Voltage drop

[DKS]

FWIW, I did some of what Robert did, except in advance. I soldered four feeders to each length of flex track--two to each rail--at the workbench (which is way easier than doing it in place), posed the track in place on the layout, drilled holes for feeders, then installed the flex. I also never used rail joiners; I staggered the rail ends by 4-6 ties, and slid the rails into the ties of adjoining track sections until they just barely butted together (this also addressed the issue of expansion/contraction of rails versus roadbed, and I never suffered any kinks anywhere).

As an aside, I don't use DCC; I did all of this simply to avoid the need to make future repairs due to broken wires or solder joints, and it also very effectively eliminated voltage drops.

[robert3985]

Do you use the AC wiring/outlets on your modules during public shows?

In Ogden, the local fire chief is a member of the club who puts on the biggest show in the region.  He figures if it's been working for 30+ years without any fires or electrocutions, then it's okay.  In Salt Lake City at the NMRA Show...no problemo, and in Wyoming at the Evanston Roundhouse Festival, no lurking fire marshals there either.

So, the answer is "Yup"...and I use them at home too...without any problems whatsoever.

I haven't set up at the Thanksgiving Point show in Lehi Utah yet.  Don't know if I ever will, but I don't expect it to be a problem there either.

The only reason for the AC wiring/outlets is for the lighting.  Since we've gone to 5,000K  11Watt LED's in goose-neck lamps every three feet, the total wattage is only a tenth of what it would be using 100W incandescents like we used to 15 years ago, so things have gotten safer.

Photo (1) - Set up at the Evanston Roundhouse Festival a few years ago with our 5,000K lighting...and with AC wiring/outlets underneath!


Hmmm...looks like 22 lamps, each with an 11W LED 5,000K bulb...that's the equivalent of about two (2) 100W incandescents. 

The extension cord is definitely not heating up like it used to in the '80's at the Ntrak conventions.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[robert3985]

FWIW, I did some of what Robert did, except in advance. I soldered four feeders to each length of flex track--two to each rail--at the workbench (which is way easier than doing it in place), posed the track in place on the layout, drilled holes for feeders, then installed the flex. I also never used rail joiners; I staggered the rail ends by 4-6 ties, and slid the rails into the ties of adjoining track sections until they just barely butted together (this also addressed the issue of expansion/contraction of rails versus roadbed, and I never suffered any kinks anywhere).

As an aside, I don't use DCC; I did all of this simply to avoid the need to make future repairs due to broken wires or solder joints, and it also very effectively eliminated voltage drops.

Not being as smart as DKS, I didn't discover the need for feeders on every piece of rail until my rat's nest of DC wiring and only a couple of feeders here and there started giving me problems, both with recurring dead spots and slooooow running down on the other end.

As an additional observation, most of my problems with old DC wiring underneath were at my soldered joints.  This led me to the thinking process that perhaps Insulation Displacement Connectors (IDC's or "suitcase" connectors) might be better than soldering.  So far so good with ZERO problems where the feeders connect to the sub-busses and where the sub-busses connect to the main power busses.  As a caveat, bite the bullet and buy genuine 3M IDC's if you decide to go this route.  You can get them in bulk quantities online for a small fraction of what you can buy them for at your local whatever store.

On new construction, I rarely use joiners any longer and so far, the staggered rail ends method DKS describes has worked really great...totally trouble free.  Since I have the tools to solder the feeders to the bottoms of the rails now, I am still doing so after the tracks are glued down, but before ballasting.  However, without a resistance soldering station, I'd be doing it as DKS has on new construction.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[eja]

This meant soldering 6" long 22AWG copper feeder wires to each piece of rail...hundreds of 'em, and running robust power busses to every power district, in my case 12AWG high-purity, fine-stranded, red/black copper speaker zip wire...which is probably overkill, but I'd rather overkill it than it not be sufficient.

Photo (1) - New outboard red feeders being installed on my Echo LDE:

OK,  I always thought the buss wire would be below the layout, not above it. .  How did you get the red feeders under the layout ???

[Cajonpassfan]

I don't know who decided way back when that feeders are to be soldered after the track is laid down
An easier way to do this, imho, is to solder the feeders to each piece of flex before it is glued down. I flip it upside down, notch the base of the rail with a couple of swipes of a small triangular file, tin both the rail and a short piece of feeder wire splayed sideways, then glue the track down. After the glue takes hold (this is quick as I like using contact cement for this) I drill the holes and pull the feeders down. Takes about thirty seconds. When painted and ballasted, it's virtually invisible, and the physical solder joints are very solid.
My two cents...
Otto K.

Edit: sorry DKS, I didn't see your previous post. Yes, it seems soldering connections after the track is laid is the facto standard, for no reason other than "it's always been done that way". You, of course, don't fit in the "standard" category.

[peteski]

OK,  I always thought the buss wire would be below the layout

Being pedantic here, bus with one "s"  is the wiring carrying electricity (just like a vehicle called a bus, which carries passengers).  Buss with two esses is an archaic word meaning "kiss".   Buss (Bussmann) is also a brand of electric fuses from Cooper Industries.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/buss
http://www.cooperindustries.com/content/public/en/bussmann/electrical.html

You are also correct, an electrical bus is described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busbar . The wires poking through the layout are feeders which connect the hidden bus with the tracks.

Back to the regularly scheduled thread. 

[robert3985]

OK,  I always thought the buss wire would be below the layout, not above it. .  How did you get the red feeders under the layout ???

Hmmm...I guess the photo could be confusing.  The feeders here are fit into their respective holes drilled previously through to the underside of the layout.  at this point, the tips have not yet been stripped, flattened, bent and tinned...or soldered to the underside of the rails.  After they are soldered to the undersides of the rails, they are not sticking up above the layout, but are sticking out down below...red, black and green feeders.  I then tip the layout section up on its side for easy access to the bottom and connect each feeder to its respective sub-bus, which then gets connected to its respective main power bus.

Because I'm working above layout first, I insert each feeder into its interference fit hole an inch or so before doing the necessary above-layout tasks required to solder it to the undersides of the rails. 

An accompanying photo I attached in the same post shows the main power buses (busses?) being on the underside of my layout.

However, it is not uncommon for power buses on small hollow-core door layouts to be on top because of the problem of feeding crooked wire feeders through two or more layers which compose the construction of a hollow core door.  If a layer of Styrofoam is used as what the roadbed and track are glued to on top of your HCD layout, and also acts as a scenery base, cutting slots into the Styrofoam isn't difficult to do to hide the wiring.  However, I wouldn't recommend this method except for relatively simple layouts because access to the wiring is exponentially more difficult if its buried somewhere under the scenery if modifications or trouble shooting become necessary.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Jbub]

I haven't set up at the Thanksgiving Point show in Lehi Utah yet.  Don't know if I ever will, but I don't expect it to be a problem there either.

No problems for us with using ac power strips. The only problem we've had was their electrician messing up their power box causing the power to go out to the entire layout. Once they figured out something was mislabeled it worked just fine.