Powerful DCC ?

[darth9x9]

QUOTE: Originally posted by johncolley

For the absolute minimum voltage drop make your power bus wires 12 ga stranded and use 20 ga. drops from every piece of flex track. Connect with "suitcase connectors."
If you use 2 colors for your bus wires and the same colors from your drops you will do fine.

I absolutely agree. It is easier to push electrons through wire than through track. This means track is more resistive to current. That is why it is always recommended to have a track bus (pair of wrires) follow the track under the layout with feeders that come up to the rail every 3 feet or so.

[johncolley]

For the absolute minimum voltage drop make your power bus wires 12 ga stranded and use 20 ga. drops from every piece of flex track. Connect with "suitcase connectors."
If you use 2 colors for your bus wires and the same colors from your drops you will do fine.

[cacole]

DCC will be no better than DC if you don't have adequate power feeds to your track, as stated by Tweet469. You definitely need to run a power buss and feeder wires around your track. It sounds like you have poor rail joiner connections, especially if you're using sectional track intead of flex track, and if you don't have the rail joints soldered. A voltage drop with DCC similar to what you're experiencing now with DC can cause all manner of strange behavior from locomotives if the DCC command signal gets too weak to be properly interpreted by the decoders.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like your problem is voltaage drop due to running your current through the rail only. Every rail joint has resistence that drops your power. I'm running a double track loop around a 10' X20' room with a 10 track yard included on on DCC 5 amp booster. You need to run a bus of 10 or 12 guge wire under the layout along your trackage. Every 4 to 6 feet run feeder wire fom this heavy bus wire to the track above. This feeder wire can be lighter guage like 16 or 18, just keep these as short as possible.

[Anonymous]

[:-^] How much track can I operate on one power pack ??
If I run DC I slow down after 20 feet.
What about a DCC pack, ANY BETTER ??? [X-)]