I was thinking about this for a few days. I’ve been laying new track. I guess my layout is considered small to medium. It’s an L shape 5.5’x12x18x5.5’. A dual main. I am replacing track on my turn-arounds, I disconnected my feeders on both mains. 4 in all. And to check my curves are smooth I have been running an engine and my power has not been affected by not having feeders connected in the repair ares. It has just made me wander about the importance of feeders. I plan on reconnecting the feeders. But I think of the time that some people waste connecting almost every piece of track with feeders.
While I don’t use feeders or blocks on my small 1’ x 10’ and less switching layouts I do agree with Rich drop feeders every 6-9 foot. As far as turnout/switches wiring I recommend as needed…
The reason being the less wires the less chance of problems-let KISS rule.
Wow Rich! The size of you layout sounds so interesting to me. When I see dimensions like that, my eyes widen to a point and my first reaction is that I would love to see it.
I do have feeders every 6 ft. Please don’t get me wrong, feeders are extremely important. I just can’t help always remembering the one guy from MR, I think Andy something, who had a video of his work in progress layout saying that he powers every piece of track because he doesn’t just joiners.
Joe, it started out small, then grew, too much, too soon, too many locos. Initially, I had a 12’ x 8’ layout, then added a bridge to a 12’ x 6’ extension, then an 18’ x 3’ extension, and, finally, a 12’x 6’ extension. It is fully sceniced and ballasted, and most of the track work is now nearly bullet proof, but it took me the better part of 7 years to catch up. Over the past 3 years, I have sold off a bunch of unnecessary locos and rolling stock. I am finally getting to manageable proportions.
I do not place a feeder onto every track but i do at each side of every turnout. I measured the resistance through my Peco code 83 insul frogs and if i recall coorectly it was about 5 ohms. Code 100’s are a little less. In addition if the points get dirty the resistance can get higher.
The other and perhaps more important concern is how the short circuit protection will react. You do not want 4 amps continuously runing through some circuit not meant to carry that load.
If you solder most joints, as many of us have accepted is a wise practice, you can get away with fewer feeders. FewER.
On my last layout, I had 14 gauge T-shaped bus with the arms of the T going about 10’ in each direction. Off each of those came maybe eight pairs of feeders, but going to the track system which was in the configuration of a folded loop comprising about 50’ of main tracks. I kept the distance between feeders to about 6’, but I only fed my remote staging yard with a single set of non-soldered joiners. I had decent, but not great signal to the far reaches of that yard, which was on a shelf about five feet away from the layout. Sometimes a quarter test worked, sometimes it did not.
And that’s how you know if you have enough voltage to any given stretch of track…the quarter test or equivalent.
I ran a 16 x 24 layout with just two feeders and it will work. This is what it is, we all manage to expand beyond what the origeal is so for every piece of track,every Loco or lighted passenger car and on to signals we add there will be a slight power loss. And will ad up over time.
That is why we spend the extra time now before rail paint, ballast and ground cover is in the way. It is a pay me now or pay me later thing . Lot easier done on a plywood empire.
Since the OP has already promised that he will re-connect his feeders, this lecture is not for him.
Yes, it works now with all new rail joiners and freshly-laid track. But, 6 months, a year, maybe 4 or 5 years down the line, there will be problems. Engines will stall on turnouts. Whole sections will go dead. Relying on turnout points making contact with stock rails to provide electrical continuity will become more and more tenuous.
A long time ago, there was a movie called “A Thousand Clowns,” starring Jason Robards, Jr. Among other things, our hero went to junk shops and yard sales and bought statues and wall hangings of eagles. “You can never have too many eagles,” he would say.
I think it was Allan Gartner who said " Everything must be soldered to something" Meaning if a piece of track doesn’t have a feeder, it should be soldered to one that does. I thought this was a good idea and followed it with my current layout and I have never had an electrical issue.
Eventually, a loose rail joiner will fail to reliably carry power to the next sextion. Despite the relatively light weight of model trains, they do cause the joiners to move slightly every time a train runs over the joint. It might not be today, or next week, but eventually there will be power problems.
On my previous layout, which was a 8x12 donut, as soon as I completeted the main line I was able to run trains around with no problems - and the only power conenction was one feeder conneced right to my Zephyr. No slowdowns, no flickering lights - and I do not solder all my joints. Sure it worked - but for how long would it have worked? I went ahead and installed the bus and multiple feeders as planned.
One thing where feeders help - each of my turnouts has feeders on all 3 legs (they’re Atlas, so no insulated joiners needed on the frog end). As such, even my smallest loco doesn’t so much as flicker the headlight when crawling over one, even after I painted the rail.
As the last half-dozen comments have indicated in one way or another, more feeders is alwasy a good thing for lots of reasons. If you want any specific piece of track to be electrically reliable, it must be soldered to a feed. Anything else will eventually make you regret the brief time and cost in materials you thought you saved by skipping applying them.
Rich, I am just about to start fixing ballast to the roadbed and wondered if you still have the proper ratios of soap to water as a wetting agent and the ratio for white glue to water that will hold the ballast in place???
Feeders are also for clarity of signal. Just imagine your prize loco derails, shorts, and the booster doesn’t dhut down. What do you get? Melted axles and welded wheels. Best to follow best practice guys. Shortcuts lead to more money spent. David B
25’x42’ (Rich)… really?[:(]… I am SO jealous![8o|]… Right on! I’m in a 12x20 room, which sounds great, but my RR only gets about half of it around the walls…
Now, would somebody PLEASE explain this “quarter test”? I haven’t come across that one yet in all my reading! Thanks!
Easy. Set a quarter across the rails at various spots around the layout (especially at the locations electrically furthest from the power source). At all points, this should cause the circuit breaker to trip. You do NOT press on the quater. Just lay it across the rails.
If at any point this does NOT trip the breaker, you have insufficent wiring, either not enough feeders or the bus wires are too small for the distance they extend.
I was going to make the same observation that Randy mentioned above since much of my trackwork is going on eighteen years now there WILL be a weak link somewhere and age, expansion and contraction or oxidation will rear its ugly head at the most inconvenient times. Feeders provide redundancy so that ALL of the current doesn’t try to squeeze through a too small path. The elephant through the eye of a needle…
Another situation that I sometimes run across on my layout is that I’ll happen to have perhaps eight, maybe ten sound locos and as many lighted passenger cars, many of those with capacitors begging to be recharged—and all of this current draw is pushing your ampacity to its limits—if I have even a breif short in that particular power district (like I run through a turnout I forget to realign!) Thats where feeders and solder are your best defense!