wiring track drops

I am currently ready to wire in my track power drops. I plan on a drop every 3 to 4 feet. All the below grid work wire is in and is 14 gage stranded. My drops are 18 gage stranded. The track is Atlas code 83. My question is where to solder wire to track without it looking like a big glob of wire? When I put it on the outside of the track it looks real bad. When I put it on the inside the train derails. The track is .083 high and the wire is around .080 dia. Is it OK to solder it to the joiners then solder them to track or thin down the wire to less strands? Any help will be appreciated!

 

I've seen em tinned, then soldered, to the rail joiners. Seems to work ok.

 

I realise this may be a bit late for you, but I mark and drill holes in the baseboard and solder single core wire (5 or 10 amp fuse wire) drops to the underside of the rail before finally laying the track. I thread the drops through the holes at final lay.

When I get it wrong (forget) I just solder the same wire to the outside of the rail using minimum amount of solder.

 

I went back through a few old posts on the subject and most folks used the gage wire I did, basicly thats why I used it. The 18 gage seemed a little large, oh well, I think I will cut the strands down to about half the dia. , tin, and solder to the rail.

 

Andy, here's what has worked for me & the crew I run with for the past few decades, in N and HO scales:

Go purchase some "doorbell wire" at the hardware store. Everyone has it. It's solid core and sold by the foot as a pair of white and red wires. The intended application is for hooking up a home doorbell chime to the pushbutton at the door. Since it is a common-stock item, it's dirt cheap, which is an added bonus.

Cut the wires in 6"-9" lengths (depending on the depth of your roadbed & baseboard), and strip the last half inch on both sides. Make some nice stockpiles of each color so you don't have to constantly grab the wire cutters & strippers as you install on the layout - "one tool at a time."

Next switch to your needle nose pliers. Take the extreme tip of the wire (really just enough to grab) in the flat (non-serrated) part of your pliers, near the handles for the most leverage. Squish the end of the wire flat, and then pull the wire downward, forming a 90 degree bend right before the squished end of the wire. Clip the squished head short with some good snips if it is "too long" - read ahead to judge what is too long.

Plug in the soldering iron now to get it ready for later, and set it to HIGH temperature. Some people say low temp, but they are wrong - you want the plastic ties exposed to heat for as short a time as possible, and you achieve that with high heat for maximum transfer/minimum spread.

If you examine your work, you should have a piece of wire that looks remarkably similar to a track spike. Drill a small hole straight down through your roadbed & base immediately adjacent to the outside of your rail. After one practice installation, you'll be able to drill feeder holes in the whole area you intend to wire in this session. For now, just drill the one in case you discover adjustments you want to make after your first try.

Now it's time to solder. Tin the rail next to the feeder hole, and tin the bottom of the "track spike" end of the wire (under the simulated spike head). Don't use too much solder. Poke the still-straight side of the wire through the feeder hole, and line up the spike side so that it "hangs" off the bottom of the rail, just like the plastic spike heads do. Apply a touch of heat to solder the joint, let it cool for a few seconds to avoid a cold joint, and you're done!

The result is a beautiful feeder that resembles a rail spike, enough so that it isn't easily noticed even when the track is being inspected specifically. Especially if you weather (paint) your track, this method preserves your track appearance and is virtually invisible while still giving you reliable power transfer.

I hope this helps!

- Doc

 

Hey Doc, Thanks! Only thing is that I was always told that bell wire is to thin.

 

Nope, whoever told you that was mistaken. Electrical circuits are not like computer networks, where your top speed is only as fast as your slowest connection ("bottlenecks"). Electricity will flow through whatever conductor you give it. The limiting factor is the current lost to resistence along the way. A short little hop of 6" over even the tiniest of wires is still going to get more than enough juice to the rails to power your trains. We have used this kind of wiring on massive layouts with huge six-unit lashups plus midtrain helpers. Your bell wire will not be your limiting factor.

Have fun!
- Doc

 

Doc is right. I use heavy wire for my main bus along the baseboard (this is for DCC), take fairly light wires 'sideways' off the bus to pins just under the track, and then use a couple of inches of uninsulated fuse wire for the drops to the track.

This is an example:


The pins near the black construction are track feeds with fusewire drops. The black and red wires continuing to the right of the drops go to the switch of the Tortoise motor just visible at the right. The pin labelled F a little to the left of the track feeds is a live turnout frog feed, fed from the Tortoise switch.

The left hand pair of thin black and red wires are going to the pins and drops for a track further across the baseboard.

 

I agree with what's said. By far it's a lot more important to use very lage buss wires, and the drop wires can be really skinny. Instead of using 14 gauge I'd suggest using something even larger if you're really worried about voltage drop.

As far as worrying about voltage drop, I'd only worry if you had a large layout, and/or planned on running large lashups of locomotives.

I'll be running 12 ga. on my next layout with 24 ga. drop wires to the track.

Mark in Utah

 

Well, seeing that I have a big spool of bell wire laying about I'm going to give it a try. It will look a whole lot neater. This is going to be a DCC layout so I hope that doesn't matter! Thanks all of you for your comebacks.

 

Hey Doc, does this method work for N scale as well?

 

Yes, my friend! It's the method I use all over my own layout. Let's see, let me take a photo or two...





This is N scale Atlas code 80. Hard to spot the feeders, isn't it? Every single track in the photo has 2 feeds attached to it. They are all located directly parallel to each other, so if you spot one you should be able to find the others.

Doc

 

Well done!!

OK, now we've seen the advertising shots and we're sold... how about the tutorial pictures?

 

Could someone comment on the wisdom of soldering the small-gauge rail drops to the bottom of rail joiners? I read this suggestion as another way to hide them from view.

I' also wondering how Mike and others are able to strip wire in the middle w/o cutting it.

Thanks,

Ed

 

Soldering to the joiners is OK, but unless you solder the joiners to the rails you are still subject to the vagaries of a purely contact connection.

Mid-wire stripping is a bit fiddly, but doable. As you can see I use solid core household mains cable as it is cheap, available, stays where it is told and is easier to do this to. Using a sharp knife cut round the insulation at each end of the piece to be stripped (try not to nick the core too much). Then cut the insulation lengthways between these cuts - either with the tip of the blade point into the core, or by slicing the 'side' off the insulation. I use whichever method is convenient for the location. This is the tricky bit, so be very careful doing this. Take your time, always move the blade away from you, and keep all parts of your body (and anyone else's you don't hate) behind the blade. Now you should be able to peel off the insulation.

I should add that although it can be done in situ, I usually do most of this before finally fixing the wire - I show it where it will go and mark the places I want bare.

 

If you're considering soldering to the joiners, you have another option: Atlas makes joiners that have power feeders pre-soldered... FWIW