New to DCC

[dd40ax]

After a long hiatus I am returning to HO trains and will be building a 10 x7 layout using Bachmann E-Z track and DCC control.  The question I have is how do I determine how many terminal tracks with DCC inputs may be required? If more than 1 how do I accomplish this? Do I run a plug into 1 side of a terminal track and another out the other side to the next or ?

Thanks in advance!!!

[Doneldon]

dd40-

Welcome back aboard. You'll find lots of folks like yourself here, model rails who had to hang up their throttles to raise families, mow the lawn and work too hard.

You'll hear lots of opinions about how many track feeders you need for DCC, everything from, "Well, I've just got one feeder on my layout and it has fourteen real miles of track," to, "Every piece of track on my layout has its own feeder. You have to make sure you have good electrical supply for DCC." Who is right? beats me. The quality of the electrical supply is more important with DCC than it is with DC, but everbody needs to decide what s/he is comfortable with.

There's also an issue about soldering rails together to guarantee good power. Soldering the whole pike together is an awful lot of work and it might lead to kinks as seasonable changes in humidity play with the roadbed. I've tried to solve both issues with my own plan which is, like all of them on this board, the absolutely right one. My solution is to use enough feeders that my power never has to pass through more than one rail joiner. I solder feeders to a rail joiner and solder those rail joiners to their rails. Then I solder the next pieces of rail to those two pieces of track. And then I'll have another piece on each end which gets power only via the rail joiner, and fourth stretches soldered to those. That may sound like a lot but it isn't as bad as you might think. In places where I'm using 36-inch flex track I could have as few rail joiners as one every 24 feet, if I actually had a 24-foot stretch without any interruptions. More realistically, this standard seems to supply good power without my being obsessional about it. And it means a single feeder to yard tracks, sidings, spurs and branch lines.

I run a two-wire, 14 ga buss sort of around my layout with 20 or 22 ga feeders ideally no more than eight inches long. Some folks run their busses to a central point under the layout with feeders radiating out from there. On your 10x7 that could mean some pretty long feeders so you'd need to use larger wire for them.

Whatever you do, good luck with your upcoming layout and its wiring. Do make sure that you get a DCC system which has enough power and features for your present and reasonably anticipatable needs. Expanding a DCC system is usually fairly reasonable (there are exceptions) but replacing one can be painful.
                                                                                                                         -- D

[hawaiiho]

Like you have already been told, basically, you will likely get nearly as many opinions as you do replies.  I have three parallel lines and one switching

yard.

My system is a 5 amp system and I have one feed to each main  line  track. I have had as many as four trains(all sound) running at any one time and

have yet to have a problem. If it were me I would look at my track plan and then go with the simplest power feed that I felt comfortable with and give

that a try. If this is  sufficient, then leave well enough alone, otherwise  add more feeders.

As my switching yard is fairly small, like I said, I found one feed to each main line of track was sufficient.

Good Luck and above all ENJOY.

[dd40ax]

Many Thanks for your expertise. After some consideration I have decided to go with the NCE RF system, 5 amp power. Like was mentioned it is a bit pricey up front but in time I will be making the layout larger and would rather do it now than later. When I start laying track will be the test of the real world!

From a strictly can or cannot position does anyone know if the Bachmann EZ track terminal sections be wired to each other? In other words have a plug from the power supply to one side of the terminal section on a main line , then another plug from the opposite side going out to another terminal section in the yard lets say? Sort of like daisy chain.

Your thoughts are welcome!!

