Planning my first layout

[longchap]

50 minutes ago, Sweetling Park said:

Thank you for your comments.  My initial thoughts were to make the entire layout live, with droppers strategically placed to supply the power without reliance on the fishplates.  However, my more recent thinking is that it would be better to add droppers to every piece of track to ensure that everything is powered.

 

I think these two scenarios are the same, as providing power without reliance on rail joiners means droppers to every piece of track. That translates to a lot of droppers, even on small layouts and I'm still soldering mine to the bus and finding places where I'd completely missed droppers in the first place. All good fun.

 

Edited December 29, 2022 by longchap

[Sweetling Park]

11 minutes ago, longchap said:

I think these two scenarios are the same, as providing power without reliance on rail joiners means droppers to every piece of track. That translates to a lot of droppers, even on small layouts and I'm still soldering mine to the bus and finding places where I'd completely missed droppers in the first place. All good fun.

Yes, you are right and after reading it again realise that I meant to say "without fully relying on the fishplates" for the first scenario.  Sorry about that.

 

The original thought was having one or two dropper feeds per side, but I realised that it would be better to feed all of the track.  As you have said it will mean a lot of droppers and all good fun whilst doing putting them in.

[JJGraphics]

3 hours ago, Sweetling Park said:

However, my more recent thinking is that it would be better to add droppers to every piece of track to ensure that everything is powered.

 

Absolutely the right thing to do. Did that with my layout when I started it almost seven years ago and have never had an electrical problem. Make sure that you also wire the points properly regardless of whether they are live frog or not as that also has a huge impact on reliability. A little time spent on doing those things at the beginning will avoid grief later!

John

[Jeff Smith]

4 hours ago, longchap said:

 

I think these two scenarios are the same, as providing power without reliance on rail joiners means droppers to every piece of track. That translates to a lot of droppers, even on small layouts and I'm still soldering mine to the bus and finding places where I'd completely missed droppers in the first place. All good fun.

 

For portable (exhibition) layouts two droppers per length of rail is recommended for reliability.

[Chimer]

12 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

For portable (exhibition) layouts two droppers per length of rail is recommended for reliability.

 

I'm ever so tempted to ask if you own shares in a wire-and-solder manufacturer, but I probably shouldn't .... 😀

[Jeff Smith]

15 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

For portable (exhibition) layouts two droppers per length of rail is recommended for reliability.

 

3 hours ago, Chimer said:

 

I'm ever so tempted to ask if you own shares in a wire-and-solder manufacturer, but I probably shouldn't .... 😀

This is one of those arguments that could be challenged...after all, unless you regularly continuity check every dropper, it's only when the second dropper fails that you see the effect.  My P4 layout has two droppers per scale length of rail but only has cosmetic plastic fishplates.....

[longchap]

12 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

 

This is one of those arguments that could be challenged...after all, unless you regularly continuity check every dropper, it's only when the second dropper fails that you see the effect.  My P4 layout has two droppers per scale length of rail but only has cosmetic plastic fishplates.....

 

The mere thought of continuity checking potentially hundreds of droppers is depressing. Then thinking how to continuity check an individual dropper challengers my grey matter!

 

[DCB]

The whether to dropper or not to dropper is a good source for arguments.   What you do need is power areas so you can switch off parts of the layout in turn when a fault shuts everything down, too many DCC layouts have a single bus and any fault can shut the entire layout down.  With power areas "Sections " in DC speak you can at least narrow it down to one area.

If  your layout is portable and you exhibit and move the layout around and use fine scale track with cosmetic fishplates and old fashioned track power then  droppers and back up droppers for redundancy, two or three per rail is good practice.  It probably has forty or more soldered joints per foot between PCB sleepers and rail anyway so a few extra is neither here nor there.  On the other hand.

If its brand new 00 set track on the kitchen table or lounge floor which has to be taken up when you finish playing you probably don't need more than one feed until your oval gets to about 12ft  X 12ft at which time doubling up starts to be a good idea. (Dropper holes in the kitchen table can be a source of domestic friction.)   Temporary layouts have their fishplates cleaned by constant assembly and disassembly.

The thing is 1950 era 00 code 100 track and the like can cope with typical  1950 era power units, 1 amp 12 volt   12VA  through fishplate connectivity. Their overload trips at 1amp.   Double it and the connections start to fail, point blade tags, fishplates, loose fitting ones especially.   At some point, coaches with lighting sets, tired old locos, 5 locos running one train etc 1amp is not enough to run the trains and adding power starts to cause track problems,  The cure, lots of droppers or FEEDs.  Or shorter trains, and or 1 amp cut outs.   

[Jeff Smith]

53 minutes ago, DCB said:

 Temporary layouts have their fishplates cleaned by constant assembly and disassembly.

This is a double edged sword - constant assembly/disassembly also loosens the grip......

My experience with aircraft connectors is that sometimes merely disconnecting and reconnecting can restore conductivity!  Many a 'faulty' unit has been saved by this action!

[RobinofLoxley]

My soldering improved since I started on droppers. The penalty for a failure after installation can be quite high and refixing one in place under a baseboard isn't easy if it can be done at all. So I test mine 24 hours after making, as a rule I don't solder and install on the same day.

 

I also replaced my soldering iron with an Antex. Good move.

 

I'm confident now that I won't have dropper failures but there may be a few early ones on the layout waiting for me...

