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It makes no difference to me, really, which method (open ends or closed loop) to use, and I plan on using the jumpers to the track every so often to increase reliability, but when the other guy asked the question regarding whether or not to close the loop, it made me wonder about the track situation, because isn't that essentially what a continuous loop mainline in DCC would accomplish? All you're doing (if my electrical terminology is right) is making a parallel circuit by closing the bus ends. So long as you DONT connect each bus wire to the other wire (aka, wire 1 and wire 2 together) it seems to me the electrical circuit would be completed through the motor in the loco, and since the signal travels throughout the rails anyway, until it finds the loco it was sent for, it seems to me by closing the bus loop, and thus making an open circuit parallel with the rails, that the signal would in fact travel the shortest distance possible to reach the loco in a closed loop bus. Maybe I'm wrong, but the other topic got so many negative "DO NOT close the bus loop" replies, but no one really had a good (in my opinion) reason why other than "Refer ro so and so's post or website" Not any actual DCC or electrical theory behind how or why it wouldn't be a good idea. That's all I'm asking really, is electrically speaking, why is it not a good idea, or why wouldn't it be a perfectly legit idea? I did see at least one post from a guy who does exactly that, and says he's had absolutely no problems with it. Seems to me it might also reduce the need to have higher amp boosters on large home layouts that only run a few locos at a time, due to the length of the runs of wire, since I know voltage and current drops over so many feet of wire length unless you go to a large gauge wire. Seems to me, you could run an average size DCC wire, in a continuous loop paralleling the mainline, and because the wire is constantly looping back on itself would simply decrease the need to use larger current to run from one end of the layout to the other. Of course, I'm not very knowledgable about the specific electrical theory involved with AC bus work, so I also don't know if closing a loop like that would essentially make a complete (thus short) circuit, and eliminate any power going to the rail. But there again, isn't the rail itself electrified with AC current that is the carrier for the digital DCC signal? And if the rail is a continuous loop, wouldn't that essential create an AC short circuit? So it just doesn't make sense to me why closing the loop of the buswork would be a bad idea. Anybody with electrical and DCC knowledge wanna chime in?
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