I am builing my RR in Florence, SC and am going to use Aristo Craft stainless steel track. With that in mind, I have 2 questions.
1. Since SS track is less conductive than brass, how far apart should track power connections be?
2. Is there any reason why I should not use 12GA landscaping wire (the wire used for low voltage lighting) to power the railroad? I selected 12 GA because it should be able to carry plenty of amps with minimal voltage drop.
Please help me out.
Rich (FlorenceRR)
Great choice. I put mine down seven years ago. At that time there were lots of worries about conductivity over long distances. So I did a test. I have 300 ft of track in each of two loops, I measured voltages from the power source on the track to the point the greatest distance from the source. AT the source I had 18.3 volts, and at the distant point I had 17.9. There was no change in speed of an Aristo Mikado all the way around. The most important point is I had no jumper connections between the source and anywhere on the loop. Just a single connection. I now have both loops wired with a single power connection.
That's my experience,
Paul
FlorenceRR 1. Since SS track is less conductive than brass, how far apart should track power connections be? 2. Is there any reason why I should not use 12GA landscaping wire (the wire used for low voltage lighting) to power the railroad?
2. Is there any reason why I should not use 12GA landscaping wire (the wire used for low voltage lighting) to power the railroad?
At the risk of sounding obnoxious I add the following. Yes, SS is less conductive than brass. Something in the order of a mili volt per mile. Unless you are planning on driving your train across state lines, you should have absolutely no problem with the voltage loss.
Landscape light wiring is very commonly used for GRR's. If you take the time to make secure track connections between the rails (both mechanically and electrically) I would say you will not need to have feeder wires any closer than every 300 feet of rail. That means the engine pickups will never be more than 150 feet from the nearest power feed.
The key to successful operations is good rail connections and alignment.
Tom Trigg
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