[rogerzilla]

You can use wired fishplates to save on the soldering but the mechanical connection can still get oxidised and fail (although it would take two fishplates to fail for a teain to stop).

 

The layout I built (literally) in 24 hours in 2015 is still ok, and that uses setrack joined with ordinary fishplates and one soldered power feed per track.   It's all DC.

 

Any failures of continuity will depend on humidity, temperature and possibly DC vs DCC (I would expect DC to be worse for corrosion, as one rail is always the anode and the other the cathode).

 

It's probably something to worry about for layouts in sheds, in lofts or those that are going to be kept for a decade or more.

[Sweetling Park]

Thank you once again for your comments and sharing your experiences, as they have been most helpful.

 

I have been thinking about this some more and three questions have come to mind.  I would be grateful if someone could offer me some guidance, please.

 

I have so far seen three different locations that modellers have used to solder droppers to the track: the outside of the rails at the bottom; on the inside of the rail (four foot) at the bottom; and directly underneath the rail (less visible).  Could someone advise me on which is the best method, please?

 

As this is my first layout my original thought was to use one power feed (DCC) for simplicity.  I appreciate that a short circuit/power issue would then shutdown the whole layout, however, I am wondering if it would be worth implementing from the outset.  I am hoping to have two main loops, a heritage line (possibly a loop) and sidings/depot.  I am intending to purchase the ESU ECoS system but don't know if/how the ECoS can cater for different power areas or how best to separate them.  Therefore, if someone could advise me on this please then I would be most grateful.

 

On a similar theme I am wondering if it would be advantageous to provision for track circuits/block detection from the outset.  At this moment in time, I am not planning on using automation, but would like to have signals in the future.  I believe the ECoS can handle blocks but don't know if it would be too much too soon.  If anyone can advise on this as well please, then I would be most grateful.

 

Thank you in advance.

 

In other news, I am hoping to resume track planning in the coming weeks so will post an update as soon as I can.

[RobinofLoxley]

First question: location of droppers. Primarily personal preference, but I would have 2 objections to soldering directly underneath the rail. Visibility and a smaller anchorage.

 

Second question: DCC power is fed to all parts of the layout and with droppers all you are doing is connecting things underneath instead of via the track. It makes no difference what the command system is. When you have a track plan, post it here and you will get suggestions about how to separate it into sections if necessary.

 

Signalling can be done independently, doesnt require any block configuration. That might be helpful/needed if you want to control turnouts via the command unit. It would be a surprise if the ECoS couldnt handle signalling and automation with the appropriate accessories - some one will confirm.

[Jeff Smith]

I usually solder droppers to the outside of the rail to prevent possible interference with wheel flanges.  I drill a small hole next to the rail, bend the dropper end a few mm's at 90 degrees then angle this a couple of mm's.  The first bend should nestle in the side of the rail above the foot and parallel to the rail, the second bend is to clear the foot.  If you also put a curve in the dropper where it passes through the board it should hold in place while you solder.  You need a hot iron and to be quick to prevent melting the plastic, you could also put a couple of locking or spring tweezers either side to act as heat sinks.  Use pre-tinned wire for droppers if possible.

 

Regardless of how many droppers, the whole layout will shut down if a short occurs.  Sidings can be live all the time or switched off with self isolating points.  If you want them live all the time, ie to keep sound or lights on, the you run the risk of accidentally driving into an incorrectly set point which will short the system out.

[AndrueC]

On 29/12/2022 at 18:35, JJGraphics said:

 

Absolutely the right thing to do. Did that with my layout when I started it almost seven years ago and have never had an electrical problem. Make sure that you also wire the points properly regardless of whether they are live frog or not as that also has a huge impact on reliability. A little time spent on doing those things at the beginning will avoid grief later!

John

Same here after learning from my first 'partially live' layout. All my turnouts have frog power wires soldered in place but I'm only making them live as/when/if turnouts need it. So far I have two turnouts (out of nearly fifty) than have had to have their frogs energised.

 

As for dropper location - if I was building a layout I intended to exhibit then underneath would be the way to go. I was going to do that anyway for Wallarium but my use of foam underlay (while in itself a Good Thing(tm)) made droppers under the rails a bit of a pain due to the hassle of feeding them through a hole which closes up and hides as soon as you've withdrawn the tool you used to make it. So I solder to the outside then paint over to hide them as best I can.

 

One thing I do regret (and I don't know why I did it) is that I changed from soldering frog droppers underneath to soldering the rail itself. This has resulted in some joints having to be remade as they interfered with wheels (poor soldering) or the undercarriage (insulation proud of rail). I don't know why I made that choice. It was probably the result of Peco N scale Streamline turnouts not having a pig tail for frog power but that's a poor excuse because the link wires are perfectly accessible.

 

For both my layouts I went with a single bus (although the new layout does have a separate accessory bus). I connected the droppers to the bus using suitcase connectors. These have the advantage of speed but the disadvantage of requiring you to pay attention when making them - something that 'doing it fast' can cause you to fail at. More importantly once made you can't unmake them except by cutting the dropper so you have to hope there is never a need to disconnect a dropper from the bus. Also (again a result of them being a quick option) I've ended up with a bit of a mess underneath the board. It's not awful..but I think some kind of screw connector would have made me take more care. You probably have to actually plan those whereas I just need to find about 15mm of free bus wire to attach the connector.

Edited January 9, 2023 by AndrueC