I finished the benchwork, backdrop, and road- and sub- roadbed for my HO layout. The sub road-bed is 2" pink styrofoam resting on 1x4s every two feet. I even started laying down (not gluing) some of the mainline code 83 ME track. The layout is 12x7 around-the-room.
Now to make things run! Can anyone pls give me advice, lessons learned, and useful (free) wiring resources? DCC looks cool, but I thought to start w/ DC. I have a 120V Atheran transformer. Kindly avoid anything too technical.
Here are my questions:
1. What types of things to get and where? I have electricians' tape, needle nose pliers, wiring strippers, and cutters.
2. What are useful books to get on wiring?
3. How to prepare the foam for the wiring?
4. Anything else to consider?
5. About how many outlets would I need to use?
V/R,
Lee
I started my layout with DC.. My layout takes up most of the 14x26ft area. The plan is a dogbone shaped in the form of the letter "C". I ran two individual tracks in order to have two seperate systems.. I blocked these two so I have an East and West. My third track encircles a farming area at the East end of the layout, and comes around the sawmill area on the West end. This creates the neccesity of a reverse loop on each end. The Farm circle creates one block, The sawmill area creates a western block. Total blocks thus far SIX. I then have five sidings all on individual blocks, and my main yard is yet another block. Now totalling 12 blocks. This is a tri-level layout. So try to visualize track A at 42" elevation, track B about 48" and the top farm and logging loop at about 52 inches. I ran DC trains on this system for many years.
When I added my Digitrax DB100 all I had to do was hook the system into what I already have. I added a DB 200 for a booster pack which controls my sidings and the main yard. NOW if I have a short somewhere in the system, all I have to do is throw all the switches to "off", and then try them one at a time until the DCC system starts to beep.. I then know just which area to begin searching for whatever went astray.
I trust this gives you one persons opinion for what it is worth. I would not consider it necessary to go all out with DCC. I found no difficulty in adding it to my DC system.
Harris Creek Central http://www.freewebs.com/harriscreekcentral/
kasskaboose wrote:The layout is 12x7 around-the-room. 5. About how many outlets would I need to use?
This is all assuming no gaps in the rails. If you start gapping the rails for multiple train operation all of this changes. And as someone else pointed out if you are planning on multi-train operation it would be MUCH easier to just to use DCC from the beginning.
I had a hard time making the decision whether or not to use dcc. At first all of the different topics may scare you away from dcc, but after deciding to use the system it was definately the best choice.
On my own layout I soldered feeder wires every 36 inches and the utilized what they refer to as suitcase connectors to connect the feeders to the track bus. One thing that I did learn through the process of setting up my own wiring is that it is best to solder your wires underneath the track in the area of the railjoiners wherever possible.
Other that that a lot of my dcc experience thus far has been lessons learned from trial and error. You'll find that a lot of areas of this hobby are also trial and error. The bottom line though is to have fun.