Feeders in areas with lots of track DCC

[mlehman]

Several have mentioned it, but it's important: Every segment of rail should have a feeder. Don't rely on rail joiners by themselves for that.

That said, where a gap is not needed, shorter segments of track can be joined by soldered rail joiners. They're just as good as a separate feeder. Keep in mind that it's important to have a nonsoldered joint with a little play in it every once in awhile to help account for expansion and contraction (not so much for the rail itself as for the underlying roadbed, etc.) It's also the case the nickel-silver rail is less conductive than copper wire, so don't depend on this to replace feeders, rather as a way to improve track integrity mechnically while eliminating feeder overkill.

I use the 22/18/12 gauge step up in wire sizes as others have mentioned. However, I rely mainly on the lowly wire nut  for connections. If your layout isn't portable, they work just as well as terminal strips, etc. They also make it easy to change and modify wiring as you go.Did I mention cheap and widely available? Yeah, that, too.

If there are a lot of feeders in a small area or you add more later, sort them out and get a bigger wire nut. Alternatively, if things get too dense run a short sub-feeder to the nearest connection and  start another group of wires on the next wire nut.

[mobilman44]

Hi,

Given that feeders are typically 20 or 22 gauge and buss lines are 12-14 gauge, the ideal set up is to keep the thinner feeder wires as short as possible - say 12 inches.  And of course you want them connected to every siding and main about 4 feet apart (works for me).  So where you have congested areas of sidings or whatever, a "sub-buss" as previously alluded to will work just fine. 

[carl425]

I go back and forth on whether or not I'll ever implement detection, but I am wiring for it and running feeders through the detection coils.  The black wire of my bus is connected to the track every 6 feet or so.  For the red, I run a 16gb wire to within 3' of each end of the block (a yard track in this case).  I connect it to the main bus in the middle. This connector goes through the coil and drops connect to the rail every 6'. The red rail is gapped, rail joiners are soldered.

[richhotrain]

You could run sub-buses from a terminal block to the yards to keep the feeders short in length.

Another way, as on my layout, is to use 14 ga. wire for the bus, 22 ga. feeders for the track, and 18 ga. wires to connect the feeders to the bus. To keep the feeders short in length, I run multiple feeders into a pigtail with the 18 ga. wire directly under the yard tracks and then connect the 18 ga. wire to the more distant bus.

Rich 

[riogrande5761]

Because rail joiners can not 100% be relied upon to pass electricity to adjacent tracks, I prefer to have mulitple drops to a bus wire which connects to the DCC station. In my yard I have probably between 15 and 20 drops - but also because some turnouts are insulated Shinohara or Walthers by Shinohara, I have extra drops for those areas too.  They are wired directly into the bus right now through Scotchlite suitcase connectors although I could splice in a terminal strip at any point in time if need be.

[Stevert]

Use whatever works for you.  I've used terminal strips in some areas, crimped multiple feeders into barrel connectors with a single, larger gauge wire crimped in the other end, etc.  In a yard area with lots of parallel tracks I have even used a pair of brass rods perpendicular to the tracks, with feeders soldered onto them (Similar concept to what Lion uses for his busses).

[BigDaddy]

Newbie question.  All the videos show wiring a single short feeder to the bus, which is convieniently located right beneath the track.  What do you do for track heavy areas, yards and industrial sidings where there are lots of shorter tracks & turnouts, more or less side to side?  Terminal strips?