# Rail feeders



## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

What's a good rule of thumb or two that I should use for placing feeder wires main bus along the rails? Is it at every rail joint, at every turnout branching, or every X feet, or whatever comes first?
Given the (great) comments I've gained from others here, I'm planning on #10 bus wires and #14 feeders min., if that's relevant. Or maybe #8 -> #12, seems a little overkill for my smaller layout though.
Thanks,
Cliff


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Depending on the size of layout you have, determines how far you should space your connection. Later RJD


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## BodsRailRoad (Jul 26, 2008)

I was also under the impression that you need multiple feeders at every x number of feet, until I met Paul bottino.He told me that all that is unnessary if you do your track work and rail joining correctly. He has over 600 feet of stainless steel track and has only 2 feeders 1 on the outer loop and 1 on the inner, and has no issues with voltage drop across his layout.

The thing to remember is How each track is joined to the next. That is the most important thing when it comes to maintaining voltage over your layout.
The worse you track joining is the more feeders you will need to make up for it. 


My layout has about 450 feet of stainless steel/nickel plated brass track, it has two separate loops with crossovers and 10 switches total. 
I use 1 feeder (12 gauge low voltage lighting wire rated at 15 amps) on the inner loop, and one on the outer loop.
(just for fun I tested it with just 1 feed hooked up and maintained voltage across the entire layout even on the inner loop)

I use Train-Li's Nickel plated brass pro-clamp rail joiners with NOALOX, which is an anti oxidation/conductive grease at each joint.
It has been about 7 months now and have not had any issues so far.

As for the gauge of wire you should use I would take the most amps you expect to run and go up 1 gauge to be safe.

Ron


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I have some trains that draw close to 10 amps. There is a noticeable drop over distance. I have sectional track, so more joiners than I would like. All SS split jaw clamps. 

You can experiment with how many feeders you need. For the amp draw I have, and for some of the locos that have a marginal top speed, I notice a couple of volts drop. 

If you don't ever run near to max speed, or draw a lot of amps, you may not need more than one connection. 

I put in feeders every 30 feet for safety, I knew I was going to run long trains, high amps, and also it helps keep maintenance down. 

Regards, Greg


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## livesteam53 (Jan 4, 2008)

I used to have 8 feeders to my main line and now after installing all split jaw clamps I found that I only needed on connection. 

Rail clamps make a big difference they have been in 5 years now and no problems.


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## StanleyAmes (Jan 3, 2008)

I use feeders for two purposes. 

The obvious one is to maintain connectivity. As others have pointed out rail clamps do an excellent job of this. For the most part we only rely on them for connectivity through turnouts. I like the ability to remove my turnouts for servicing and therefore have not installed any feeders on my turnouts.
Most every other rail section is connected by feeders to the bus under the track.

The second and less obvious reason we use feeders is to prevent the track from moving or having problems with expansion. We put 12 AWG feeders in the middle of track sections to a bus that is in a 6 inch gravel trough. A few weeks after the ballast has been installed, the ballast locks up and the track will not move where the feeders are installed, sorta like two spikes holding the track in place. 

What little expansion does occurs will be between track sections and since most of our track is curved the result is unnoticeable from sub zero to over 100 degrees. 

Stan Ames 
http://www.tttrains.com/largescale/


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## railcandy (Dec 19, 2010)

I do run feeders to my track but for a different reason. I run multipal trains on my single mainlines from track power. If one of the trains runs too fast or too slow I can adjust the speed or halt a loco on and 8' section of isolated track on each line. after testing with a moving train on the tracks, I go to the VOM (Volt-ohm-meter) if I have a bad section. My layout runs form 3 power supplies and is hardly ever run un-attended. I use 3, 10 gauge runs end to end from the power supplies and jump to tracks with 16 gauge wire.

I beleave the advise the others have given above is correct cause you have to remember that your track is like a set 4 or 6 gauge conductor wires itself. Most power problems should be cleared up just by identifing the sections that have a problem and repairing with good rail clamps and conductive greese or paste.

I understand if you have like a 3,000 foot layout and wanna' make sure you don't have to hike out to the far end.. But wire on or underground will degrade after a few years anyway.

Has anyone here ever truly measured the line loss in a foot of track









Always cheerfull, Typos sold seperatly.


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Thanks for all the insights, gentlemen! 

I'm planning on using Train-Li's Ni plated brass track & clamp joiners, to minimize cleaning. About 250 feet. 

And yeah, in the back of my mind, I was wondering why bother with a major feeder system, when the rails are the conductors (as railcandy points out), and pretty beefy ones at that! 

