DCC wiring - is this right?

[Crumplezone]

 

 

So that is my current planned layout with trains running off to fiddle yard right. What I am wanting to check upon is am I insulating the right sections? The blue squiggles are insulated joiners and the brown squiggles are Hornby dcc clips for added power connectivity and making it abit easier. Red and black dot are potential power feed locations. I think where I placed the insulated joiners is preventing a polarity short on the Vs on the lower pointwork, is this correct?

I still think I may need to provide a power feed in the headshunt mind.

Its quite doing my head in, so I'm here asking if this looks correct or not.
 

[HLT 0109]

I think we need to know what points you are intending to use?; if Hornby, they will be insulfrog and you will not need any insulating rail joiners since the frog is self-insulating and the point clips ensure everything is live (though it is still good practice to have lots of power feeds); if the points are the latest Peco electrofrog, I think all the points will short because  you show +ve and -ve both being fed into the V at the same time (via the point clips).  Removing them will let the power flow into the siding to which the turnout is pointing.  However, you will need insulating rail joiners at all Vs (and power supplies to the rails beyond them) otherwise both rails in the "isolated" siding will be of the same polarity.  I hope I have got this right but someone will comment if not.  In explaining this, I am looking at the two sidings at the top of your drawing.  If you want "best electrofrog practice" then things are more complicated but I think you proposal is flawed.

 

Harold.

[Crumplezone]

The pointwork is Peco's settrack insulated ones, but they go fully live with the Hornby dcc clips, my issue was I was getting a short near ST-240 which connects to the lower loop of the run around. I had bought these as they had less plastic on the V section compared to Hornby settrack and was recommended over the Hornby stuff due to me having a few 0-6-0s

I had put the insulated joiners in as brian Lambert's guide it made mention of possible shorts when a loco wheels bridge the V. So I assumed this is what happened on the above short which ended up destroying a decoder on said loco which shorted.

[Brian]

Hi

If you have shorting issues where a metal wheel is able to bridge both rails at the frog Vee then fitting a pair of Insulated Rail Joiners (IRJs) will resolve it.

But the correct fix is to check the wheels are to corrected Back to Back gauge and replace any wheels that are very old and have wider rims than modern ones.

BTW if you fit IRJs to the frogs Vee rails to overcome the shorting problem you do not then fit the Hornby Electro point clips to the problem point, as these will simply bring the shorting problem back again!

[Chimer]

With the insulated joiners placed as shown, you will definitely need power feeds to the red rail on the bottom track both in the loop and at the left hand end.  There's no absolute need for a power feed to the headshunt on the right hand side though most people will recommend you put one in rather than rely on the joiners to pass the power.

 

As I understand it, the Hornby DCC clips stop the points automatically isolating a siding when the point is against it, meaning your locos can keep making noises, etc.  They don't turn a plastic insulfrog into an metal electrofrog (!), so they wouldn't normally require insulated joiners. 

[deadlyduck]

I would advise you to go to Brian Lamberts Or Allen Gartners websites they explained how to wire for DCC,also the way to wire your points.Hornby clips are in my opinion a waste

 

of time,ive wired my upcoming layout using their methods n all is going smoothy.Take your time

david

[deadlyduck]

This is 1 part of how i have wired my DCC layout,as its a fiddle yard im able to put the motors on the top.Its all

 

 

working fine.All wiring is at least 4 amp.This is how ive done it with all my knowlege comeing off the web + DVDs +

 

YouTube

[Suzie]

Correcting the back to back measurement will not prevent wide tyres shorting on an Insulfrog point, to resolve that you will need to use insulated joiners the same as for live frog points pretty much as you have shown in your diagram. That said I think that set track points have more plastic in the frog so there should be less of a problem.

 

There is no point in fitting the point clips and the insulating joiners because fitting the point clips negates the benefit of fitting the insulated joiners. This is a dead easy layout to wire properly anyway so forget about the point clips and just wire feeds to the ends of all the tracks at both ends of the layout, and additionally the two 'inner' rails of the loop and you will be fine.

 

If you are going to fit insulated joiners, put them on both rails of every frog - it matters not where the frog is, the problem is always the same.

 

I guess that you are a bit constrained for space, but if you can find room for short Electrofrog streamline your life will be completely without worry.

[Crumplezone]

 

If I've understood correctly then, assuming the dots are power feeds to track, it should have power feeds in those locations? I'm fine with dropping the dcc power clips if power feeds would be easier to work with, I'd just heard they can be sometimes beneficial.

The locomotive which shorted was actually a Bachmann Jinty, a dcc ready one, so it should have modern wheels and not the old wide type and the spacing should be fine.

You would be correct in that I am limited for space, but also its a cost factor in regards to the electrofrogs and my own soldering skills and knowledge of wiring up a electrofrog with the polarity switching devices, I've not had especially good experience thus far with soldering so I didn't want to ruin expensive electrofrogs so I opted for peco's insulfrogs over Hornby's since they seem to have a better throw.

