I have looked at all the Märklin publications and leaflets on how to connect boosters to layouts and am still somewhat confused.

All the explanations are basically connect booster to track, then CS2/3 but isolate boosted areas. Sounds simple, yes?

Well, no actually.

The diagrams that are provided really do not answer all my concerns.

OK, a simple explanation of the layout.

It is our club layout (see photo 1) that has 63 points that are all lit and get power from the track, and of course they take a huge chunk of power leaving us to run a maximum of three locos without any sound functions, or two locos with sound functions (yes, we know where on the CS2 it shows how much power is being used). We are having our Christmas breakup on 12/12 and would like to solve this problem so that all members can run as many trains as we can.

So we have decide to split the layout into three circuits.

Green circuit is one main line, yellow circuit is the second main line (includes the off shoot to a turn around), and grey is the huge yard (have not included all the track work in the yard).



Am I correct that we isolate the three circuits on the tracks shown in the next four photos with the short red lines?









I know that each circuit requires the CS2 and a booster each, with each item having their own dedicated power unit.

We have the (CS2) model booster, 60174, with the corresponding power unit, 60052, and we the (CS3) model booster, 60175, with the corresponding booster, 60041.

I know they are cross compatible, that is, you can use either one on both CS models.

Now the big question (and I have looked at the drawings and explanations of what each connection is at the back of a CS2) where do you connect the boosters to the CS2 please.

I know one booster (60174) goes to the booster connection.

Where can we connect the second booster?

Any help and guidance will be greatly appreciated.

For those that have SCARM, I have also included the file for our club layout. Don't worry about the the missed connections, with the size of the layout, we have a lot of give and take as far as the tracks are connected. And between what's on the designed layout and actually put on the table can have a bit of a variance.

reworkslim06fixup.scarm (269kb) downloaded 36 time(s).

Thank you.

yes you isolation points look correct.

With your proposed scheme, you have each booster being available at almost all points around the layout. Assuming you use multiple feeder wires, this means you need to have separate feeder wires present almost everywhere. You may save wiring if you used separate boosters for different 'regions' of the layout instead of specific tracks. i.e. you could have the three districts for the top middle and lower parts of your track diagram. the manner in which you operate trains will need to be considered. Generally a storage yard just has only a few locos on at any given time.
It may also reduce the number of isolation points needed.

ah yes missed that it is the newer type, you connect them to terminal modules, sorry.
Older ones were daisy chained.

Yes.

The old terminal is 60125. The new funeral-coloured terminal is 60145, technically they should be the same. 60126 is an extension cord for terminals.
See description in the 60174 manual.
Terminals are daisy-chained and the first terminal connects to the "output" port.

The Can bus is a bus: there are two ends that must be terminated.

One booster can be connected directly to the CS2/3.
One terminal allows connecting four boosters. Another terminal can be plugged in at the end of the terminal.
The terminal terminates the bus unless another terminal is plugged into it.