What are your opinions of soldering feeder wires to rail joiners and also not soldering rail joiners to rails. Will there be good electrical contact? Rail joiners would be new never used. Also your opinions on maximum length of feeder wires using No. 18 or No. 22 gauge.
Second layout with it working just fine with zero issues. No loss of power even when after painting around the joiners. I have feeds to EVERY joiner.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I do this too, mostly, and I don't have problems. I use #22 wire for my feeders. I make half of mine with red and half with black wire, so I can tell at a glance which ones to attach to the red and black track bus wires beneath the layout. Most of my feeders are 12-18 inches long.
If a joiner does get loose and you start losing power, it's not hard to add solder in place.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I originally planned to go with red and black - but then it was pointed out that udner the layout, whenre the light may be less than bright, red and black look an awful lot alike. To the rescue, Home Depot has loosely twisted 2 conductor "alarm wire" in red and white, and spools of heavier red and white are available for the bus. The alarm wire is 20 or 22. I make up a dozen or so pairs of feeders at the bench before workign on track so I have them at hand, I usually lop off lengths about 1-2 foot long, precision not required. Once installed I cut the feeds to length to solder to the proper bus, most end up beign well under a foot long. (since the OP poted a second message adding more questions - tip, under the MORE dropdown in your message is an edit button so if you need to correct or clarify something, you can just edit the original instead of starting a new thread. Particularly if there haven't been any replies yet, liek when you just posted it and realized you wanted to ask somethign else.)
Hi,
I prefer soldering to track sections, and solding rail joiners on curves and most tangent sections - but not necessarily all. Feeders are 12 inch or less, 20 gauge, and roll to 14 gauge buss wires. EVERY 3 or 4 feet of track has a feeder, plus ALL sidings.
Gotta say this again........... In all my years of model railroading and the many years on this Forum, I have NEVER heard someone complain that they had "too many feeders". That says a lot.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
I did the red and white alarm/door bell wire and soldered to the rail joiners. My layout is going on two years and have had no problems. I also over feeder, all the ends of turn out and just about every 3 to 4 feet
MisterBeasley If a joiner does get loose and you start losing power, it's not hard to add solder in place.
Unless the loose joiner is in a subway station on the rail closest to the platform.
I'd rather not explain how I discovered this fact.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
I solder all of my feeders (22 ga.) to rail joiners.
The only time that I solder rail joiners to rails is on (flex track) curves.
My feeders are blue and yellow wires.
I have no conductivity problems, except when I glue the ballast. Every once in awhile, glue gets between the rail joiner and the rail causing an interruption of power. By moving the rail joiner back and forth with a pair of snip nose pliers, I can remedy the continuity problem.
Rich
Alton Junction
Hi John,
My aim is to keep rail joiners out of the circuit wherever I can, so I never solder feeders to joiners. I use 22-gauge bare bus wire for feeders, but splice it to 18-gauge insulated wire directly under the plywood sub grade (sub roadbed). I try to connect the 18-gauge wire to a 12-gauge bus in less than 12 inches.
You can see my wiring techniques explained in my article on "Bullet-proof track wiring" in the MR special issue, "How To Build Realistic Layouts: Realistic, Reliable Track," available on this website.
So long,
Andy
Rail joiners with pre-soldered feeders are better than no feeders, BUT: You still have the possible issue of corrosion in the rail joiners and poor electrical contact. My old layout was built with new Atlas code 100 flex and new Atlas rail joiners. I had a single 18' section(6 pieces of flex) with just one feeder soldered to one piece of flex. Worked fine for about 3 years - then trains started slowing down in that section. A combination of soldering rail joiners and extra feeders resolved the problem. This was in a 'tunnel' and there was no ballast or paint/weathering of the rail. Now everything has feeders soldered to each piece of rail. Soldering feeders is not hard to do, and saves a lot of money....
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Andy Sperandeo My aim is to keep rail joiners out of the circuit wherever I can, so I never solder feeders to joiners.
My aim is to keep rail joiners out of the circuit wherever I can, so I never solder feeders to joiners.
Andy,
That is very interesting.
Do you solder the feeders to the underside of the rail or to the outside of the rail?
Phoebe Vet Unless the loose joiner is in a subway station on the rail closest to the platform. I'd rather not explain how I discovered this fact.
