power feeds

I have mine every 6'.

Karl

 I've always felt a track pin was a good solid electrical connection. Still I have a drops in every 3 foot section of Gargraves flex. Every rail on the Ross turnouts have wires soldered. 12 gauge buss with 14 gauge feeders. Overkill. Maybe. Layouts run fine for 25 years. Including DCS.

Billy Bassoon,

   Need more info to give advise, are you running DCS/Legacy or just conventional?  It do make a difference as to wiring and drops.

PCRR/Dave

I'm loooooow tech. Conventional

I agree with Karl every 6 ft including outside rail. Nick

I set mine at 6 foot centers, 18ga. solid wire, 12 inches long, center rail black wire, outside rails white wire, both side rail power feeds soldered together before soldering to 8 gauge bare copper buss. Power feed to rails also are soldered.

Bill,

   I agree with these gentlemen every 6 -8' depending on the quality of the track you are using gets the job done correctly.

However a much better way is to run DCS to be able to run your Conventional Engines with the HHRC, the old engines run smooth as glass using this method.

I do usually keep one Loop set up using the Conventional Control also, just for the retro feel.  Right now it has the original K-Line Coke Train on that particular Conventional Controlled Loop.

PCRR/Dave

Many thanks, y'all!

John Ochab posted:

I set mine at 6 foot centers, 18ga. solid wire, 12 inches long, center rail black wire, outside rails white wire, both side rail power feeds soldered together before soldering to 8 gauge bare copper buss. Power feed to rails also are soldered.

John, you must be an electrician. Black hot and white neutral.

Rod,

It's easier to remember Black or other insulation colors for the hot wire and white or bare copper for the buss. I retired after many years in mechanical engineering, wiring the layout is a good mental exercise as is household electrical repairs, this hobby is challenging  because one can choose how involved one wants to get. For voltage and current checks I use two digital multimeters  and a GB continuity tester to check the track and component wiring and soldered connections. I also have and old early 1970's Radio Shack analog multimeter that I occasionally use.

Using black for center rail means hooking it to the red post on a TIU; maybe not so easy to remember. Low voltage commonly reverses household wire schemes. All our tractors and most vehicles use black as ground.

I soldered to every  37" Gargraves flex section and between all Ross turnouts on my layouts. Like Rod above I always used white for Common and black and colors for Hot.

I have 14 GA buss and 14GA feeders soldered directly to my fastrack every 10'. Power from one 180w brick is consistant throughout my modest 10'x16' layout.

IMO the wire size is key. Use a minimum of 16GA wire to make sure you get the power to the track. Soldered connections takes a close second in importance.

I suspect most folks with voltage drop issues use to small of wire because they are mislead by the 18 power wires that come in starter sets.

Billy,

The information here for the six foot distance between drops is excellent advice. I would also add to this the use of Rail Zip on your track pins. I added this on my layout when redoing sections of track and it has increased the conductivity of the rail pins, this is a layout done with original AC Gilbert sectional track. I originally had thought the Rail Zip was snake oil but it really does improve conductivity. Just a thought.

Ray

John Ochab posted:

I set mine at 6 foot centers, 18ga. solid wire, 12 inches long, center rail black wire, outside rails white wire, both side rail power feeds soldered together before soldering to 8 gauge bare copper buss. Power feed to rails also are soldered.

8 Gauge buss? Really? Nick

I would definitely not use 18-gauge for an O-gauge layout.  When I built an 8x4 with centered control panel for grandchildren, I used 16 gauge, but for anything else, nothing less than 14-gauge.  For  19x17, definitely 14, and if you use buss for the outside rails, 12.

If you run conventional, I recommend many toggle-switch-controlled blocks, to enable running multiple locos.  Last layout I built for conventional, which I still run but under DCS, every switch marked the end of 3 blocks, and only two blocks exceed 6' in length.  Be sure to have many drops to the common.

You drive a Cord?  I remember during WWII when they were often seen.  The chrome exhaust tubes through the side of the hood did stand out.

Nick,

The  8 gauge bare copper buss is over design, I am building a large three rail U shaped layout, I should be able to run 2 trains possibly 3 continuously and operate the switch yards with there own drill track. I was going to use a 12 gauge buss, after running voltage drop calculations, I considered running two 12 gauge buss wires in parallel as the buss and solder the neutral track feeders two these two wires, this seamed more work than buying a single conductor 10 or 8 gauge bare copper to use for the buss. I chose the 8 gauge wire and purchased a 100 ft roll on the web from a Northeast  US distributor the price was very reasonable as was the shipping. I plan to use this buss as a continuous loop, the 18 gauge neutral track feeders are to be soldered to 12,14,or 16 gauge insulated wire ( track feeder relative location to the continuous buss wire will establish whether the 12,14 or 16 gauge wire is used) which in turn is soldered to this buss. Power to the track from MRC Pure Sine transformers, if my memory is correct the maximum output voltage is 18 volts and max. amps is 10 amp, or 180 Watts. per transformer.