Best way to wire up this layout?

[TattTatts]

Hi all,

 

Going to give this layout from Steve's Trains a go.

 

I'm going for DC and have 2 controllers and a couple of splitter power leads (Kato 24-833) - so what is the best way to wire this layout up?

 

I'm still fairly new to the hobby so explain it to me like I'm an idiot 🙂

 

Thanks in advance.

[cteno4]

Hi @TattTatts,

 

Welcome to the forum, glad you found us. Take a sec when you get a chance and introduce yourself over in the introduction forum.

 

I assume you are just wanting to use the power routing of the points in order to control the sidings’ power. Also is this a temporary layout setup or something you want to fix down? If you are going to fix it down then it’s always best to use more feeders in case you get any voltage drops in unijoiners later due to scenery materials getting in there. If temporary you can just experiment. 

 

For feeders i am a huge fan of just making your own one of two ways. The most solid day is to use a roto tool and cut two slots in the roadbed just below the rails about 1cm long. Then tin the bottom of the exposed rail with solder and tin the end of a piece of wire for the feeder [like 20g wire] and then place the tinned end of the wire in the slot and hit it with the soldering iron quickly and the two tinned surfaces will fuse quickly. Once soldered put a drop of epoxy over the slot and end of the insulation of the wire. This will make the most positive connection tot he rail you can do and is the most unbreakable. You can then have a feeder on any piece of track not just a 62mm feeder. 

 

The second way to make your own feeders is to take a unijoiner and using some pointy needle nose pliers put lol the metal connector out of the plastic roadbed clip housing. You can slide the end of a stripped wire into the plastic housing and slide the metal joiner back in with the wire under the metal track joiner. No solder joint is needed, but you can solder the wire to the bottom of the metal joiner, but you have to make a nice flat solder joint for it to fit back in. You can then use these like the Kato unijoiner feeders. You can use 22g wire [and 20 if you get good at it] and the soldered versions are not quite as delicate as the Kato unijoiner feeders are [they can break easily and are 24g wire]

 

Both techniques require a little practice and also soldering practice to get good at, but thats something a couple of hours and a couple pieces of sacrificial track and wires can get you! Don’t be scared of soldering, it’s really not that hard. Tons of videos on youtube on it to watch and learn from then just practice and experiment some and you’ll get it. Anyone can solder!

 

Using the points for your power control and a power pack on each of your two loops the only real rules are dont put a feeder on as siding or on either track of a passing siding [the mainline track and the passing track]. Its best to put feeders on either side of a passing track [outside the ponts] on each end so each track would be fed well from either side as you cant have a feeder inside the passing tracks]. You also have to remember that a double or single crossover will not supply power thru the crossover, you need to feed them from both sides of the crossover. Only other thing is to make sure you spread of feeders ends up with a feeder like every 5 or 6 feet. If it’s going to get set in place I find it better to reduce that to more like every 3-4 feet to be safe off into the future since all those track joints cant be cleaned later without tearing stuff up. If you do have a power drop develop later you can always add a feeder by drilling a hole next to the track on the outside of the rail and soldering the wire to the outside of the rail to make a new connection. But this is tricky to do to not melt the roadbed and its a bit ugly.

 

if this is going to get nailed down i would first make sure to set it all up on the table and experiment with the feeder placement to make sure it all works as designed and also make sure there are no mods needed to the track plan due to how trains run and such. Playing with the actual track layout with a train is really different than looking at it on a cad screen.

 

you can do all this using the 62mm feeder and or the unijoiner feeders. Just need to engineer in where you can swap out of their straight track to slip in a 62mm and with the unijoiner feeders just be careful with them as they are just easy to break. Down side of the Kato wires is they are 24g and a bit whimpy, so best not to try to feed very long sections of track with them.

 

heres a rough shot of what i would think the minimum for this layout, but i would probably add a few more if getting nailed down to be safe. You can just buy some wire and then dress the wire back to your throttles and connect them all to a little terminal strain. There are simple screw down or lever operated terminal strips to connect all your wires up to each throttle easily.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Junech]

Jeff probably explained most of the important things for feeders, and the minimal version should also work just fine. But a lot depends on how you want to operate the layout. Just as a quick example:

 

If the siding on the bottom left will have an engine shed, it is typical to have a separate switch to turn on/off the section of the engine shed so the engine inside won't move while another engine is moving onto the track in front of it to just refuel. That would add a switch + a feeder for the blue part (engine shed).

 

There can be a lot more of those situations on your track plan so a good next step would be thinking about the landscape first and playing around with a temporary setup to identify places where you wish the engine would be able to stop. You can also post the landscape sketch here and we might be able to identify those spots from experience as well.