Just one other thing to think about on this issue. I work in industrial maintenance in an auto manufacturing plant. On any wiring we do, we use a very simple method for planning ahead. Let's say for example that whatever it is we are wiring in needs #18 wire according to the codes and specs (Ugly's book or other source). When we run the wire, we will go one gauge larger to leave room for the future. In this example we would wire using #16. It costs very little more at the "front end", but in the future you will have capacity for better/more usage and upgrades. Over the Christmas shutdown we added some equipment at one end of a major line in our shop. While we did have to add some wiring, we were able to reuse most of the existing because it was capable of handling the requirements of more and newer equipment.
I do the same thing when working on a house, go a little bigger than you "need" and you won't have to worry about it in the future. Most of my house wiring is #12, specs call for #14. The rest is all larger stuff like the well pump, the water heater, etc. I have never had a wiring related problem and don't have to worry if I decide to add an outlet (or maybe a siding to put into train terms) to an existing circuit. I would always tell anyone to spend the money on the structural and electrical stuff early and prevent future hassles. While you may not "need" it, it sure is nice to know that you are covered on the important stuff.
Good Luck, Morpar
mononguy63 wrote:Lynda, that adds another degree of difficuly to the dive. The track I was using was salvaged from my old layout. It's easily 10 years old and is anything but clean. So we have all of these factors saying this shouldn't be performing well, yet it's working. I'm just trying to start a dialogue here.
I have just started wiring and laying my track and have placed feeder wires on each segment of a staging yard, however, they are spaced a bit farther than every 3 feet. I understand both sides of the feeder wire spaced every 3 feet debate, and have come to the conclusion that it is better to err on the side of more is better, than the less is more theory.
The feeder wire every 3 feet camp works to overcome the failed track joiner connections issue by incorporating electrical connections to every piece of track. This theory also helps to prevent the need to re-wire track down the road when scenery is in place. I understand the reasoning behind this technique, it makes sense to me, while it may be overkill, and it does reduce or eliminate the possibility of dropped electrical connections on sections of track.
Now what I have learned from the sage advice of the "been there and done that" and "learn from others mistakes" group, and Alan Gartner's Wiring for DCC it is suggested that a feeder be placed about every 10 feet or so for Code 100 track and every 6 feet for Code 83 and lower sized track. And for weathered rail the suggestion is to solder or wire every section of track. Again this is a suggestion. Now the recommendation is a basic rule of thumb, that every piece of track should be soldered to something, either another piece of track or preferably a feeder. Makes sense to me that to ensure constant electrical connectivity a combination of soldered joiners and feeders will maintain a higher level of performance over the long haul. These suggestions and recommendations will also reduce the number of possible "points of failure" resulting from poor electrical contacts.
See Wiring For DCC
Ryan BoudreauxThe Piedmont Division Modeling The Southern Railway, Norfolk & Western & Norfolk Southern in HO during the merger eraCajun Chef Ryan
When you add DCC to the equation, with its high frequency square wave AC signal, the rules change. Inadequate feeder wires, rail resistance, and corrosion within the rail joiners can cause a loss of control and either runaway trains or dead spots.
I'd rather go to the trouble of installing what some consider to be "overkill" feeder wires now than having to go back in a few years and try to add them after buildings and scenery are in the way.
Mononguy63
Yes you can run a layout with 2 wires and nothing soldered. Just about everyone does that with their under the Christmas tree layout.
Now as the others have said – down the road – if and when you go DCC you will find out that DCC is much more critical with good electrical connections.
Many have found this out after the fact as they built their layout and tested it with DC and then decided to go to DCC. Nothing worked. Engines stalled all of the time, sound engines had scratchy sounds, unexplained shorts or runaways.
And they tried to blame the manufacturer of the DCC system! The DCC mfg were producing junk!
I helped one club figure out why their layout (which had been working ok for 10 years with DC and was working barely with DCC for a year or two) needed rewired. They had wire sizes for the buss wires from #20 to #14 and the drop wires were few and far between. They were connected to the buss wires with Wire nuts Scotch locks and some were just twisted together.
They kept telling me that it worked for years this way, why wouldn’t it now. I had to explain to them that while the wire could carry the current needed to run the trains, it was the signal that was getting lost in the noise generated by the engines running, resistance of the wire and the poor wire connections caused from years of corrosion. Several members stated that the layout had not really operated all that well with DC.
Well once they decided to rewire the layout properly (which was a lot of work) they could not believe how everything smoothed out!
I decided yearly on that I did not want a maintenance nightmare with my new layout. I have been a member of a club for 23 years and we had the same problems. Everyone wanted to take shortcuts with the wiring.