[cwmeeks]

I am running power from one terminal track on the outside loop to another on the inside loop. I have about 6 on my layout that are being used this way, works fine for me. i don't run any sound locomotives and rarely have more than three (3) consists running at a time.
Regards
c

[MarkInLA]

Hi, I won't state what make of DCC I have. But I will say this: I converted my 3mi. HO branch/bridge route from analog DC to digital DCC by running wires from new power panel ( where main powering- throttle plugs in ) to the 2 rails above it just like an old DC power pack did/does..I run jumper wires from same 2 rails or ANY 2 rails which run directly to power source (rails uninterrupted/isolated by gaps) up to rails which ARE isolated, such as 2 engine house tracks connected to, say, older code 70 power routing switches.That's it ! I have no running problems available-power-wise..I have not used 'bus' wires anywhere under layout; only jumpers here and there from powered to isolated track sections ..May not be advisable for huge MRRs, but it's been A OK for mine since day one some 3-4 years now since converting..You will have to reconnect old gapped rails from analog layout if no longer require gapping ( one of the main beauties of DCC)..Mark

[jward]

I would advise against using the plug in wires extensively. there are better and cheaper ways to add as many feeders as you'd like.

my reasoning against the plig in connectors is simple: it is far too easy to plug one in the wrong way and get a dead short on an expensive dcc system.

my solution: learn to solder feeder wires to your rail or rail joiners. you can do like I did, and use 2 conductor doorbell wire for your feeders. the two conductors have different colour of insulation, so it is easy to keep track of which wire goes to which rail.

[Pops]

If that's the only reason, it's a lot easier to spend $6.95 for a continuity checker at any home supply store.
Isn't it?

[Doneldon]

dd40-

Let me say first that I think you purchased a solid, reliable and versatile DCC system. Congrats!

I'm with Jeff on the plug-in feeders but for a different reason: I think the prefab feeder wires are way too expensive. I can afford to buy them but the price grates on me too much. I'd rather spend my money on trains.

You can easily solder feeders to nickel-silver or brass rails. Of the two, NS leads to fewer maintenance and oxidation problems by far. Tin the wire and the rail and the joint will be almost instantaneous so you won't have melted ties. Unless you are very careful with the size of your wire at the solder point you can cause a bump to your wheel flanges which can lead to derailments, so it's probably best to solder to the outsides of the rails. You can also solder feeders to rail joiners which works well.

It's a good idea to decide what track to use before you go very far. As I mentioned, NS requires the least maintenance. That's especially important because DCC likes good, uninterrupted power. Brass oxidizes pretty fast and its oxidation isn't conductive. Steel alloy rails present too many problems to be satisfactory although they do look the best with the least effort. In addition to rail material, you need to decide on how to construct your track or right-of-way.

Sectional track, including the track with attached roadbed, is easy to use. Sectional track without attached roadbed doesn't stay together very well unless it is attached to its surface but that shouldn't be an issue for you since it sounds like you are building a permanent layout. Track with attached roadbed can look pretty good even without additional ballast, but it is pricey. Also, most of it is Code 100 (meaning rails 100/1000  or 1/10 inch high) which is a little oversize. However, people have been building HO layouts with Code 100 rail for decades and have found that its size isn't much of an issue once ballast and scenery are complete and the trains are running. Twelve-inches-to-the-foot railroads use different sizes of rail for different purposes. The biggest and heaviest (prototype rail is sized by its weight in pounds per yard of track [whoever thought of that rubric?]) is used for heavily-traveled, high-speed mainlines. Rails tend to get progressively smaller as loads and speeds decrease so sidings, spurs, yards and branchlines generally have smaller rails, sometimes by quite a bit. These less heavy-duty tracks are usually at lower levels than mainlines and they have less ballast. Yard tracks often have no ballast at all.

Which brings us to ballast. You can use track with ballast attached without any additional ballast, but it doesn't look very realistic. One alternative is to use this track but add loose ballast. Another alternative, which is somewhat cheaper and which offers more alternatives in your use of rail sizes and appearance, is flex track on separate ballast. (You can also use sectional track in this style, but its many joints can lead to electrical problems after a while and its hard to get all of those track joints together without any kinks.) Most flex track users mount their track on either preformed cork roadbed, a foam roadbed offered by, I think, Woodland Scenics, or a sticky black substance which doesn't really look like mainline roadbed even after it's ballasted because it is very thin. Of these alternatives, cork is the most widely available and used. It looks at least as good as the plastic roadbed which is attached to some sectional track but you can certainly add ballast if you prefer. There are special cork switch blocks but it is just about as easy to construct ballast areas for turnouts by slicing and fitting the cork strips. Whether plastic, cork, foam or the black mastic, you can attach it with clear caulk or plastic-safe construction adhesive (Liquid Nails for Projects is good). Just spread a thin film (a bit more for roadbed attached sectional track) and lay the roadbed on it. You can also use the mastic to hold your track to the roadbed.

