I have been in the basement today getting more benchwork ready, and I am now starting on the supports for the helix. I have watched a couple of videos on YouTube and understand you have to put the track in as you build the helix, but nobody mentions running busses or feeder wires to the track. It's almost as if they think the rail joiners will be enough. So what are some suggestions (or experiences) with wiring a helix? I am planning on running DCC, but there are 2 sets of track and I will need to run 2 busses for future signaling. Thanks!
Good Luck, Morpar
You can run a bus vertically along one or two sides and attach the wires to each turn, or you can run a pair of bus wires along the outside of each track and run feeders over to each rail.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
dehusman You can run a bus vertically along one or two sides and attach the wires to each turn, or you can run a pair of bus wires along the outside of each track and run feeders over to each rail.
LINK to SNSR Blog
However you do it, use lots of feeders. As the layout grows around the helix, access will grow more difficult, so having extra feeders will likely save you problems later on.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Will you solder most/all joiners? This will have a direct bearing on where your feeders should be. But as already suggested, unless your helix has a diameter of 10 feet and rises five feet or more, all you really need is a sub-bus in the middle, maybe running up one side of it, and at most two feeders per ramp...probably a single feeder would do per ramp. But that's asking for trouble if your joiners are not going to be soldered.
My plan for the helix is to solder the rails joints and add feeders to every section of track. My helix has 2 tracks, so for the inside rails I will just cut away a section of the ties to feed the wire under the rails to the vertical busses. I have no intention of taking this thing back apart once it's all out together!
I don't have a helix, but if I did, there'd not be any need for additional feeders, as it would already be connected to "live" track. One pair of feeder wires power my entire layout.
Not counting staging tracks, double-track through all on-layout towns, and industrial sidings, there's about 250' of mainline track powered by that one pair of wires. All of my track, other than that isolated by non-conductive rail joiners could be live, but I do run only one train at-a-time...it might have only one locomotive or might require four or five.
The only places where rail joiners are not soldered in-place are those on the ends of bridges, as all major bridges are removeable if maintenance is required.
Wayne