Am i just plain stupid or do you have to soder the track together once you have it setup i its fial position
You don’t HAVE to solder the track,rail joiners will usually do the job. Nut often after a few weeks or months continuity problems will crop up and they may be hard to trace. This is specially true these days if you use DCC. Some guys even go to the trouble of soldering jumper wires between sections,although I haven’t found this to be necessary. A good reason to solder is the fact that the wood in your bench work may expand and contract with humidty which may pull apart unsoldered joints.There are no stupid questions.
First off, there are NO stupid questions. On the subject of soldering track joints. The rail joiners are enough to make contact initially. After a while, the combination of vibration and flexing can cause the joiners to loose contact sporadically. If you intend for the track to stay down permantly, you could solder all track joints, as I do. Some people leave the turnouts unsoldered and simply solder feeder wires to the rails that need power.
[#ditto]
Questions are never stupid, just some of the answers. [(-D]
If your layout is more or less permanent, soldering the track joints is a good idea. You don’t have to do it right away, and may want to wait and see if you are happy with the track arrangement before soldering joints. If your layout is subject to temperature extremes (such as in a garage or shed), it sometimes helps to leave every other joint loose so the track can expand and contract. One of my friends does this and solders his track power feeders to the soldered joints.
METAL RAIL JOINERS pass electricity along to the next piece of track. (Don’t re-use).
SOLDERING insures better track/track electrical continuity, but exposes one to expansion problems, and replacement. ‘SOLDERING’ improves electrical flow -but not mechanical,
BUSS WIRE with FEEDERS offers better power distribution, less expansion & replacement problems, and better long term dependability. BEST for large layouts and DCC.
Nickel silver rail may not tarnish, but is a poorer conductor of electricity than copper or brass.
Good for mechanical alignment, may be unreliable for electrical contact. If not used for electrical contact, they may be re-used.
In places with wide swings of temperature, humidity or both, soldering rail into the equivalent of continuously welded (prototype) rail can give prototype results - rail buckling being one. It will hold the rails in whatever mechanical position they were in when the solder cooled, good or bad. Trying to hold rails together end-to-end without rail joiners is a non-starter - the joints simply don’t have the mechanical strength.
Couldn’t agree more. By powering the rail directly or through jumpers soldered around rail joiners the electricals become bulletproof.
It isn’t necessary to feed EVERY rail directly, but I wouldn’t solder jumpers around more than two joints before adding another feeder. (I use analog DC and short electrical sections. My longest is five lengths of flex track, jumpered at every non-insulated rail joint, fed in the middle.)
Copper wire, especially heavy gauge bus wire, is a far better conductor than any rail. Use it to carry power
Strictly rail joiners over time will lose conductivety. Train movements can do all kinds of things. Solder them or run feeder wires underneath to each track section for solid pwer to the rails.
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Use flux and a quick swipe with the soldering iron. If you are melting ties you are doing it wrong. Find someone to show you how to do it right.