The Aristo-Craft/CREST Train Engineer Track Receiver is designed to function within a great level of amperage and voltage. Larger G Gauge locomotives with multiple motors and multiple lash ups of locomotives with long and heavy trains can require up to 10 amps of DC power on a continuous basis. The Train Engineer Track Receiver (track receiver) is capable of handling these demands. The track receiver is also at home with the relatively low amperage and voltage demands of the locomotives and trains of the smaller gages including O, HO and N scales.
The track receiver is placed in the wiring between your power source and the track so it can interrupt the power to the track. It controls the speed of the train by varying the power to the track in response to commands it receives from the transmitter. It will maintain the last command that it received from the transmitter until it receives a new command.
The receiver can be switched between a linear and Pulse Width Control (PWC) mode. The linear mode gives a traditional type of control that is equivalent to the power used in most model train DC power packs. Power to the track is increased or decreased by the track receiver in response to commands sent by the transmitter. PWC system uses a more modern way to control the speed of the train. With PWC, voltage and amperage are separated. With the first command of the transmitter, voltage to the track is constant. The receiver varies the amperage to the tracks in response to commands from the transmitter. Since accessories including lights and sound systems only need voltage to operate, they can remain constant. Since motors need amperage to work, locomotives run in response to increases and decreases of amperage in the rails. A key advantage of this system is that far less motor heat occurs. Aristo-Craft designed its PWC system to be free of the acoustical motor noise that often occurs with similar systems. PWC is free of AC current that can harm DC motors. PWC should not be confused with Pulse Power added to some manufacturer's power packs to improve momentum speeds.
The receiver communicates with the transmitter on ten track channels on ten different radio frequencies. This allows multiple receivers to operate at the same time. The receiver is assigned the track code/frequency combination by the transmitter during the transmitter/receiver linking process. The communication link between the receiver and transmitter sets the code without the use of dip-switches. There is also no crystals used by the receiver. Instead there is a digital chip that electronically seeks and locks to the channel and frequency of the transmitter.
