I am wiring my layout. I ran feeders off of every section of flex track. The wires go to 2 barrier strips. One will be powered by the black wire and one powered by the red wire. The barrier strip is in a central location on the “North “side of a 15’ layout. (Sort of a half of a dog bone type.). I will position another pair of barrier strips at the “South” end in a central location. With the fear of confusing me even more about wiring DCC; does anyone see a problem with this method? I am an ex-DC user and I am taking the plunge into the DCC world.
As long as you keep the polarity to the rails right as you go around the layout, there should be no problem at all with this approach. Running one set of feeders to a barrier strip and then splitting off from there is what I have done many times for both DC and DCC power.
Thanks for the quick feed back. Red is on the outisde rails and Black on the inside. I double check twice to make sure I made an error. soo looks like I am good to go. Thanks again!
Sounds like you have a good plan. Best thing about those terminal strips is it's easy to fix if a wire is crossed. But that never happens, right?
Bringing all of your rail power drops out to a terminal strip is one of the smartest moves you can make. Now all you have to do is mark the terminals so you know exactly where each feeder connects to the rail.
Some time in the future, when you decide to make some minor (or major) change to your track plan, you can disconnect only those feeders that power the track being modified. That way, you can continue to operate on the rest of your empire while the new work is in progress.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with lots of terminal strips)
What a shot to the cnfidence level you all have been. Thanks again to all!
WyeMe The barrier strip is in a central location on the “North “side of a 15’ layout. (Sort of a half of a dog bone type.). I will position another pair of barrier strips at the “South” end in a central location.
Um, I hate to burst your bubble, but the whole point of a "buss and feeder" setup is to have heavier wire (the buss) carry the current for longer distances to prevent voltage drop, with short, smaller-gauge feeders going the last few inches from the buss to the rails to make the connections easier and less visible.
You can use those short, smaller-gauge feeders because the added resistance is limited by the fact that they're short. For example, mine absolutely never exceed 12 inches, and most are in the 6 to 9 inch range.
If you're running those smaller-gauge feeders to one or two central points, they should be sized appropriately if you want to avoid excessive voltage drop. You'd probably be better served to just run a heavier buss around the layout and drop short, smaller-gauge feeders as necessary.
For more info, see Allan Gartner's "Wiring for DCC" Web site:
http://www.wiringfordcc.com/wirefordcc_toc.htm
Specifically:
http://www.wiringfordcc.com/track_2.htm#a14
http://www.wiringfordcc.com/track_2.htm#a26
http://www.wiringfordcc.com/track_2.htm#a40
HTH, Steve