Mark, several people here and on other forums insist that they do the same as you, with the same results, and that this has gone on for quite some time, years. What I haven't thought to note is which of them were in DCC and how many said they were still running DC. But some claimed to be strictly DCC.
If it works, great. I think what most of us recommend, the multiples of feeder pairs, is due to the changes that happen over time. Joiners just don't have a great record in the hobby of enabling robust voltage throughput over time.
The other thing is, assuming the joiners and rails over great distances, clean metals like those should not suffer huge degradations over distance. N/S rail isn't bad stuff for transmission, maybe not the best metal, but it's not bad. And, if the rails and the joints between them are well supported on strong and near-planar roadbed, and the joiners don't have to deal with flexing joints, and don't get badly contaminated with whatever glues and bits surround them, I don't see why a single pair of feeders won't work. The proof is in the quarter test at any one spot, especially the most distant ones.
New Years greetings to you all.
Have been wanting to write about this, and now is the time in the middle of the winter. I started building my layout back in 2003 and went with DCC from the start. I wanted to try powering the whole layout with a single set of wires from the command station. It works well - I have never looked back, and have not been disappointed in the setup. Not saying this would work on a large layout.
Here are my caveats:
- My HO scale layout is 14' x 21'. There are 2 mainlines that go around the room, with a large 'peninsula' that the inside mainline uses. There is a single crossover between the 2 mainlines. The inside mainline goes thru a small yard with 5 tracks, the yard is about 9' from end to end. Both mainlines go thru a staging yard in an adjacent room. There are 7 storage tracks in the room, and they range anywhere from 13' to 20' long. There are several turnouts for various industries. There are separate wires to power the turnouts.
- Was very meticulous in laying down the trackwork. Made sure there were no gaps in the connections, most of which are with rail joiners. On some curves, I have soldered the flex track pieces together.
- DCC system is Digitrax DCS200 8 amp. From the station, I have run a single set of feeder wires up to both of the main lines - that's it. A friend of mine brought over his multimeter, and we found close to full voltage in numerous spots on the layout.
- With the exception of a geep that does switching duties, I always run trains on the mainline with 2 powered locos. In the very rare event that a head light will flicker from a piece of dirt on the track or at a critical axle joint, the other loco will push/pull it along.
- I don't have sound locos. If I do ever get them, will probably get decoders with 'keep alives'. Also don't have loco transponding or anything like that. Don't know if this setup would affect transponding.
Please tell me I'm not the only one who powers their layout with a single set of DCC wires (to each main line/whatever). Am interested in hearing your experiences.
Mark VW