My HO Railroad Part 7 "Soldering Track Feeders"

[atlmacman]

I'm enjoying this video series immensely. I've never soldered anything (I'm new to model railroading and have only a starter oval), but your clean soldering makes me want to try it.

If you're ever in Atlanta, I'd love to meet you in person. You're giving me one heck of an education here. Thank you, fine sir.

[TheRunescapeHero1]

awsome you sound like George Clooney haha

[D3451097]

Thank you!! Soldering made easy. Congratulations you have made a subject/ technique which I (and many others) dread look very easy:-) Brilliant.

[4202EJW]

Do you need feeders on a 12x8 layout? What are feeders? They look complicated!

[flymanjg]

Yes. If you are running a DCC layout you should have a set of feeders one to each rail every six feet of track. Feeders are simply 22ga stranded wire that you solder to the track then make your power connection to your DCC command station or DC transformer. You can also buy terminal strips that already have the feeder soldered to them and they look like rail joiners. In fact you use then instead of rail joiners.

[4202EJW]

Oh cool cause I would wreck my layout if I did it your way. I just need terminal track every six feet! Thanks!

[DL2045]

So I only need one wire connected to one rail? What about the other rail?

[flymanjg]

Two wires, one to each rail, one to each terminal of the DCC power station.

[DL2045]

So several wires can go back to the power station?

[flymanjg]

Normally you would run two wires out of the dcc power station. these two wires are your power bus. then from these two wires you splice in smaller gauge wire called feeders. these feeders then get connected to the track every six feet. make your wires color coded (Black and red) so that you keep the polarity the same through out the layout and do not create a short circuit.

[DL2045]

thank you very much, I'll keep you pssted on how it turns out!

[tarmac2001]

Is that Peco Track?

[flymanjg]

Atlas code 83

[tarmac2001]

The reason that I asked that, is because I bought some of their turnouts for the first time to put on my n scale layout and soldered them in.

The ties on those turnouts must be made from the same grade of plastic that ashtrays are made of because I'd solder almost right above them and they wouldn't show the slightest disfigurement. I've melted plenty of atlas track ties from a 1/2" .

I was astounded when you told me atlas code 83, none of the ties were melted in anyway from my eye.

[flymanjg]

The wet cotton balls act as a heat sink and draw the heat away from the rails that you are not touching with the soldering iron. (no ties melted)

[tarmac2001]

I saw the cotton balls, but I was surprise to see the two ties, which the wire was between, didn't even melt since the cotton balls weren't directly over them.

Then again, the soaked cotton balls were just close enough to withdraw enough heat from melting those two ties.

That's a great technique for soldering track. I'm going to have to try that. Another thing I'm probably going to have to do is use a pen type iron instead of my 230 watt trigger type gun iron (lol).

[flymanjg]

Latex Paint. I painted it grey to get a perspective of how things would look when ballasted.

[nwteacher]

Thank you, have not been able to find anything this helpful!

[jbrunsonjr]

This is awesome - thanks for posting thisup! I still have a lot to learn since I just got back into this as an adult a few months ago, and have a million questions about DCC operation. Will you be adding in any signals? I look forward to part 8!

Thanks again for posting...

[flymanjg]

What would a railroad be with out Signal. I currently have several dwarf signals on the interchange. I will be installing modern signals from BLMA coupled with infared detectors from Logic Rail. I will also use two Atlas signals on both "Under Ground" reverse loops/stagging tracks.

[jbrunsonjr]

I just saw your dwarf signals in your other video. AWESOME! Could you point in a direction as to where you learned most of your DCC stuff - looks pretty simple, but before I go any further with my layout, I'd like to do everything I need to in order to add all the cool stuff that I might find in the future as I continue to learn. Great layout!!

[flymanjg]

Jr see the message that I sent you.

[LIONELTRAINS4LIFE]

thaks for the tips I know it will help me out a lot!

[Guilford88panam]

this vid helped alot thanks!

[ferosrogue]

very nice. Can't wait to see it in work.