Accessory Power

[Ethanville]

After 2 years of gathering 20 pieces of lighting equipment, Street lights,Beacons,Houses,Traffic Signals etc and snaking the wiring,I hooked up all the items and connected the leads to a Bachman controller, [AC side] and the system lights up for a second then fades out, after a short time period the same thing repeats.[ Thermal overload ? ]-Do I need a heavy duty transformer,if so, what is recommended ?

[Jim Banner]

Twenty pieces of lighting equipment could be drawing as much as 2 amps, depending on the number and size of the bulbs.  It does indeed sound like you are overloading your power supply.  All model railroad supplies have some kind of internal protection, usually a self resetting circuit breaker which will turn the lamps on and off repeatedly, or a thermistor which will dim the lights and reduce their current when it overheats due to excessive current.  It sounds like your supply is of the latter type.

What you can do is either acquire a larger power supply or a second power supply.  If you decide on a second supply, you will need to disconnect about half the bulbs from the first supply and connect them to the second one.  Do not connect the two supplies to all the bulbs wired together as they are now.  This would likely work.  I say likely because without knowing how much current your power supply can produce and how much current your lights draw, I cannot say for certain.

If you want to save a few bucks, use a "wall wart" power supply rated 12 to 16 volts volts at 1 amp.  These supplies that look like a fat plug on the end of a cord can often be bought used at thrift stores for a dollar or two.  You might even have a suitable one around the house, left over from a printer or laptop computer or??  The output can be ac or dc - bulbs do not care which.

Jim