So I'll start out with a few feeders (much fewer than the number I was planning!), and put that stuff on the clamp-joiners. 

Muchas gracias, 
Cliff


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## BodsRailRoad (Jul 26, 2008)

You can buy the NOALOX from home depot, you'll find it in the electrical section. 
It comes in several sizes, the bottle is white with blue lettering. One of the 4.5oz bottles will last you a very very long time.

I just ran a bead along the catch side (the side without the screws







) of the proclamp and it fills out nicely when you insert the rail. 

Axel told me about it, he uses it on all his installations, and he said it's good for about 3 years give or take.

Ron

PS RailCandy, you should seriously consider going DCC then you can run up to 999 engines on your single main line,
and be able to control them and all your switches remotely without the need for blocks and a zillion wires.
It really makes your control wishes infinite. 
AND Greg will answer any questions you can think of


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## Axel Tillmann (Jan 10, 2008)

One comment to the NOALOX - just as a precaution:

Do not use in on the railheads in the hope to prevent oxidation on the top of the rails (assuming this works like a hand cream to protect you fingers from drying out







) 
No, honestly - I got that question once too.

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates, Happy Holidays to the rest.


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## railcandy (Dec 19, 2010)

Here's my nasty little secret @ BodsRailRoad I'm a renter not a home owner. so I have to operate what I like to call a compressed layout. I know that sooner or later I'm just gonna' have to tear it all out and set it up somewhere else. It's sort of like being in the circus. and im not clowning about this. I'd love mess with DCC or RC if I had the luxury.... I figure I'm doing pretty good. that I even have an outdoor layout at all... Hold on I gotta go walk the landloards poodle ... BRB


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## BodsRailRoad (Jul 26, 2008)

to funny, but you are very correct, some railroad is much much better than no railroad.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Ron, actually the "addresses" for turnouts are from 1 to 999, the locos are from 1 to 9999 .... obviously the intent was not to have ten thousand locos, but to be able to assign a 4 digit number to any loco, so most of the time, the road number of the loco is the address, no having to "remember" what it was, or scroll through a long list of locos to find it. 

Regards, Greg


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## George Schreyer (Jan 16, 2009)

I have 4 "blocks" on the main line, each about 75' long. One rail is common, the other insulated at the block boundries. Most of the rail is in 5' sections so I have minimized joints. I feed my track once on each block with 3 pairs of 18 ga bell wire all connected at the same point, usually near one end of a block. The outgoing current path is through 3 wires to one rail. The return path is via 12 wires and some more rail because the common rail is continuous. This has proved to be sufficient to trip my booster at 20 amps anywhere. I use brass rail with soldered jumpers. With SS, you'll need clamps. 

What is important is good old Ohm's Law. Use a copper wire table to determine the resistance per foot of wire and figure out what your feeders will drop depending on the current that you expect and the length of the feeders. I have measured brass rail for resistance but I can't find the data right now. It's pretty low because brass is a good conductor and the code 332 rail has a lot of cross section. SS will be worse by quite a bit. 

So if I can draw 20 amps into a short, the total effective resistance of the whole path, out and back including the panel wiring and the internal resistance of the booster is less than 1.1 ohm because my open circuit track voltage is 22 volts. At "normal" loads I expect a drop of 3 or 4 volts which is what I get.


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## 6323 (Jan 17, 2008)

I've got one set of feeders to my layout. 
But, I'm also thinking of adding a second set across from the first. 
If anything, just to help keep power evenly distributed. 
Keeping the following in mind: 

1. Track power. Use an MTH Z-4000 with 12 Amp bridge rectifier for power. 
Can run any of my equipment without a problem! 
QSI Sound/Airwire reciever/NCE G-Wire throttle. 

2. About 60 feet of track. Currently. 

3. Split Jaw rail clamps on about half the layout. 
Got wrong kind last time I bought clamps. Ended up with 
the Split Jaw Over Joiner clamps instead. Gotta replace them one of these days! 

And only 1 set of power feeds to layout in back. All Split Jaw clamps. And maybe 45 feet of track total. 
And sometime summer 2011, I'm gonna have both front and back layouts connected! 
My 2 pennies worth only.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

There's something often overlooked in this type of discussion: 

Some people may notice the voltage drop at the "far end" of the layout, and some may not. 

People running slowly, low amperage, or really "running" the loco may not notice that they have several volts loss at the "far end" 

People running faster, especially passenger train speeds, multiple locos, or wanting to leave the loco at constant speed may notice it. 

