Safety

Electricity can kill. Far too often news broadcasts show home accidents or fires, caused by poor electric devices or installations. For this reason, the electricity at 'Marche-en-Bières' is installed as safe as possible.

Wire size and fuses

The wire sizes were derived from the AREI, Belgian standards for electric safety.

• Up to 16A: 2,5mm gauge (power towards speed control amplifiers, ...)
• Up to 10A: 1,5mm gauge (low voltage mains supplies, providing current for scenery groups, ...)
• Up to 5A: 0,75mm gauge (track sections, derivations of mains, ...)
• Up to 1A: 0,20mm gauge (for signaling and low-consumption devices, ...)

Protection of higher voltages

All wires, transporting voltage above 20VDC or 50VAC are shielded, so no accidental touching is possible. The minimal gauche for these is 0.75mm, to resist mechanical damaging.

Protecting the mains switch on the control panel

This heavy power central can't be simply connected to the mains voltage: because of the large current it draws when being switched on, it could cause contacts to get burned and even the mains fuse to be destroyed. I therefore chose a large relay, controlled by a switch on the main control panel.

Protecting the main fuse of the layout

Some extra electronics was provided, as seen in the schematic, to let the current rise slowly and protect the mains fuse. On starting up the power supply, the large current drawn by the transformers and the capacitors is minimized by two large power resistors. After a short while, these are bridged by a triac, allowing full current to flow to the power central.