Is it safe to say that the more power feeds to the track from the main power bus is a good idea, especially when running short wheel base locomotives? Should I focus those power feed wires around turnouts to prevent stalling?
I'd rather not get into powering frogs if I can at all avoid it. That would involve a major rebuild as all my turnouts are atlas with no method to power the frogs.
Even, consistent power is your best bet.
My O scale layout has power feeds every 4 feet, while my brother and I use feeds every 2 feet on our 4x8 N scale layout. All sidings and passing tracks on either layout have their own feeds. We use 14 gauge for the bus and solid 18gauge for the feeders, and all joints are soldered and shrink tubed.
Enjoy!
The key factor is what carries power to each section of rail connected by joiners. If you have a power feed, then 3 or 4 sections of sectional track before the next feeder, then yes, you may have problems, because all the intermediate sections of track get power through the rail joiners, which get loose and lose connectivity over time.
You don;t alway sneed more feeders, but you need more reliable power. Unless your layotu is in a climate controlled room where the temperature and humidity don't vary much through the year, I wouldn;t recommend solderign EVERY rail joiner, but you cn solder groups of track sectiosn then leave an unsoldered joint, then solder a few, and leave an unsoldered one, etc. Makre sure each group of sodlered together track has at least one feeder, so that at mo point are the rail joiners required to do anythign other then keep the track lined up.
Which Atlas turnouts do you have? Custom-Line turnouts do have a way to pwoer the frog, fairly easily. Snap-Track ones do not. I did add wires to pwoer my frogs, but I haven't hooked a single one up, they just hang under the layout for now. My smallest loco is a Bachmann 44-tonner, and even that can creep over the unpowered frogs without stalling. But it does pick up with all 8 wheels. If you have somethign shorter, like an 0-4-0 steam loco, if it has a tender you might find it helpful to add additional power pickups to the tender trucks to extend the 'power wheelbase' so that it can get over the frogs easily. Clean wheels, clean pickups, and clean track are a must for small locos. Usually the insulated section on the frog is smaller than the loco wheelbase, but if one wheel is alittle dirty, and that happens to be the wheel that's on rail and not the frog, then the loco will stall.
Don't use abrasives to clean your track, unless you really like cleaning track. Once the rail is scratched up, it becomes a dirt collector and needs constant cleaning. Same with loco wheels. The old AThearn sintered metal wheels are particularly good at collecting dirt, ebcause they are rough. Most newer locos have plated or turned wheels and are smooth finished, and NWSL has repalcements for the old Athearns. Downside is slightly reduced pulling power, upside is greatly improved electrical pickup. I'm not a fan of anythign that can scratch up the wheels when cleaning - I dont use tools liek the Kadee wheel cleaner, while theoretically the soft brass of the brush should not scratch a harder metal like nickel silver, I prefer the basic alcohol and paper towl laid over the track method of cleanign my loco wheels. Car wheels need to be kept clean to, for metal wheels, at least on my cars equipped with resistor wheelsets for signaling, I use the nylon brush on my Dremel - NOT the wire brush, again, scratch up the smooth surface and it become a dirt collector and spreader.
Quickest way to become bored with model rialroading is having to constantly push the trains to keep them moving. Start clean and stay clean and you shouldn't have this problem. The smaller locos often ahve the most appeal, just be awae that the smaller and lighter a loco is, the more crticial it is to keep everythign clean for reliable operation.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
warhammerdriverIs it safe to say that the more power feeds to the track from the main power bus is a good idea, especially when running short wheel base locomotives? Should I focus those power feed wires around turnouts to prevent stalling?
That would involve a major rebuild as all my turnouts are atlas with no method to power the frogs.
I use one set of feeds in each 8 foot section.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
If your rails meter out well at many random points, and if your locomotives don't stall at random points along clear, non-turnout, track, your feeders are probably fine in both number/frequency/spacing and location. If your smallest wheelbase loco is stalling, it could be several problems. It might be that it can't bridge dead lengths of rails, say at an unpowered "DCC-friendly" frog, or its own internal and external power continuity are iffy (dirty wipers, tires, bad solders...), or simply that your tracks need cleaning or leveling. If rail height disparities across them, transversely, or undulations along them, cause the locomotive's wheels to lift there and there, the continuity suffers, and the item will stop dead, and do the restart shuffle until it gets to clean track again....or level track.
More feeders isn't necessarily better, and could be a waste of time and resources, not to mention the odd wire-crossing error probablity that we humans manage to impose on ourselves. That is why I say that you should meter around your layout, and meter at the known high-stall trouble spots.
Crandell
Electrically, more feeds off a buss per unit rail length are always better. But, as noted, when is the hassle, cost and extra effort worth it? In most every instance, a feed to the track off the buss in the middle of each section of 3' flex track is plenty fine and low on both hassle and cost. (you'll never be more than 18" from a live, hot feed to the rails.) It seems battle is regularly done here on how often to apply a live buss feeder to the rails. Electrically, you can never, ever, under any circustance, have too many live feeders. One fresh feed per inch is just fine, but you would be the laughing stock of most MRs, but guarantee you would never stall unless you ran over a piece of notebook paper. Save yourself embarrassment, money, and work by spacing out your feeds to 36", at least.
