Atlas Code 83 issues

I am having trouble with the engines running and turning on/off randomly on my setup. I was wondering what I should use to cut track(flextrack) and then what i should use to join them ? Solder, transition joints ? All my locos are dcc and run great however this intermitent power outages drives me nuts, I might tear up all the track and start over. Please advise me so I don't repeat this process over and over again.

 

It is always a good idea to solder wires to each piece of flextrack and join them to a power bus under the layout. It is never a good idea to rely just on rail joiners. They will work loose over time or corrode, inhibiting the flow of current through your track.

It is also not a good idea to solder all your track together. Expansion and contraction will force the track off its intended path or throw it out of gage if it is held tightly in place. Most people only solder track together on curves and leave expansion joints between the other pieces of track.

At our club (HO scale) we use a credit card to gap each piece of track. Every single piece of flex is wired individually and fed through the layout to a bus underneath. Rail-joiners are used but all they do is mechanically hold the two pieces of track in alignment with each other.

 

Solder wires to every piece of flextrack on your layout? No wonder people turn away from this hobby and take up something easier and more rewarding, like double crossticks or knitting with lint. I have almost 5 scale miles of main line track - that's over 90 sections of flextrack - and there is no way I would ever submit to the tedium of soldering wires to every one of those sections. I had the same problem as ctozzi, and I'm replacing all of the Atlas flextrack with Kato Code 83 Unitrack. Laugh derisively if you want to, but compared to flextrack it's bulletproof, and once it's ballasted it will look just as good as flextrack - better and more reliable, in fact, than a lot of flextrack installations I've seen, with their missing ties and misaligned joints.

 

Kato Code 83 Uni Track also has a nice selection of track and even a 31 7/8" radius for long cars.I see nothing wrong with the way it looks,like you said,after ballasting it looks great and is very reliable.

 

Well there you go.

I don't think flextrack is to blame for someone's lack of attention to detail.

If you want reliable performance with flextrack and don't want to tear up your track and replace it in the future, you really have no choice but to make sure that every piece of track is properly hooked to your power bus. You cannot rely on rail joiners alone in the long run.

Some people are happy with a 4 X 8 layout, some want an empire. If you have fun with your layout, that's really all that matters. Part of that fun is having your trains run smoothly. For smooth running trains, you must have electrical continuity, there is no way around it.

Is soldering wire to flextrack tedious? Yes!

However, its got to be done. You can choose to do it right the first time or tear it up and redo it later.

Soldering wire to a piece of Flextrack isn't that big a deal. When you do it a few times, it takes about 15 seconds a joint (if that). Of course, the first few times might take a little longer. So lets be absolutely pessimistic and say it takes two minutes to do each piece of track. Thats 30 pieces an hour. So in three hours, we could have all of Riverotter's track soldered. I submit that three hours isn't much time at all if the result is reliable electrical continuity throughout your layout. After all no one said that Model Railroading would provide instant gratification.

It's my hobby and as I've learned the layout is never totally "done". There is always something else to finish or a new area to superdetail. Yes, in 20 years, I'm sure, I'll still be "working on the layout". As for young people, you'll be surprised at how many understand that a job worth doing is worth doing well. I have a lot of faith in the youngsters who are members of our club. The kids who do have the patience and the work ethic; ...they do stick around even when they know that the layout won't be finished tomorrow.

One of the nice things about working with a group of model railroaders (even hanging out in a forum like this) is that we can learn from other people's mistakes. One hopes that one won't be doomed to keep repeating that mistakes that others have already made.

 

Sounds to me like ripping up all the track (wiring, ballast, etc) and replacing it with Kato Unitrack is a lot more expensive and time consuming than soldering the flextrack would have been when originally building the layout. Soldering every flextrack section does sound extreme but our club did the same years ago and we've never had a problem. And that's why my home layout was done the same way.

 

Even though my layout is DCC I still have it set up in blocks. Each block has it's own set of feeder wires and ALL railjoints within the blocks are soldered, including the turnouts. Gaps cit in the rails allow for expansion and isolate the blocks from each other. The feeders for each block are routed through their own DPDT switch at the control panel. Sixteen blocks, sixteen DPDT's.

 

The soldering may only take a pessimistic 2 minutes, but what about the time to run the power wires under the table to each and every segment of track to be soldered, drilling the holes, etc.?
I replaced the flextrack with the Unitrack and installed power terminals at two locations about halfway apart from one end of the layout to the other (roughly mile 1 and mile 3). The track is bullet proof, there's zero power drop, and the track is ready to be ballasted. Total time: 2 hours.

 

Not at all. and neither is the drilling and the wiring either. You can either decide you don't have tome to do that and go spend more on a product that limits your choices in the longrun or you get down, design your wiring skematic, and implement it. As a bonus you will be prepared for a new task in the future: custom building switches for those places where there are no prebuilt switches that will match the area.

But I guess some people never grow beyond the trainset...

