Sorry if this has been asked before, but my question is this, when running the track bus, do you/should you solder the ends of the track bus together to make one continuous loop of wire around the layout?
Miscellanous stuff about the layout: 10’x13’ in a continuous loop, 20 AWG feeders every 3’, 14AWG track bus, Digitrax Zephyr system.
Simple answer is no, let the track and locomotive interface create, or close, the loop.
My bus is open, with feeders every so often. Trains work just fine.
No, do NOT connect the two ends together, either where the two wires meet the other two coming the other way or the two separate wires.
Excellent! Thanks for the advice.
Joe Fugate has a nice thread about DCC where this is addresses (at least partially).
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?page=1&TOPIC_ID=36389
-Tom
I don’t understand why you would not want to close the loop to let the electricity always run the path of least resistance. I currently only have one power zone, but my bus loop is closed and I have not experienced any problems.
For all practical purposes, DCC is a digital signal, superimposed on an analog signal. Although it shouldn’t cause problems for small loops, large loops can lead to ringing in the digital part of the signal and cause intermittent communication problems. Very difficult to debug. Same can be said for very long bug lines.
-Tom
Anything and everything you ever wanted (or needed) to know about wiring for DCC can be found at