At the moment I not intending to motorising the points but do things manual as its only a 2ft gap to reach over to throw points.

So if I put the feeders in line the image included in this post, do I still want to use insulated joiners on the Vs or leave it as is and see if shorts still happen? The short did happen when I was test running the track non-fixed down with the powerclips installed on the points and all metal joiners. Though the short didn't happen again with my other locos so I could chalk it up just to the Jinty throwing a wobbly.

Also I know in general joiners are a weakspot for electrical resistance but would the Peco wired joiners be usable on this small layout without to much issue? Its the ones with the 8inch wire attached to them for around £6 with a rounded hollow connector at the end of the wire , I was intending to just plug them into a electrical white block to save on alot of underboard soldering.

I'm just not entirely  confident in my soldering skills, a test bit of track I kept having issues trying to solder the feeders to the side of the rails, either the plastic melted from the heat or the wires connected but didn't conduct power very well. Though if any of you have any easy suggests to spread to heat without it melting ties I may attempt side feeder wires again. I was using 16/0.2 for the feeders with the ends already tinned before attaching to sides, I have seen mentioned to use solid copper wire from standard house earth wire. Would this be a better option?

I apologise about all the ?s, I don't have the luxury of contacting someone to come show me in person or getting to a model railway club due to health reasons so I'm limited to forum, youtube and Brian's book for understanding this stuff and I also felt it better to ask forum wise as in general it dips into a bigger pool of knowledge.

Thank you to everyone who has answered so far.

[deadlyduck]

The way ive wired mine is to drop a dropper for every cut n joiners in the rails.The way ive ive learnt is to use wire to the amperage of the controller,thats why ive use 4/5amp.As for soldering its a matter of practice practise pracise.Im sure it would help you if you could buy the smallest soldering bit you can that way you minimise the heat.you have to make your track as DCC friendly as you can,but with limited resources it can be a struggle.Idealy it should be Electrofrog points with them being altered the way as shown Allen Gartners website.Ive followed it n found that on my layout it works s treat.What you want is consistant electricity to all parts of your layout

[Suzie]

You don't need anything bigger than 16/02 for the droppers and if you keep them short you can get away with 7/02 which will make the soldering easier - avoid solid conductor for the droppers, and you will find it easier to use stranded wire for the DCC bus too. The trick with soldering to the track is to use new track and wire, use solder with a bit of silver in it (costs about four times as much as the cheap solder without) and a hot iron at least 25W (50W is ideal - the old 15W Antex that was the staple in the olden days will not work with modern lead free solder). Acid cored solder with phosphoric acid in it will solder anything very easily if you get stuck but you do have to wash the joint thoroughly afterwards to prevent corrosion.

 

The usual problem with 0-6-0 chassis shorting is that they pick up a strand of wire or filing that gets behind a wheel and shorts out when going round a corner as the wheels move sideways. Unflanged wheels will short out on a dead frog too.

 

Don't be frightened of going live frog because of the wiring - for DCC Insulfrog and Electrofrog streamline have to be wired the same. Electrofrog can be easily modified for improved performance but even unmodified they are a lot better than Insulfrog.

 

The feeds in your diagram are good. I favour soldering to the rails rather than the pre-wired joiners but if you have trouble with soldering they are the way to go. Fit the insulated joiners and you will be sure that you will not have to take up the track to fit them later.

 

I will say it again, the wiring is the same whether you use Insulfrog or Electrofrog - so don't discount going live frog because of the wiring, and remember that going live frog instantly eliminates any possibility of frog shorting problems which are only a feature of dead frogs.

[Crumplezone]

Thanks for the input, I'll consider electrofrogs, but for now I'll stick with the insulated frogs, I don't intend to push to ballasting stage for awhile so its just a manner of lifting the track off a foam underlay held down by pva so not to much issue on the track of destroying it.

My other concern is the geometry with small radius settrack and electrofrog SL-E91s and E92s, the angle and radius of the points plus spacing change it quite abit if the streamline electrofrogs are used. I'm not entirely sure how to space the runaround correctly to get the crossovers to line up properly with flexi track. Though this could be down to using SCARM, scarm shows about I would say a track in size spacing when the points go into similar situations and no matter of wiggling back and forth seems to help line them up. By using the different angle to it changes the top sidings to curve more inward toward the runaround loop.

I feel quite a novice already just trying to get the DCC stuff around my head so adding a layout plan change ontop gets abit boggling.

 

[deadlyduck]

As you can see you get many views on a subject.Im not an electrical expert at all,in fact the opposite,so i found out some who were hence the 2 people named in 1 of my above threads.This is the first time ive wired a layout its from advice written by the 2 aforementioned.If you stick to 1 train of thought its hard to go wrong.Take your time think it through.Use the advice you feel most comforable with

[Chimer]

Settrack points produce track spacing of 2 and 5/8 inches (to suit the difference between the radii of 1st/2nd, 2nd/3rd, 3rd/4th radius curves).  Streamline points produce a more prototypical 2 inch spacing.  A settrack short straight (ST-202) between two streamline points forming a crossover opens up the track spacing to the settrack standard, at least in practice - though the various drawing programs might not think it does so with perfect accuracy.

