DC Layout Wiring Assistance

[colman29]

Good Evening,

 

I am embarking on my first layout, using DC, insulfrog points and one controller

 

I have had a go at showing where I think I will need power and insulated joints on the attached but I may be wide of the mark!

 

Any help you could provide on wiring would be appreciated

 

Thanks

 

Colman29

 

 

[kevinlms]

Good Evening,

 

I am embarking on my first layout, using DC, insulfrog points and one controller

 

I have had a go at showing where I think I will need power and insulated joints on the attached but I may be wide of the mark!

 

Any help you could provide on wiring would be appreciated

 

Thanks

 

Colman29

 

Track Plan.jpg

 

Track Plan with feed.jpg

Pretty close. The only one you don't need, is the one on the top of the diamond (if you eliminate the gap on the lower leg, that will pick up that section). You would be able to park a second (or more) loco in many places.

 

I assume that your plan is close to scale size, in which case several of the ends would only handle a loco & one wagon.

While you do have the means of running around a vehicle, it is very convoluted, to do so.

[BR60103]

If you have 2 points facing each other (frog to frog) you only need one set of gaps between them unless you plan to store locos there (for run round, possibly). There is no harm, though, in having the pair and the extra feed.

The track at the bottom does not need gaps in both rails, just in the rail from the frogs. Again, no damage except to simplicity.

[jpendle]

Maybe I’m being gormless, but I thought that Insulfrog points didn’t need insulated rail joiners.

 

Regards,

 

John P

[DCB]

Youn don't need the isolators with insulfrog whether DC or DCC.  You could do without half the feeds as well

The plan looks like a bit of fun which you could have with set track on the Kitchen table but as a layout it has very little space for any wagons and precious little operating potential.

Set track eats space, the track spacing at 60mm makes the sharp radius points very wide and long compared to the streamline 2ft radius left and right points and especially the short Y point. trimming the points to 42mm spacing frees up even more space but not for the faint hearted

I guess the board is 5ft 6" X 18" and I attach a Anyrail of a possible shunting layout that size using streamline

[colman29]

Thanks to all for the tips, they will definitely make completing this layout easier. 

 

As you have gathered this layout is going to be located in a restricted space, so thanks for demonstrating what is possible within these constraints by switching to streamline

 

The intention is to have 2 locos, shunting a couple of flatrols (one at a time) around in an industrial setting. I appreciate it looks a tad limited to experienced modellers, I'm hoping use this to learn the basic skills

 

Thanks

 

Colman29

[newbryford]

I hope you don't want to run round a wagon with the original plan.

Leave a wagon on the lower mid estcion where the track feeds are and it will take four changes of direction and almost two trips over the diamond to run round.......

[john new]

Youn don't need the isolators with insulfrog whether DC or DCC.  You could do without half the feeds as well

The plan looks like a bit of fun which you could have with set track on the Kitchen table but as a layout it has very little space for any wagons and precious little operating potential.

Set track eats space, the track spacing at 60mm makes the sharp radius points very wide and long compared to the streamline 2ft radius left and right points and especially the short Y point. trimming the points to 42mm spacing frees up even more space but not for the faint hearted

I guess the board is 5ft 6" X 18" and I attach a Anyrail of a possible shunting layout that size using streamline

Insulators / insulfrog (as stated above) needs to be qualified by if the points do what it says on the tin! The recent one's that I bought have needed a lot of fettling to guarantee through connectivity and have become de-facto livefrog style as a consequence. (True live frog is impossible as the frogs are plastic) but the wiring needs became identical in all other respects.

[colman29]

I hope you don't want to run round a wagon with the original plan.

Leave a wagon on the lower mid estcion where the track feeds are and it will take four changes of direction and almost two trips over the diamond to run round.......

 

All part of the fun

[johnsmithuk]

On 1/25/2019 at 10:52 PM, colman29 said:

Good Evening,

 

I am embarking on my first layout, using DC, insulfrog points and one controller

 

I have had a go at showing where I think I will need power and insulated joints on the attached but I may be wide of the mark!

 

Any help you could provide on wiring would be appreciated

 

Thanks

 

Colman29

 

 

This may seem like a very silly question, but how do you distribute the power from your controller to the track.

Is it a single feed into something like a terminal block to then spread it to each section?

How do you construct the switches for the isolations?

Sorry for the newbie style questions.

[DCB]

Assuming you want to isolate the various sections there are Two basic ways, 1 is common return, all the black feeds are connected to a connector block with a feed from the controller and all the red feeds fed from a individual switches each fed from a connector block connected to the other side of the controller.

2 the other has each pair of red and black wires fed through a double pole switch with each switch fed from a pair of connector blocks themselves connected to the two controller terminals.    You can either run the wires along the baseboard surface, or poke holes in it and run the wires under the surface.

[Pete the Elaner]

On 26/01/2019 at 03:35, jpendle said:

Maybe I’m being gormless, but I thought that Insulfrog points didn’t need insulated rail joiners.

 

Regards,

 

John P

That is a trap which many people fall into. It is not silly at all.

 

Insulfrog points do self isolate, but once you introduce a loop, you can run into problems because power is being fed from the wrong direction.

It is easier to isolate & re-feed than to use too few insulated rail joiners then later have to rip up trackwork to install them.

 

Using small sections is very scaleable: You can move on to larger layouts & the sections themselves do not get any more complex. You simply have more of them.

Keeping small sections makes troubleshooting a lot easier too. It also allows knowledge gained from wiring up a DC layout to be transferred easily to DCC.