ok what do you think i should do? for a good electrical path should i A. wire every piece of track on my layout? or B. solder all the rail joints? what do you think?
If you want a simple answer, YES. Your question is too vague to be answered in detail. What size layout are you talking about? What type of track (sectional or flex)? What scale? Are you running DC or DCC? How many mainline tracks? How many sidings?
When I wired the Cochise & Western Model Railroad Club’s 20x40 foot HO scale layout, I soldered a feeder wire at every flex track joint so we could be assured that there would be no voltage drops or command signal losses. At every other joint, the feeder wires were soldered to the rail but not to the rail joiner, to allow for expansion and contraction with changes in the weather.
We used Peco insulfrog turnouts almost exclusively. Never solder track to a turnout. A turnout is the only piece of trackwork with moving parts, and if anything is ever going to break or wear out, it will be at a turnout. Leaving them unsoldered makes replacement much easier. I did solder feeder wires to them, however, near the middle, on the outside of the two outer rails.
I also insulated both rails that diverge from the frog, because Peco turnouts are “power routing” and the frog changes electrical polarity as the points move from one position to the other. With Atlas turnouts, this is not necessary except at a siding that you might want to turn off so you can park locomotives on it.
I prefer to use feeder wires. Less soldering on track, means Less chance of cold joints which eventually won’t carry the current, Less chance of damaging the track, Easier removal to make changes in the future or replace track components.
You don’t necessairly need a feeder to every section, if feeders are placed so that the current can reach an unfed section through the rail from both directions, the chance of a problem is greatly reduced. Also if there is a problem it may be possible to add a feeder later.
Good comments from cacole[:D]
10 x 18 HO scale Code 100 flex, and sectional 1 branch line and 7 yard tracks feed of 1 mainline.
One important thing to remember about yard track is that you have to be able to switch every piece of track off. This is true even with DCC, because you don’t want the board to be powered up but idle for any length of time.
I’ve never been able to determine that this is really an issue, except that each decoder will draw a very small amount of current, reducing the current available to the operating locos.
Any definite references?
[:)]
While not a definitive reference, our local modular club (using Digitrax DCC) is currently contempating a loco yard where locos can be on powered track all the time. Many of the locos have sound, but many decoders (sound or not) can be set to “time-out” lights and sounds after a set period. No need to switch the track off.
As for the original question, again our standards call for feeders every three feet, which works out to one for each piece of 3’ flex track, on average. I know that some advocate soldering two sections together, and feeding at or near the join, leaving only railjoiners (mechanical joints) every 6 feet.
Hope that helps.
Andrew
wiring the track seems the best way to go
Hello “up9899,”
My choice would be to install feeders to each length of HO flextrack. I solder flextrack rail joints for curves before curving the track, to avoid kinks, but in straight track I don’t solder the rail joints. I use the edge of an NMRA gauge to set a slight gap between the rail ends (in the joiner) to allow for expansion. But with feeders to each length of flextrack, you are never depending on rail joiners to conduct current. for turnouts I like to solder feeder to the stock rails, although in a yard ladder I’d solder the turnouts together and use fewer feeders.
Good luck,
Andy
if i may, i would like to add (since you are wiring your layout)…to go with standard wiring (two wires to each track in a block with two insulators on each end of the block) and not use common rail wiring…common rail is great mind you, but if you plan on adding anything electronic to your layout like train detection circuits or twin “t”'s…go with the standard wiring with gaps in both rails…the electronics won’t work if you wire for common rail…Chuck[:D]