I personally use mostly sectional track on cork roadbed to which I add ballast. I use Code 83 for my mainlines and Code 70 for other tracks. I lay sidings and spurs on N-scale cork which is a little lower, and I put yard tracks right on the surface of my railroad, with just scale cinders spread around to serve as the yard surface. The low speeds used in yards don't cause much noise even though the tracks aren't on roadbed. I find that cork deadens sound better than plastic roadbed though not quite as much as the foam product. Roadbed attached sectional track is the noisiest of all, enough so that, IMHO, it interferes with sound-equipped locomotives.

You should be aware that many modelers use a cookie-cutter plywood or spline subroadbed with a ground paper product, Homasote, on top of that, and with their final roadbed over the Homasote. This does a great job of suppressing noise, but Homasote is a huge mess to work with and its size changes with atmospheric humidity so much that serious track problems, including buckling and separating, often develop. This has been a classic style of right-of-way construction for a long, ling time. However, IMHO, current materials have replaced it as a top method.

                                                                                                                         -- D

[dd40ax]

As a follow up I designed a layout using "Anyrail" software. It was very easy to use and make corrections. As far as the material for the layout I will be using Bachmann EZ sectional track in NS, code 100. All of the switches will be DCC controlled. The power will be NCE RF 5 amp. Havent received it yet, cant wait. As far as the table I will be building a frame and inserting 2" thick styrofoam for the base and paint it brown. The foam comes in 4x8 sheets at HD and is very strong yet light. I had used homosote years ago and it warped over time.
  I hear you regarding the wiring. Will use feeders every 5 feet and solder to rail clips. What size wire do you recommend? I also have a reverse loop and need to know if plastic joiners are needed for isolation?

Years ago I went the route of cork road bed with the separate track layed on it. At this point I would rather dress up the EZ track with ballast. On that topic I agree the commercial ballast is costly. Before doing ths layout I belonged to a O scale club where we had a 30 x 70 layout. We used 50lb buckets of roofing granules for ballast. Worked great at significant cost savings.

Many Thanks for your input. Keep it coming!!

[Doneldon]

dd40-

Here's another opinion piece:

I run 14 ga solid or 16 ga stranded busses with 20 or 22 ga stranded feeders. I try to keep my feeders shorter than eight inches and I use the larger wire for longer feeders.
                                                                                         -- D

[electrical whiz kid]

Plug in feeders, like the others have stated, are expensive, and a potential source of aggravation as wll as disaster.  Mine is oming from the idea that loosening, cracking, etc , are the aggravation.  Also like others here have said, learn to solder, and get yourself a book on basic electricity, as well as a VOM (volt-ohm) voltage tester; and if you are not familiar with one, read the intsructions for its care and feeding.  Congratulations on the big step, and good luck.  Oh, as an aside, RMC has a project for DCC equipment, if you are interested.
Rich C.

[electrical whiz kid]

Hey Jward;
What are your thoughts on adapting code 70 to 83?  I have tried sweverial approaches and have come away muttering words from the "Air Force manual"...
Tried soldering some shimstock to the bottom of the smaller rail, the joiner, etc etc, etc, and nope, there is a noticeable hump.  I have seen some really nice trackwork on Dolkos's and Sassi's layouts and would like to come away with trackwork like that.  I am no perfectionist, but would like to aspire to the highest level to which  my "abilities" can take me.
Rich C.

[jward]

my layout is mostly code 83 with a little code 70. my dad's on which I learned to handlay track, has code 83 on the main and code 70 sidings. what we have done is to flatten one end of a rail joiner, then solder the code 70 rail on to the flattened part. the code 83slips inside the joiner in the normal way. an alternate method I've tried is to use the atlas code 100-83 transition joiners, carefully align the rail tops and inside edges, and solder everything together. the atlas joiners can be bent to make small adjustments in height.