My home layout is as big or bigger as some club layouts (25 x 75ft – with almost 3000 ft of track). I run # 12 stranded wire. I put drops every 3 feet and on all 3 ends of every turnouts. And all of my track joints are soldered. I do not have any electrical problems PERIOD! I am now into my 7th year with the layout. We have 12 hour Ops sessions, several times a year, with 40 operators running the layout. The sound engines never miss a beat. And I haven’t had to clean the track in 3 1/2 years! The use of metal polish corrected that problem! Before I used the metal polish I was cleaning the track before every one of my twice-monthly Ops sessions. That was getting old real quick.
Now I do feel that a lot of modelers get carried away with the bench work but the vast majority do not build the bench work strong enough to begin with and run into warped roadbed which causes way too many track derailments. And they absolutely refuse to do any thing about it just complain how junk the engines or cars are that they won’t stay on the track.
BOB H – Clarion, PA
You're absolutely right: it's not technically necessary. My first layout, an old Triang-Hornby set, had a clip that connected the power pack to the track. It fed a big figure-eight layout with a few sidings and the locomotives only needed the occasional push. As a kid, I didn't care.
Fast-forward a few decades, and now I'm feeding a larger, more complex layout not just track power but operating instructions as well. And for some unknown but clearly age-related reason, having to push a stalled locomotive now irritates me. Yes, it's more trouble adding feeders to every section, but it pays dividends in trouble-free operation. Do you want your trouble now or later?
There's nothing wrong with dialogue; I'm a writer, I love dialogue!
The thread below adds excellent issues to the mix; per ballasting, weathering, etc. I don't think the question is whether your "unleadered" track sections work today, but if they'll continue functioning efficiently in five or ten years. That you've used old track is probably a moot issue. When you rejoined the sections, or even jostled them, you created enough friction to refresh the contact areas between rail and joiner. The fact is, you may have good contact for some time, but through corrosion, sans well-soldered contacts of some nature, resistance will build. It'll happen slowly, and you may not even notice it until electrical current is sufficiently interrupted. Think of the line of current flowing from powerpack to locomotive as a continuous link. All along the circuit, you've got many opportunities for electrical inefficiency. Doesn't it seem prudent to minimize all potential failures under your control? Now, if you enjoy digging out ballast, adding leader wires later, and reballasting, that's okay too.
"I am lapidary but not eristic when I use big words." - William F. Buckley
I haven't been sleeping. I'm afraid I'll dream I'm in a coma and then wake up unconscious. -Stephen Wright
Now to really test your theory.
Paint the rails and weather the track.
Inatall ballast and glue per normal procedures.
Clean track per normal procedures.
Run trains for 5 years.
Then see if your butt joints and rail joiners still provide the same level of conductivity as trackage that only relies on soldered feeder connections.
The point of the feeders is to provide long term reliability on the layout.
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
And I don't want to be obtuse either, but why don't you put that straight stretch of track in a box for ten years. After corrosion and wood movement from humidity have done their thing, come back and tell us how everything is running.
Good luck to you.
Lynda
Let me begin by saying that I mean neither to step on any toes nor offend any forum contributors' sensibilities, but I'm often amused at the amount of construction overkill some have said is necessary in order to ensure a well-running layout. Take, for instance, the bomb shelter-like benchwork (3/4" birch plywood on L-girders spaced at 12", etc) that's been described that just makes my jaw drop. But I digress...
There have been forum members saying it's important to install feeder lines on every section of track (which gives about a 3 foot interval between feeders), lest we run the risk of poor running. I have begun laying track on my new layout - I presently have a touch over 20 feet of the mainline laid. The track joints are soldered on curves but otherwise simply butted with rail joiners along straight or gently curving areas. Last night I rigged up my old MRC Throttlepack (the one with the gold casing, that I've owned for about 30 years) with a couple of wires at one far end of the track and test ran some engines. My Protos ran the full length of the completed line flawlessly. Ditto my Genesis 2-8-2.
So, as an experiment, I got out Old Grandaddy - a 30-year-old Athearn SD9 that's been sitting in a box for the last four years and hasn't received a lick of maintenance of any sort in probably 10 years. I set it on the line and cracked open the throttle. It ran at a virtual crawl the full length of the line multiple times without stalling even once.
So to summarize, I ran an old beater of a locomotive at low speed off of an ancient power pack jerry-rigged to the rails and there was no perceptible loss of performance in the engine when it was 20 feet away from the feeders. And to boot, I'm certainly no expert at tracklaying. So what's the necessity of powering the rails every few feet?