Ah, the joys of subway modeling. I had a trolley throw a wheel down in the tunnels. I couldn't find the wheel. I even used the on-board video camera to search for it. I realized that it had to be under one liftoff, which I hated to remove because there are so many wires to disconnect. Finally, I made a project out of upgrading to plug connectors, and when I lifted the cover there was the wheel.
In my experience far too much is made out of so-called potential electrical contact issues with rail joiners.
To wit: I had a theoretically temporary (read: family politics) layout using Kato Unitrack that was in one point in place untouched for seven years. No soldering anywhere, anyplace. NO Problems.
In my current layout I soldered the feeders to the bottoms of the rail joiners and placed a bit of conductive fluid on the rail before installing the joiner. I think even this was all overkill but I have had again ZERO connectivity problems.
Where have I had problems? Simple - failure of turnouts. I have learned the hard way to have relay-driven power routing for turnouts.
Bottom line - go for it, but frankly, even soldering to joiners is probably overkill. BTW I have converted to DCC and have not had any of the threatened voltage-drop problems using 16-gauge wire for the buses (which is exactly what I used for the DC).
Thanks for all the opinions. Now I have to make some decisions. That's what makes this fun -all the opinions.
one more opinion for you:
When you do this to your track:
:
You need to feeder everything or you will get dead spots. You're looking at one in the photo (since repaired).
Of course your mileage may vary,
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
What am I looking at specifically there, besides painted and ballasted track? I have enough of mine painted and ballasted now that I've crossed several of my feeder joiners with multiple coats of paint, diluted alcohol, and glue and still no dead spots.
Travelling on the Great Western Railway from London to Bristol, a man sat at the window throwing small pieces of paper out at regular 2 minute intervals. "Why are you doing that?" asked the conductor. "To keep the elephants away" replied the man. "We don't have elephants here!" said the conductor. "It works well then doesn't it" the man responded.
The soldered rail joiner discussions always make me smile as I remember what was one of my Grandfather's favorite jokes. Are we protecting against a threat that does not exist? All I can say is this, well done solder joints simply won't fail, there can never be any doubt that the electrical integrity is bullet proof. A mechanical press fit electrical contact, left undisturbed, probably won't fail either very often. But they can.
The reality is that our press fit rail joiners are not left undisturbed. Expansion and contraction of rails as the seasons change. Ingress, via capillary action of dilute white glue, matte media etc. All of these things can and do occur. Does it mean that there will be a failure, well no of course not. However the cost and effort to add soldered feeders is so minimal that I really don't see the downside of this extra protection. So I guess I will be content to sit by the window tossing out my bits of paper!
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
simon1966 The reality is that our press fit rail joiners are not left undisturbed. Expansion and contraction of rails as the seasons change. Ingress, via capillary action of dilute white glue, matte media etc. All of these things can and do occur.
The reality is that our press fit rail joiners are not left undisturbed. Expansion and contraction of rails as the seasons change. Ingress, via capillary action of dilute white glue, matte media etc. All of these things can and do occur.
You had to go and remind me, didn't you?
That's sort of my point - I wire to the joiners, only sodler joiners on curves, and yet after liberal applications of paint to cover the area around the joiner completely (shiny spots look odd once you paint the track) and also dousing them in alcohol and glue to secure ballast - they STILL have not failed.
rrinker That's sort of my point - I wire to the joiners, only sodler joiners on curves, and yet after liberal applications of paint to cover the area around the joiner completely (shiny spots look odd once you paint the track) and also dousing them in alcohol and glue to secure ballast - they STILL have not failed. --Randy
Randy, you're lucky. I have had a fair amount of trouble in the past with matte medium getting between the rail joiners and the rails, acting as an insulator and cutting power to the rails.
I am going to start applying a drop or two of light oil on each rail joiner before gluing ballast in the future.
I dunno about lucky, this is the second alyotu I've built and painted the rails, doign it the same way. The older one never got ballasted though.
Once this I do is always use fresh joiners - and the Atlas universal ones fit pretty tight on code 83, I can;t imagine using them for code 100. I have a bunch I use over and over when fitting track which are quite loose but I only take fresh ones from the pack, sodler feeders,a dn then install them, no connecting and reconnecting track sections with the 'live' ones.
rrinker I dunno about lucky, this is the second alyotu I've built and painted the rails, doign it the same way. The older one never got ballasted though.
Well, there's the difference.
You have an alyotu, I have a layout.