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So I'm starting a layout in room in which I have to have my bed, and other such things in it. My room is 14' x 10' half of my room I plan on dedicating to the railroad. The other half well just have a small shelf coming out about 6 inches. In which the mainline will run on. Then I will have a lifting bridge by my opening door and closet door.
I plan on using NCE Power Cab DCC. And I was wondering if I can get out of doing all the feeder wiring on the side where the layout is just the small shelf by using like Snap-Track. Or do I still have to do all the feeder wires? I just want that side to look as clean and neat as possible with no scenery. I'm very new to model railroading and wiring/electronics so I really still have a lot of planning/researching left to do. If someone could direct me in good "How to wire" videos that would be awesome! Its really the only aspect of model railroading that has me confused.
A feeder pair at each end of this shelved mainline should suffice, provided they are no thinner than 22 gauge and kept under 18" or so, and provided all the joiners do a pretty good job conducting electricity between pieces that are joined. The feeders, in turn, should branch off a pair of wires no thinner than about 14 gauge, ideally, which will be your bus running under the entire layout.
I've been successful with just one feed point with a temporary shelf switching layout using Atlas snap-track. The trick is to ensure ever rail joiner is tight on the rails. This was fed from a DCC system.
My room is 14' x 10' half of my room I plan on dedicating to the railroad.....
I plan on using NCE Power Cab DCC. And I was wondering if I can get out of doing all the feeder wiring on the side .... Or do I still have to do all the feeder wires? ...
Its really the only aspect of model railroading that has me confused.
Don't let it be. Some people like to make it sound like it is really complicated. I have successfully run a G-Gauge layout of that size with only two feeders.
Anyway I like to think of it like this - you basically have a loop of track that is 48' around. If it has exactly 1 set of wires, to it the farthest distance a train can be from that power is 24'. Add a 2nd set of wires 1/2 way across the loop and that distance is halved, or max of 12'. So add two more sets 1/2 way between that and the max distance from loco to power is 6'. Etc. So if your shelf is x number of feet long and only has 1 power feed to the center, the greatest distance of loco to power is 1/2x. Similarly if there is a feed at either end the distance is 1/2 shelf length.
Whether those power feeds are a set of wires all the way power supply to rail or or off a bus, is irrelevant. The bus concept is just to save money on wire.
