unitrak viaduct power feeders

[EF57]

The power feeder plugs work fine on straight viaduct sections, but on curves the little openings for the plug to contact the underside of the rail seem to be wrongly placed.  Am i doing something wrong and/or is there a fix?   (I’m trying to avoid straights to save space).  Why did they go to the trouble of molding an otherwise normal feeder socket into the curve?

Edited April 19, 2018 by cteno4

[Yavianice]

As far as I know the viaduct power feeders only fit on straight sections because reasons, and even then, only on the 248 mm. I believe the reason for having holes everywhere is for people to make their own feeders (e.g. DCC people). 

[kvp]

Imho the easy solution is to use power feed joiners as they can be installed everywhere.

[EF57]

Well they also fit on the 185 straights.   Yavianice, I don’t understand the expression “because reasons”.

[cteno4]

Ef57,

 

the double viaduct connectors are very cranky beasties. They can take some fiddling to get them seated just right. Would have been better to just build the jst connector into the viaduct for a regular power feed to pop into, but this would have required a more complicated internal setup and the loss of a special part to buy if you misplace them (like I keep doing for temp setups!).

 

if you solder then its pretty easy to make your own unijoiner feeders. Just poke the metal feeder out with a screw driver blade from the bottom. Tin the joiner bottom and wire then bond them (tad of paste flux helps this). You can then feed the wire thru the plastic frame and pop the metal joiner back into the plastic frame. You can then use these anywhere on the viaduct you just cant put an s joiner below it. You can sacrifice a viaduct support and clip the wings off the s joiner clip and feed the wires thru there and viaduct suppor will be held in place by the wires well laterally and gravity does the rest.

 

we have also popped out the viaduct track and just cut a slot below the rails with the rototool and soldered feeders onto the bottom of the rail then drilled a whole in the plastic bottom section of the viaduct where convienent and fed the wires thru. 

 

A hink of 1/4” dis styrene tube around the wires makes it look like some drainage line coming down instead of wires.

 

jeff

[chadbag]

8 hours ago, EF57 said:

Well they also fit on the 185 straights.   Yavianice, I don’t understand the expression “because reasons”.

 

"because reasons" -- KATO has their reasons (even if we don't know or understand or agree)

 

is what I assume he is saying

 

[Kamome]

If I could weigh in here,

 

You can actually fit the feeders into the curves. I have done this with my curves in the past but probably never again. They are a bit of a pig and you need to bend the metal contacts slightly to align with the rail properly. This is fine if you have a permanent set up but if you plan to take apart your Unitrack and feed different parts of the set up the next time, I’d just feed the straights.

 

If you’re building a layout, then just have patience and fine tune the contacts to fit into the gaps.

 

Or you could also remove the track from the viaduct and cut away some of the underside plastic to expose more rail. This will make contact easier.

[Pashina12]

17 hours ago, EF57 said:

Well they also fit on the 185 straights.   Yavianice, I don’t understand the expression “because reasons”.

"Because reasons" means basically "for reasons unknown to me that may or may not exist"

[EF57]

Boy, what a great place this is!  Ask a question and within a day you have a plethora of well-considered answers!

 

My problem was resolved by kvp.   And Jeff came right away to its kernal: in contrast to the whole rest of the system, the power plugs are way sub- optimal, that was my immediate impression. 

 

I am not satisfied with “Kato must have their reasons”: it sure wasn’t to enable plugging the power plugs into the sockets deliberately molded in for them.  Their reasons for other design choices are usually comprehensible.   And they could so easily have molded all three holes per rail into the viaduct; why did they put in just one of the marginal ones which doesn’t match the plug without extra bending?  

 

Why am I avoiding straights?  I wanted a minimal viaduct loop, but to spice it up I put in reverse curves on both sides, squeezing the sides together into a “waist”, kind of like a Mycenaean body-shield.   Watching the trains tip from the end curve into the opposite way for the medial s-curve and then back the other way again for the other end is really exciting (and has led to zero derailments at any apeed, Arnold or Shibata). But having been forced to use 185 straights until I get my feed plugs (by which time this layout will be long gone), I find I like them!  Thank you all!