Just geting back to hobby after 30 years. I am resurrecting an old N-Scale track plan using DCC, which I have never tried before. I have never used a solder iron and there seems to be very little room for error soldering on N-Scale track. Any thoughts on using Atlas Terminal Joiners for power leads instead of soldering? Thanks.
SHould be fine, that's how I powered my last two layouts. THough EVERY joiner was a terminal joiner, unless I needed an insulated joiner.
ANd makign every joiner a terminal joiner will get ridiculously expensive fast if you buy the Atlas ones. Instead, what I did was buy a few packs of regular Atlas joiners, and a spool of appropriate size wire, and spent an hour or so at a time sitting at the workbench soldering the wire to the joiners, making my own terminal joiners. There's no ties to melt, which makes it easy even if you aren't great in the soldering department. And for the price of one pack, which is like 2 pair, of the Atlas ones, you can make up at least 20 pair yourself.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy I have started doing this but am skeptical. Isn't the joiner still subject to weathering and ballast cement degrading the conductivity?
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
That's what they all say, but I had no problems, and I wasn;t particualrly careful when paiting my rail - I didn't want ANY shiny bits to show along the sides so I made sure the paint got in the joiners. ANd I used fresh joiners for all the feeders - I had some I kept aside the got worked loose to use when test fiting things, like when connecting a section, marking it, cutting it, then test fitting it back. The same stack of loose joiners were used during that part of the proicess, the ones with wires soldered to them were all fresh from a new pack when I made them, and got installed on the rails exactly once - when finally assembling it.
I did solder some of the sections together, so any given length of flex had an unsoldered feeder joiner at one end, and a soldered one at the other. Thus no point on the rails was more than 3 feet from a soldered electrical feed.
I also make my own terminal joiners. Half use red wires, and half black, corresponding to my color code for my track bus. I never have any trouble with them.
On my workbench, I use a short section of track to hold the joiners while I'm soldering. Just remember that they will be hot.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I think it is relatively unlikely that significant 'contact impairment' would result from weathering washes or diluted ballast cementing since the spring contact is made at the time of assembly and capillary action into those areas will be minimal compared to the surrounding areas. If this is a concern, I'd use a small amount of typical electrical contact grease ('dielectric' or typical 'contact-enhancing' grease) inside the joiner at assembly -- this would displace or keep out any water-based material (perhaps solvent-based as well) but still allow good unoxidized metal-to-metal spring contact.
If you are soldering lots of these, it may pay to make up a jig out of a refractory material like tile or firebrick, which allows you to hold the joiner or joiners in position and slide the (pre-tinned) wire end up to be adjacent under a volume of appropriate flux. Whether you use 'chips' or the end of a piece of wire for the solder, this will give a good mechanical bond whether against one side or along the bottom, and it is not difficult to set up multiple locations on one tile or brick to do multiple joiners with a torch or, sequentially, with an iron.
The one concern is whether the spring clamping is impaired by the torch heat or stress from the soldered/brazed bond. I never tested for this. I suspect if the joiners are brass, the heat would anneal them; I don't know the characteristics of phosphor bronze under these conditions. Presumably gentle reshaping (flattening) would restore the necessary 'conduction integrity' at assembly time.
I do agree in principle with the idea of soldering these. If that is the plan, fabricate the joiners with relatively high-temperature solder, so the subsequent soldering operation (with low- or very-low-temperature solder with good conductivity) does not make the wire inadvertently come loose. This will also make removal and re-use much easier...
(Obviously, you would not use grease or any other material if you are soldering!)
If you're wondering, soldering is something a model railroader almost is forced to do. It's not difficult. Get yourself a decent small soldering iron. I use a plug-in pencil iron with a stand. Mine has a heat adjustment on it. You will need a small tip for model trains. Those large Weller soldering "guns" are way too big and generate too much heat.
The pre-made Atlas joiners use a very thin wire. I use #22 wires to connect my track to the track bus, which is a lot thicker and sturdier.
Soldering wires to track joiners is a great first-time project for soldering.
I use Kato Unitrack for my HO layout, and have only used terminal rail joiners or terminal tracks and they work fine.
BTW Kato makes a very extensive line of N gauge track products you might want to investigate. Very reliable and very easy to use, especially compared to usual cork roadbed / flex track option.
http://www.katousa.com/N/unitrack.html