Hello, I am laying track and am thinking about my wiring. I am buildinga 5' X 11' HO layout which will have 2 to 3 engines. I believe I will buy a Digitax Zephyr system. Two Questions: 1) How often do I need to connect wiring to the track? I am running all flex and atlas custom line turnouts? 2) How do most of you control your turnouts? Throught the DCC or old fashioned ac with switches? I most likely will use under mount atlas switches. Thanks for any feedback. DAve I am glad to be out of planning and laying track.....
Question #1 - From the track buss, I run power leads to each piece of track. Question #2 - I would recommend you use normal (non-DCC) control for your turnouts. There are several reasons. 1) Cost - Depending on the stationary decoder used to power the turnout, you are looking at about $10-15 per turnout. A pushbutton is a lot cheaper. 2) Complexity - A stationary decoder is not plug and play. If you use a Digitrax DS-54 you will have to run 2 wires to the track buss (this is where the commands come from), 2 wires to an auxiliary power source for the board (don't rely on track power), a 4 wire handset cable to each switch machine, and if you want feedback then a 6 wire LocoNet cable to your LocoNet. I would only recommend a stationary decoders if you have signals and/or you want to interface a computer to your layout. David
I have been using the system reccommended by alan gartner; ie a feeder to the rails about every 10 ft. Now realize my layout is over 300 ft long. so........ Since yours is 5 X 11 I think about 4 feeders would be fine. Everyone has a different way of doing this. and all of them work. I use NCE 'switch-its' and I can control up to 4 turnouts per board. Its only drawback is that there is no feedback to your ' cab', I can deal with that. I like being able to operate a turnout from my hand held. Especially when my loco is heading straight towards a closed turnout. Now it is reccommended by NCE that you only use two, since thats the total number of addresses per unit, but since I have a number of cross-overs I can control, I have found that the NCE will work 4 nicely. It is important to note that the NCE switch-its are meant for 'slow motion switch machines, which is what I use(tortoise) Hope this helps.
I use a mixturure of DCC and DC driven slow motion switches. For local operated industries I use DC with toggles and for switches on the mainline I use DCC. The reason for this decision is that the local operated switches are thrown from the train crews and the main line switches are controlled from the dispachter(computer). Switch machines are Tortoise and Switchmaster and stationary DCC dcoders are Digitrax DS-54. Regards Stefan Railfan`s Homepage
That is great feedback on both issues. I appreciate the help and maybe in two more weeks I will have to start wiring. Not the best part of building a layout.... Thanks, Dave
OK Dave, Your two weeks are up. Lets see some underlayout pics. I'll post some of my rats nest in a couple of days. I'm sorry I cannot spend the time with neat wiring. I know it's the correct thing to do and I also know when you have a problem it makes it harder to find out where the gremlem is. But..... what the H... I've got to get on with the 'above ground problems.
Chris, My experience has shown me it is worth keeping the wiring dressed, color coded, and labeled. I have found it save me hours keeping things straight.
Janafam, You are SOOOO RIGHT. I'm just too lazy. It has come back and bitten me in the A** many times. It occured to me just after I posted the above message. Where in NY do you live, anywhere near Connecticut? Want to come up and visit, plenty of beer and good food in exchange for some worthwhile rewireing? [ 06. May 2003, 23:54: Message edited by: ChrisDante ]
I will take some pictures this weekend... I have finished the outside loops. I hooked it up to an old power pack to check my connections. I have the engine running and the DCC on order. Should get it in a week or so.....
