In a roundhouse/turntable situation, you may indeed only have 1 feeder per stall track, but in a yard with longer tracks you may want more than 1 feeder. In that case, you would run a sub-bus connecting all the feeders for that yard track, and then put the toggle between that sub bus and the main bus.
As for rail joiners, yes, they are there more for mechanical alignment than anything. ANd still it pays to not use loosey goosey ones that have been previously used multiple times, since not only is there poor electricla contact, the loose fit also fails to keep the rails as aligned as they should be. A slight variation is generally not going to cause problems except in one case - where one rail projects inside the other. If that happens int he direction of travel, the next rail being inside the previous one can catch wheel flanges and cause derailments - this would be one of those cases where going the opposite direction causes no problems at all, and only when the train goes in the direction where the flange can catch the protruding rail will there be any issue. This is almost always mentioned when mixing rail sizes, such as using a smaller rail for a siding - the top and inside edges have to match, the rest doesn't matter. As long as you have a smooth path along the inside and top, one rail can stick outside the other one by as much as it wants - picture an extreme, Code 55 mated to Code 100. The Code 100 is almost twice as big, but it will be a reliable joint as long as the top and inside match. Sighting along that, there will be almost half the mass of the Code 100 projecting below the bottom of the Code 55, and a good bit of width on the outside. A little goofy looking, but prototypical, and as long as the top and inside edges match, completely reliable.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Carl 425,
I did not mean to imply that I had somehow suspended the laws of physics. By the phrase "full voltage" I meant that there was sufficient voltage at the end of the spur to fully operate the loco.
Regarding voltage drop, the distance from the end of the spur to the nearest pair of feeders is actually about 14' as the current flows. The current travels via 2 power-routing turnouts, a DCC-friendly double slip turnout (2 sets of points), 3 full lengths of flex and 3 short sections of flex. There are 8 pairs of rail joiners en route, none soldered but all treated with No-Ox (joiners between flex sections on curves elsewhere are soldered to avoid kinks). Total voltage drop over the 14' is 0.5 volts.
Dante
P.S. Before I constructed, I tested the rail joiner connection treated with No-Ox to see if the No-Ox somehow interfered with the ability to solder the joint in the future. It did not.
danteNo-Ox
Is that the purple stuff I put on my battery terminals in the boat? I never thought of using it on the railroad.
I have the right to remain silent. By posting here I have given up that right and accept that anything I say can and will be used as evidence to critique me.
No, it's not purple but light amber. It is a conductive anti-oxidizing product that is used in the mrr hobby primarily as a rail treatment to minimize wheel-rail arcing and reduce the need for frequent track cleaning to maintain conductivity. There have been several online threads about such use from which I learned; they persuaded me to try it. In the 30 months of operation I previously mentioned, I have yet been required to do an overall cleaning of the track. After reading about its properties I decided to use it on my rail joiner connections as well as the rail tops although the threads had not specifically suggested that.
Essentially, it is applied in a very thin coat, allowed to sit for 24 hours then "excess" wiped away, leaving an almost invisible coat. It is recommended that one then run each of their motive power over the layout to both better distribute the material and to deposit it on the wheels. I bought a small container in my LHS; a very little bit goes a very long way.
Its active ingredient is apparently one that is used industrially to protect electrical connections subject to corrosive conditions. Perhaps that same ingredient is in the product you use.
I'm looking for advice to placing track feeders for this section of track (it's part of the hidden staging track ladder). This track is one occupancy detection zone. The turnouts are Peco code 100 insulfrog and there is about 1" of track between turnouts.
How many/where would you locate track feeders?
Thanks.
Modeling an HO gauge freelance version of the Union Pacific Oregon Short Line and the Utah Railway around 1957 in a world where Pirates from the Great Salt Lake founded Ogden, UT.
- Photo album of layout construction -
All three legs of every turnout. I have in the past made every rail joiner a terminal joiner for power feed with good results, worked great on two different layouts. If I were doing this, there would be 3 sets of feeders per turnout, even if that is only a tiny straight section between each one - there would still be feeders on both sides of that short straight section. Yes it seems like a lot but it ends up absolutely bulletproof, there is not one single rail joiner that passes power, and even the short sections have feeds from either side. It's not much work, really - I just sit at the bench for an hour and make up joiners with feeders, in an hour I can whack together a good supply of them and just keep a stockpile so as I lay track I can just keep on rolling.
The alternative would be to solder it all together, in which case I would add a feeder at the far left before the first turnout, then one feeder pair between each turnout, and one set of feeders on each diverging route. You may be able to get away with more soldered track because you ahev a climate controlled space for the layout and shouldn't have to worry too much about humidity caused expansion and contraction fo the underlaying support structure.