Silver circuit board pen on rail joiners ?

[jwar]

A friend a I make a day of it visiting various LHS down in Sacramento and Roseville, it's always lot of chuckles, new wanta havs, and new things. Trolling through Frys electrical store I noticed somthing I have never noticed before in the sodering dept. It appears to be a pencil for makeing soder line connections on curcuit boards. Wondering if this would work on un-sodered rail joiners at turnouts to make better electrical connections. I know a lot of you guys are pretty savey about things like this, It's around $16.00. Almost tried it but was saving my meager funds for a few decoders.....John

[selector]

Dunno, but my instincts tell me you got a good deal.

[larak]

That's an interesting idea John. 

I used to use conductive silver paint on PC boards many moons ago. It actually worked fairly well. I am not sure how this new stuff would hold up to movement as the rails or layout expand and contract, but I do think that it's worth a try for those joints that you wouldn't solder anyway.

I just run extra feeders directly to the turnouts. If you try the pen, please let us know how it holds up over time. 

Karl

 

[loathar]

I think the conductive paint would be better for the track. It's made to take a higher voltage. The pen for the circuit  boards is made for lower current. (if it's like the ones I've used) 

[Sperandeo]

Hi John,

The pen might work for a while, but it won't be as good as soldering. On a circuit board the pen lays down a trace on a one-piece, relatively rigid substrate where everything expands and contracts together with temperature changes. With a rail joint you're dealing with three separate pieces of metal and all kinds of potential for movement. A tiny bit of rail creep will break your pen trace and so its connection. A well-soldered rail joint will be a much more permanent connection.

Good luck,

Andy

[reklein]

solder's an H of a lot cheaper than $16. Save the $ for decoders.However I hear there's a cool way to make street lights using a wire inside a tube and conducting paint on the outside.

[tomikawaTT]

If you're up to painting figures, you could put a LED 'lantern' in a yard worker's hand and power it with two conductive stripes under the painted-on clothing.  Lots easier than trying to hide a pair of wires inside an HO scale sleeve.

Some experimentation might be in order to determine if there will be any compatibility issues between the materials in the figure, paint and conductive pen.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)