round the living room walls... questions

[ease in N/027]

if i run my train around my living room walls, how many power leads do i need/or how far apart should they be?... Im doing this in N scale ez track but, was thinking people out there in any gauge might be able to help...

I have a 10x20 living room

[NarrowMinded]

I have a single loop of G-scale track going around my daughters room I have a single power connection and it works fine. the room is 12' x 14'

NM

[Jim Banner]

I don't know the answer but I can tell you how to find out.  Put your track around the room, using only one feed.  Try running a train.  If it slows down too much for your liking when it is far away from the feed, then add a second feed.  It looks like you will be using close to 60 feet of track, so the second feed would be about 30 feet (measured along the track) from the first.  Still not enough?  Divide the 30 foot sections in half again.  I am pretty sure 15 feet between feeders will be just fine for a single train unless you are planning multiple locomotives and a very large number of cars.  But you might want to plan for the day when you suddenly feel the "need" for two trains.

The alternative, if you are running on a shelf wide enough to accommodate a pair of bus wires, is to install such wires all around the room as you set up the track.  #14 wire isn't too heavy while anything smaller than #18 could be too light.  If you use house wire or twisted bell wire, you will typically have one black and one white wire.  Use one for the back rail rail (closest to the wall) and the other for the front rail (closest to the viewer.)  I always use the black wire for the back rail and the white wire for the front rail, and keep chanting, like a mantra, "black is for the back.  Out the front, white is all right."  Silly, but it makes trouble shooting a snap and cross connections almost non existent.

Once your bus wires are around the room, connect the ends together, black to black and white to white.  then connect a pair of track feeders, back rail to black ... hey, you know the routine.  Finally, connect a length of black and white wire over to your power pack.  Now you can run as many extra feeders as you deem necessary, or you can start right off using a pair of feeders every 10 feet or so.  Just run them from your bus wires to the track, connecting them by whatever means you like.  Running a bus in a complete circle works great for dc (but can create problems with DCC.)  Ever pair of feeders has two paths from the power pack which helps keep the track voltage very even as you move around the layout.  You are welcome, of course, to use whatever colours you choose for the wires but you will have to write your own mantra.

NarrowMinded is on the right track (pun intended) but comparing what he does in large scale to what you want to do in small scale may be apples to oranges.  His scale is about 8 times as big as yours.  His track has about 64 times the cross sectional area as yours.  His locomotives draw only about 8 times as much current as yours, so your voltage drop per foot is about 8 times as much as his.  Actually, that works out pretty good when you figure that your 10 x 20 foot layout in N-scale would be about 80 x 160 feet in G-scale.  (I am starting to give myself a PD headache, but I think that is the way it works.)

Jim   

[Len]

I get asked this question a lot at my repair shop.

My 'stock' answer is: There is no such thing as too many power feeders.

To avoid problems down the road, at a minimum, use four power feeders. Either one at each corner of the room, or at the middle of each wall, or both! It's a lot easier to install them when you first install the track than having to retrofit it later.

One other point - I would also make sure the screws for at least every other bracket you use to support your shelf go into a stud, not just drywall anchors.

Len

[CNE Runner]

I absolutely agree with Jim (no surprise there) and Len: you can't have too many track feeds. Since your are building this layout from the ground up, it makes sense to install multiple feeds - now - rather than later. On my layouts (micro or otherwise) I strive for one feed per section of track (flextrack that is). Overkill?..maybe; but I have never experienced electrical power problems.

Summary: Measure twice to cut once.

Ray