs, but not a whole lot more powerful. The Tech 4's are available with 17 to 20VA depending on the model. That's around 1.5 amps, plenty for even the older locos (although maybe not a dual motor Bowser PRR T-1).
--Randy
7VA is really not much power at all. It's essentially watts, which is volts time amps. At 12 volts, a 7VA pack can only produce a little over half an amp. Fine for modern locos with decent motors in them. My old MRC Tech II was built like a tank, unfortunately they're long out of production and without some facility to truly test it I am leary of used power packs. ANd even if it works, there's always the condition of the line cord. Generally not too much of a problem with 20-30 year old items, but a really big concern with Lionel transformers. A newer current model would be the Tech 4 series. The Railpower ones are better than train set power packs, but not a whole lot more powerful. The Tech 4's are available with 17 to 20VA depending on the model. That's around 1.5 amps, plenty for even the older locos (although maybe not a dual motor Bowser PRR T-1).
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad of the 1950's in HO
Visit my web site to see layout progress and other information:
http://www.readingeastpenn.com
Visit my web site to see layout progress and other information:
http://www.readingeastpenn.com