[TheWeatheringMan]

You don't need anything bigger than 16/02 for the droppers and if you keep them short you can get away with 7/02 which will make the soldering easier - avoid solid conductor for the droppers, and you will find it easier to use stranded wire for the DCC bus too. The trick with soldering to the track is to use new track and wire, use solder with a bit of silver in it (costs about four times as much as the cheap solder without) and a hot iron at least 25W (50W is ideal - the old 15W Antex that was the staple in the olden days will not work with modern lead free solder). Acid cored solder with phosphoric acid in it will solder anything very easily if you get stuck but you do have to wash the joint thoroughly afterwards to prevent corrosion.

 

The usual problem with 0-6-0 chassis shorting is that they pick up a strand of wire or filing that gets behind a wheel and shorts out when going round a corner as the wheels move sideways. Unflanged wheels will short out on a dead frog too.

 

Don't be frightened of going live frog because of the wiring - for DCC Insulfrog and Electrofrog streamline have to be wired the same. Electrofrog can be easily modified for improved performance but even unmodified they are a lot better than Insulfrog.

 

The feeds in your diagram are good. I favour soldering to the rails rather than the pre-wired joiners but if you have trouble with soldering they are the way to go. Fit the insulated joiners and you will be sure that you will not have to take up the track to fit them later.

 

I will say it again, the wiring is the same whether you use Insulfrog or Electrofrog - so don't discount going live frog because of the wiring, and remember that going live frog instantly eliminates any possibility of frog shorting problems which are only a feature of dead frogs.

Hi,

There is no need at all to use 'new' track or expensive solder containing silver.

As far as the track goes all that is necessary is to make sure the rail is cleaned prior to soldering either by rubbing with a fibreglass stick or fine wet and dry. If all else fails simply scraping the rail with a screwdriver a few times will provide a good 'bite' for the solder.

As to the solder, all that is required is a GOOD QUALITY 60/40 cored solder - dont use a cheap version.

I've been soldering wires to rails for over 45 years in this way without any problems or failures either during the work or subsequently.

Also i'd very strongly advise against 'lead free' solders for model railway work as the extra heat these solders demand can easily cause damage to trackbases or even rails (due to expansion and buckling).

 

Droppers should not be too fine (I would never use 7/02) - keep to a decent size of wire.

Regards

[Crumplezone]

I seen mention to wet some cotton swabs and put them on the rails about 3-4inches from the solder point to ensure the heat is transferred along instead of downward into the plastic webbing. Is this good practice and not have any ill effects beyond getting the track slightly wet?

I also noted while reading up about soldering it requires to be a silver look when the joint is done, this may have been a issue in my case as to be honest when I first attempted it was a kinda dull cloudy black speckled look to it.

I am using a 60/40 mix rosin cored solder from my local model shop, I had bought  a mercury 20W soldering iron with fine tip (its recommended for circuit board soldering) and it came with lead free solder which I was advised against using by the local model shop and I had read previously they require alot of heat to work effectively anyway.

I admit I didn't quite know about fibre glass pen scrubbing the section to solder so that could be a factor of the joins not working especially well in my first test runs.

I do intend to pick up some of those peco wired joiners to just to make things alittle easier for myself and maybe after abit of practice on a test track bit and able to get a suitable looking join I'll attempt side of the track soldering. Sure it probably would be easier for me to create my own joiners with wire attached but I think I'll probably end up melting the joiners and making them unuseable currently.

I do appreciate everyone's input and guidance with these things, it has been about 13-15years since I was last in the model railway scene and back then it was quite different to it is now, with the advent of DCC and multi-loco running on the same layout I'd decided to come back into the hobby and while stumbling in a few places I think adopting dcc now and getting to understand it means I am pretty much future proofed as Hornby, Bachmann, Dapol and the other providers start to adopt more and more DCC ready products.

It can be confusing at times mind, epsecially when you read and get told "its just a 2 wire system" but its not really, its needs alittle more work than that, though the principles seem abit easier than analogue especially when not having to create isolation sections and numerous other wiring just to have a few locos moving about.

[Crosland]

If you are soldering in situ on the layout and use a fibreglass pencil then be sure to clean up all the dust so that it cannot migrate into loco mechanisms.

 

Droppers are fine in 7/0.2 so long as they are short. It will take the fault current of the majority of boosters with little voltage drop.

 

I echo Suzies recommendadtion of an iron of at least 25W, preferrably 50W. The trick is to get the heat into the joint as quickly as possible without allowing surrounding material to overheat. That requires power and a decent size, clean, well tinned bit. Follow that and even lead free will be fine (I use nothing else).

 

Andrew