I have to say I got one good thing out of Covid year one, and that is during the time when we were admonished to stay home unless "essential" (I am not), I cleared off an L shaped shelf in the garage and set up all the track and cars from the old footlocker that used to only see the light of day at Christmas. I was once an MRH subscriber and collector of all editions of the online mag until a catastrophic electronic event caused me to lose everything. MRH was the cornerstone of my lifestyle as a virtual modeler during the years of moving often.

So, I'm installing a power bus (no data transfer) for Arduino, et. al. and would like to mix both Uno and Nano building lighting and other functions. Uno will accept 3-12 volts (and regulate) while the Nano accepts 6-20 volts (and regulate). Also want to use Trinket which is 3-6 volts. (voltages corrected with an edit to this post)

My question is, can I run a 6 volt bus to power all types of devices, or should I run two separate ones. One 6 volt for the Trinket and a 9 volt for Unos and Nanos? What are the drawbacks to using only one?

I had decided after doing research, trying a couple different decoders and also seeing another modelers equipment on standardizing on SoundTraxx specifically Tsunami 2's. Obvious reason being is that each manufacturer has different features that make mixing consists somewhat challenging as well as the functions mapped, etc..

Hi, could use some advice with wiring a TSU-1100. The decoder came with a 1A Motor Stall Current capacitor, the wiring diagram says “optional”...not sure what that means?

And if needed, the wiring diagram refers to a positive and negative side...I didn’t think capacitors had polarity?

Thanks,

Tom