 

The track may be bullet proof, for now, but I submit that after a few seasons of heat, cold, humidity, etc. you will have the same problems again in the future.
The original poster asked for advice and that was the best advice that I could give him. Going from flextrack to sectional track was not advice that I would have given him based on my over 20 years of model railroading experience. Like I said before, one of the nice things about this board is that you are given the chance to learn from other peoples mistakes. Whether you choose to take that advice is your choice.

 

In my opinion that's how to do it right. Remember the old saying, "Never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over.

I like Unitrack very much. But I'll still run bus wires under the layout and feed to Unijoiners with wires stuck in them at intervals. The length of the rails from a feed can make a difference if it is too long.

Best!

 

My best advice, after 35+ years in N scale and a still non-proficient skill at soldering: the more feeders the better. Soldering, say my DEC and INTEL soldering experts (my older brother and my best friend), is really simple. Yes, for them! Not for me! I just don't get it! But I've gotten better after all these years. There's something about cleanliness, mechanical contact and thermal transfers that doesn't compute in my brain. But if I can learn it, albeit poorly, so can anyone else.

Uni-Trak is actually a pretty sophisticated product when it comes to wiring options. It's probably a bad practice to rely on the joiners to conduct electricity without a voltage drop over a number of years. But I've never detected a drop in my test loop, and those who go on to more sophisticated layouts use multiple drops for long-term reliability.

 

UniTrack has been used for some very sophisticated layouts, as it has built-in capabilities for complex wiring schemes "beyond the trainset".

 

It is not a step towards Handlaying track though.

You will need to drop feeders on your unitrack too...

 

I can't claim to have a lot of experience. But I have done a lot of reading here and there on various forums. If I could be permitted to summarize a consensus, it is that tracks need expansion joints for changes in humidity seasonally that affect the wooden bench-work supporting those track segments. Track of the flex type should be soldered when joined and forming a curve. The soldering should take place on a long and flat working space, a clean one, where the two sections to be joined can lie in perfect straight alignment. It is only after the solder is applied to the joiner/joint that the track can be bent to form the desired radius....kink-free. Otherwise, a few slipping free joiners here and there are not a bad idea to accommodate the bench movements. Where there is only a metal joiner keeping the rails together in alignment, solder feeders on both sides of each such joint to ensure that power gets to the rails on either side.

On another part of a seemingly never-ending debate, feeders can (and do currently on my layout) feed many feet of contiguous or properly joined rail using just the one pair. I am currently feeding a staging yard some 6' off one corner of my layout, and that yard is served by a temporary 6' wooden bridge (a 1X2) where the rails atop it are joined with joiners at each end...nothing more. In total, we are talking about 30' of track!!! One feeder!!! I have never had a failure in power with this arrangement, and my controller has to send its DCC signal about 15' before it gets to the corner of the layout where this staging reaching bridge joins the track plan. Mind you, I use a 5 amp DB150 from the old "clunk", the Super Empire Builder....that must help. :tb-rolleyes:

To sum up, joiners are just fine for that purpose. They're not long fine for electrical "help" if all my reading is an indication. Feeders don't have to be supplied every 3' to avoid voltage drops...that's nonsense. My own above-described circumstances should dispel that nicely. And, you do need expansion gaps here and there. Learned it meself the hard way.

 

Generally I think sectional track is a bad idea, my preference has been flex-track since the day I discovered it. Nevermind that when you're only 12 years old(1987) it's not fun cutting and fitting it, but less joints means less problems.
I've also discovered that if you want to solder properly, it comes down to having a really good iron and solder more than skill. I never had that much luck making good solder joints and was always buying some $10 iron because the old one crapped out.
Recently I picked up a Hakko soldering station, and it's awesome. It heats up very fast and you can "get in" and make a quick solder joint without heating everything up. I also use radio shacks high silver content solder, it's finer in size like .060 and flows beautifully. Tin the irons tip, put it under the rail joiner, and flow some solder in from the top, and you can't even tell it was soldered. From several years of welding experience I've found you need to be confident, dive in there with alot of heat, make your connection, and get out of there.
I run about 10-12 ft blocks on my layout, so I solder all the connections and leave about 1/32" at the insulated joiners on each end of the block. I soldered my entire layout when I was younger and learned a lesson the hard way there. During the summer one track bowed out and got too close to the other one, and I had a collision inside the tunnel in a very hard place to get to. After this I got in there with a jigsaw and made an access hole, but a picture of myself arm deep in a tunnel portal would have been priceless...

 

Soldering and feeders

Like others have recommended, solder track and use feeders.

If your layout is in a temp controlled area the sections can be much longer, 9-12 feet, however if your layout is in a Las Vegas garage, where the temp can range 100 degrees over a year, then shorter is better.

Typically, you'll have connection problems regardless of the brand or style of track. For some it is better than others. Personally, I use Atlas c83 and solder the joints keeping sections under 12 feed as my layout is in a basement with a normal temp range of 65-70 degrees.

Wiring For DCC has more advice and information on this and related subjects than you can read in an afternoon.