I'm in the latter camp, and especially when I found that 3-4 volts made a difference in top speed of going from 65 mph to 92... if you have an Aristo E8 you know what I mean. 

So, it's not who's right or wrong, or the guy that swears one feeder is enough is not correct, it depends on what you are "asking" of your electrical system. 

Regards, Greg


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Great points Greg, I'm definitely going to run busses (buses?) to the far ends.

Question, is the voltage drop mainly due to discontinuity through joiners? Or just the superiority of copper (wire) over brass (rail)? A brass rail is one huge conductor.... and I've seen several articles that encourage jumpering over joints, which might in theory dismiss the need of a bus. 

Just curious.

Regardless, per the responses here, I'm even more convinced of good clamp-type joiners. But unless someone hollers out otherwise, I'm NOT planning on jumpering over those clamp-type joiners.

Best regards,
===Cliff


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

My observations are that it's resistance in the joiners. 

Jumper around your switches too. 

If you solder jumpers, you can probably feed a brass layout from very few spots. 

Regards, Greg


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## BodsRailRoad (Jul 26, 2008)

Just curious Greg have you tried NOALOX on your joiners and then measured the resistance after its applied, am curious to see the difference?

Ron


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Remember that I have SS track and SJ SS joiners. 

Yes, I used NoAlox on several test joiners about 6 months or so ago (have to look up the date), will be testing soon to see if there is any improvement. 

Greg


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

For turnout motor power, a DCC book I have shows the wires coming directly from the rail. But for large scale, is it best to take the power from the bus? Or does it make any diff? Ditto for Kadee magnets?


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

If you run power to the rails well, just connect the turnouts to the rails. Remember the turnouts usually only draw power when moving, some people have problems, I don't. 

Kadee magnets are permanent magnets. Magnets don't need any external power. 

Greg


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Thanks Greg, makes sense. 
On the other thing, I'd thought they were electromagnets, so thanks for the correction. I seem to recall an operations pdf on the Kadee site, I'll have to look that up. 
===Cliff


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## George Schreyer (Jan 16, 2009)

Kadee does make electromagnetic uncouplers for HO, but they take considerable space under the layout and are not suitable for outdoor use.


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

That's probably what I was thinking of, because I had this specific picture in my memory that showed the wires coming off the magnet. I was into model railroading ~35 years ago, HO, so I'm often confused as I try to correlate things and get back into the game. Thanks again George,
===Cliff


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## Axel Tillmann (Jan 10, 2008)

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 28 Dec 2010 12:29 AM 
Remember that I have SS track and SJ SS joiners. 

Yes, I used NoAlox on several test joiners about 6 months or so ago (have to look up the date), will be testing soon to see if there is any improvement. 

Greg That's the problem Greg - Stainless Steel over time even with stainless steel joiners creates this resistance here and there that on my layout became even an audible feature - a higher frequency hum and if you touch the connecting rail clamp it's hot like a soldering iron - been thre burnt my fingers on it. I am throwing step by step my stainless steel out for ProLine's NI rail. Do to the drastic conductivity difference (1:10) of stainless steel versus Brass rail, Stainless steel layout are much quicker prone to problems, that can not easly be maeasured with a Voltmeter, but are being felt by the loss of response to DCC commands, i.e. an engine operating by no longer be reachable by the handheld. So what is the cause? Simply speaking signal distortion, the rectangular wave transition becomes too rounded and the input chipset no longer see that bit coming by, but yet there is still enough power for the train to run.


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## Axel Tillmann (Jan 10, 2008)

Posted By CliffyJ on 29 Jan 2011 08:04 AM 
For turnout motor power, a DCC book I have shows the wires coming directly from the rail. But for large scale, is it best to take the power from the bus? Or does it make any diff? Ditto for Kadee magnets? 
We connect our ProDrive DCC (Switch drvie with build in DCC controller) directly to the track at the beginning of the switch. There are no problems associated with that. I find it necessary to run a separate bus parallel to the track.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I think Axel means "unnecessary" in his last sentence. 

I have direct experience with Axel's DCC switch drives, they are very low current, both in stand by and during operation. Very convenient to use. 

Regards, Greg


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Axel: I can easily detect a poorly conducting joint, SS, brass, or other. I made a load that draws 8 amps, and I connect it to the rails. You can easily measure voltage drop on either side of a joint with a millivoltmeter. 

Regards, Greg


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## Axel Tillmann (Jan 10, 2008)

Greg:

I can hear one







Sound like a bunch of bees in the rail - bezzz, bezzz, buzz

But that was not the poin of my post. When I was at ZIMO they showed me on their Oscar (German short form for oscilloscope) the wave deformation caused by high resistance that leads to non understandable DCC signals, yet still measures high voltage even with your high load.


