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Track Feeders
Whether you use DCC or the older DC system, track feeders are required, one to each rail. Track feeders are of a lighter 20 or 22 gauge stranded copper wire because they are short, and therefore cause very little voltage drop. Being thin and stranded, they are more flexible and solders more easily to the rail. You can buy track feeders already soldered to the bottom of rail joiners or simply solder your own directly to the rail.
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I use 2 power packs on small N-Scale layout, and find the Kato Unitrack small feeders to be very good, no problems. Kato also makes feeder wires that can make any section of track a feeder. Just take out 2 of the rail joiners and attach the 2 feeders. You have to buy a second wire though, as the other end of the feeder contains a plastic box that one end of the second wire plugs into. The other end of the second wire goes to the power pack.
I find solid wire feeders to be easier to install and solder than stranded feeders. At 22 awg, they are small enough to be formed to look like spikes (at least in HO and larger) and flexible enough to route easily from bus to rail.
I agree using solid wire is easier to solder and can be made to look like rail spikes.
Track feeders are very important. Growing up I fed a whole loop from one spot and by the time the power was around to the other side of the table the engines would slow down. With every connector in the rail I was loosing power through the layout. Think of it this way…… in a modular club layout, There would be main feed wires following the track you are powering underneath and that feed or bus wire would plug in from module to module. To get the power up to the rails you would use feeder wires (what I call wire drops). That way you would have fresh power at every module. It would also ensure that your track connection would be good even if your rail connector did not make up good between the modules. The feeder wire that was mentioned does not have to be stranded for that short distance. It can be solid. Telephone 4 wire cable that you wire your phones in your house with is 22 to 24 gauge wire works real good. I cut them to the length I need with enough extra if I need to make changes in my wiring later on. I take the 4 wires out of the jacket sleeve which are usually color coated red, green, yellow, and black and therefore can use certain colors to follow that rail along the route. I use 16 gauge stranded trailer wire for my buss wires following from feeder to feeder and I can get them in various colors too so I can keep track of the wires when wiring and also trouble shooting a problem. That helps keep you from crossing wires and causing a short when wiring. All the phone wire I have found I got for free from when the house phone wires was replaced. Little or no expense. Of course you can buy new but new or old works well if it is not damaged. To connect to the rail, I suggest soldiering the feeder wire to the track connector on the bottom by putting flux on it and the wire end. Coat the bottom of the connector and the wire end with some soldier and then With the connector in a modeling tool clip upside down place the wire feeder on top of the soldier of the rail joiner and touch the soldiering iron on top of the wire so that the solder of both melts together quickly to keep the rail joiner from getting too hot. Most club modules are usually 4 to 6 feet long and sometimes 8 feet. So if you are doing these wire feeders place them at connections 4 to 8 feet apart On Flex track I try to install feeders between every other flex track connection witch would average about 6 feet apart. If you are going through switches, and they are the regular switches I try to feed wires every couple of switches as through all that mess of rail there is some power loss. Switches that change polarity on the rail not being used when the switch is thrown the other way will need an insulator track connector to protect it from a short from your next wire drop. Use the wire feeders or wire drops to your main feed wires and you will have plenty of power for a long way whether you use DC or the New DCC Power sources
Newman
I run N scale DC and DCC. I use 22 gage stranded wire. I run at least a pair of feeder wires between each piar of connectors. On any run of track 36 inches long (39 inches = 1 meter) I run two sets of feeder wires.
I use stranded wire because some solid wire bends easy and some is hard and brittle and is prone to breaking. Fixing a broken fedder wire is not fun. I use red and black wire. I use red on the left rail, locomotive going forward and black on the right rail, locomotive going forward. My buss wire is red and black also.
Lastly, I solder the feeder wires to the bottoms of the rails where it shows because it is hard to cover the wires in N scale. In HO it may not be an issue and the larger the scale it is not an issue. Where it is not going to show I might solder the wire to the side of the rail. It is easier to solder to the side of the rail than the bottom because of getting the hole for the wire to go through in the right place.
Note: I just finnished a small yard with eight turnouts and I soldered to the bottoms of the rails on all feeders. I just counted the pairs up. There is 19 paies or 38 wires soldered to the bottoms of the rails and holes drilled in the plywood to match where the wire would come through. Went a lot faster than I thought it would.
Mike Lee
Do you always solder the track feeder wire to the main bus wire or can automotive ‘suitcase’ connectors be used? I have a wiring job coming up where multiple insulated bus wires are used on a large layout and there will be many dozens of pairs of feeder wires, all of which will require the insulation to be stripped off at all joints if soldered.