Bus wire

[Skybluedave]

I have a simple 3 continuous circuits (linked by points) circular track

 

I want to use dcc and I am not sure how to wire it

 

should I have 1 bus wire per track.?

 

should the bus wire be continuous.? 

[smokebox]

One bus wire pair should be ok for all the tracks.  It can be continuous or not, it doesn't matter unless it is absolutely huge, like the size of a football field.

[HLT 0109]

It's your choice.  The main purpose of the power bus is to avoid relying on rail joiners to transmit power.  Bearing in mind that you should have droppers from each piece of track, you will need lots of connections between them and the power bus so it is practicable to have more than one bus wire.  Again it is a matter of choice whether the bus wire(s) are continuous or spurs.  Mine are spurs and run (under the baseboard) roughly under the route of the rails - that helps keep the droppers short.  so, in your example I would split the power bus by means of terminal blocks close to where the power supply comes to the baseboard, then run a wire under each of your three circuits.  You could run them all the way round or you could fan them out so that that they run in the same direction on opposite sides of the baseboard, stopping them without joining the the ends (if you see what i mean).

 

I am sure you will have comments from other contributors.

 

Harold.

[AMJ]

In theory feed each section of track!  As mentioned above.

 

Start simply and then expand.

 

One bus and my suggestion is feed the layout at one location then do so at the furthest from the feed.  As time permits put in feeds half way between the existing feed so each time you are doubling the number of feeds.

[WIMorrison]

Personally use 2 busses - one for the track and one for accessories.

 

The accessories are fed directly from the command station and the track bus from the command station via an automatic circuit breaker such as an EB1, PSX or MERG DCO. This allows you to operate turnouts when the track is short circuited because a loco has over-run a turnout that is set against.

 

A little bit extra work that you will seriously appreciate later as the layout becomes more complex.