Switches are indeed special and are electrically "tuned" to the type switch you have or choose and the smallest useful pickup wheel set you have. Most frog issues are solved by seeing to it that all wheels are wiped by contacts on any engine and tender or all diesel trucks. Few manufacturers do this. Thus only a tiny 0-4-0T need ever trouble you. As for me, I am a belt and suspenders guy and power every rail of my switches individually off the buss. Never had an engine burp on any switch.
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
More feeds will almost always be better, but they aren't going to solve dead-frog issues with short wheelbase engines. A dead frog is a dead frog, regardless of the number of feeders you have.
What kind of turnouts are they? Do they have metal or plastic frogs? Powering frogs, even after you've installed and ballasted the track, isn't all that impossible. All you need is a single wire soldered to the frog. For the retrofits I've done, I put the wire on the back side of the frog, facing the wall, so it's not visible to the viewer. Then, you need a way to control the power. I've used Tortoises on the ones I've done, but you could use latching relays wired in parallel with Atlas machines or the Tam Valley Frog Juicer as alternatives.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
warhammerdriver Is it safe to say that the more power feeds to the track from the main power bus is a good idea, especially when running short wheel base locomotives? Should I focus those power feed wires around turnouts to prevent stalling? I'd rather not get into powering frogs if I can at all avoid it. That would involve a major rebuild as all my turnouts are atlas with no method to power the frogs.
The more power feeds the better, but that is true for providing consistent power throughout the layout, not necessarily to provide more even more power distribution for short wheel base locomotives.
It is my practice to place power feeds on each end of every turnout track. Otherwise, there may be interruptions in continuous power across the turnouts.
Short wheel base locomotives and dead frogs do not work together well and can present problems, especially if running those short wheel base locomotives at slow speeds. The only practical solution is to power the frogs.
Rich
Alton Junction
I just completed wiring a large addition to my RR and I ran feeders every 6 feet and soldered the rail joiners - haven't had any issues at all. I use Shinohara turnouts and I powered every frog - this has eliminated all the stalling I was getting in older sections of the layout so I will go back and add feeders in those sections. The thing about turnouts is that if the frogs are not powered, you are relying on a very small piece of metal to provide power and if the points get out of whack or the small metal piece gets bent somehow, then power can be interrupted. I speak from experience. I don't know much about the Atlas product and maybe there isn't a way to do it - but it certainly solved issues with me.
There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.....
richhotrain Short wheel base locomotives and dead frogs do not work together well and can present problems, especially if running those short wheel base locomotives at slow speeds. The only practical solution is to power the frogs. Rich
Apologies to the OP if I appear to hijack the thread, but I have a question along these lines. What do you do for yard ladders? I've heard that some do not solder the turnouts together in case they need to replace one at some point. On my current yard, I did not solder my N scale Peco c55 turnouts, and I do sometimes get a stall. Maybe I shouldn't have relied on the rail joiner to conduct the power. So what are your opinions, solder the turnouts together or add feeders to each rail of each turnout?
Thanks,
Scott
sschnabl Apologies to the OP if I appear to hijack the thread, but I have a question along these lines. What do you do for yard ladders? I've heard that some do not solder the turnouts together in case they need to replace one at some point. On my current yard, I did not solder my N scale Peco c55 turnouts, and I do sometimes get a stall. Maybe I shouldn't have relied on the rail joiner to conduct the power. So what are your opinions, solder the turnouts together or add feeders to each rail of each turnout? Thanks, Scott
Generally the consensus seems to be "feeders to each leg of the turnout".
-Dan
Builder of Bowser steam! Railimages Site
sschnabl Apologies to the OP if I appear to hijack the thread, but I have a question along these lines. What do you do for yard ladders? I've heard that some do not solder the turnouts together in case they need to replace one at some point. On my current yard, I did not solder my N scale Peco c55 turnouts, and I do sometimes get a stall. Maybe I shouldn't have relied on the rail joiner to conduct the power. So what are your opinions, solder the turnouts together or add feeders to each rail of each turnout?
Scott,
There are a couple of reasons for stalls on these switches. All Peco code 55 N scale switches are electrofrogs. They are also power routing. Adding feeders to the stock rails is a good idea (I do) but power is still transmitted to the points and frog by contact between the points and the stock rails. Then it needs to pass through the rail joiner hinges to the points. I solder a small flexible jumper wire from the point rais to the frog on all of mine. I even do it on a few insulfrog code 80's. The jumper will assure power from the points to the frog.
You will still have to deal with contact from the stock rails to the points. Good housekeeping of the rail/point contact area is essential. The only other way to assure constant power is to add a SPDT switch to pass power from the stock rails to the frog. I've got a few being powered by the extra contacts on tortoise switch motors. Never a stall on these. Most of mine are manual using Peco's over center spring to hold the points. These I just have to clean on a regular basis to avoid stalls.
All of my sidings are insulated at the frog. I add feeders to each siding and do not depend on the power routing feature of the switches.
Martin Myers