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Hello Axel, good to hear from you. 

Just so you know, I'm still planning on your R3 & R7 switches and DCC ProDrives for my initial layout build next spring. 

All this reminds me of a chapter I read this morning in a DCC book, regarding powered frogs. I didn't see on your site the cost of upgrading the switches for the (between-the-points) microswitch that changes frog polarity, though they are obviously designed for that upgrade. (Forgive me if I'm getting something wrong, I'm struggling to get it all). Could you mention that upgrade price, email me it, or direct me to the link that I've missed? 

Thanks, and best regards,
===Cliff


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Axel, if there is not high resistance, then you will not see voltage drop. If you don't have voltage drop, then you don't have resistance. Ohms law cannot be repealed! 

The DCC signal degradation would be from something else like inductance or capacitance. 

Regards, Greg


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## Dan Pierce (Jan 2, 2008)

CliffyJ, the R7 has a reed switch and a magnet for powering the metal frog. 

Only the R2 and R3 need something to power the frog, and nost likely will not be needed for larger engines with 3 axles or more. 

Problems could occur at low speeds on 2 axle engines with traction tires. Myself I have the first trailing unit behind an engine with power pickups tied to the engine (I do this with all steam tenders and powered LGB tenders). I even found frr sleeve bearings wheel sets for the toytrain tender for extra power pickups on my toytrain porters.


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## George Schreyer (Jan 16, 2009)

From what Axel describes, the resistance is probably non-linear. Low at low current, high at high current. Greg, your 8 amp test would filter for that automatically. 

Also, if one can HEAR a bad joint, then something is physically moving to produce an acoustic response.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

The "singing" joints always have extra resistance, and only sing under load. 

I would hear them sometimes, and tried to locate them by looking for voltage drop. That was very difficult with a light load. My 8 amp load found them all right away, making it very easy. 

I'm not sure I agree at all with saying that SS has more problems than nickel. I'd need some more side by side experience. My experience is that ANY clamp can get dirt into it if it's not snug, and temperatures and expansion and contraction make things move, which can allow contaminants into rail joiners and clamps. 

One thing for sure... for the small amount of metal involved in the joint itself, the type of metal there makes no difference in terms of the conductivity of the metal, it's all about oxidation, contamination, contact areas. 

Yes, over a long distance, SS has more resistance than nickel, but nickel has more than brass which has more than aluminum. The voltage drop along solid rails seems to be insignificant as compared as the resistance in the joints between sections. Even my cleanest joints can exhibit .01 volt under 8 amps of current. That's more than the loss in the solid rail. 

Sure, if you want to take it to an extreme, like power a layout from only one point and run hundreds of feet, the difference in rail material will show, but to make a reliable layout, you need multiple feeders, there's no "Academy Award" for running fewer feeders, ha ha! 

Eventually ANY joiner can fail or go to high resistance. Why have a layout that has no "backup"? 

Regards, Greg


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## StanleyAmes (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By Axel Tillmann on 30 Jan 2011 10:49 AM 
Posted By Greg Elmassian on 28 Dec 2010 12:29 AM 
Remember that I have SS track and SJ SS joiners. 

Yes, I used NoAlox on several test joiners about 6 months or so ago (have to look up the date), will be testing soon to see if there is any improvement. 

Greg That's the problem Greg - Stainless Steel over time even with stainless steel joiners creates this resistance here and there that on my layout became even an audible feature - a higher frequency hum and if you touch the connecting rail clamp it's hot like a soldering iron - been thre burnt my fingers on it. I am throwing step by step my stainless steel out for ProLine's NI rail. Do to the drastic conductivity difference (1:10) of stainless steel versus Brass rail, Stainless steel layout are much quicker prone to problems, that can not easly be maeasured with a Voltmeter, but are being felt by the loss of response to DCC commands, i.e. an engine operating by no longer be reachable by the handheld. So what is the cause? Simply speaking signal distortion, the rectangular wave transition becomes too rounded and the input chipset no longer see that bit coming by, but yet there is still enough power for the train to run.


Alex

I would be most interested in seeing a scope trace for the effect you mention

A decoder that passes the DCC tests shouls have no problems. We have tried to destroy the DCC signal and only through large capasitenance is there a potential problem.

I have a lot of stainless in the garden and have never encountered any problems that would cause the signal to go out of spec.

Stan


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Ditto Stan. I also have a scope, and better than that, I have a DCC packet analyzer that shows timing errors, etc. 

There is no way for a DCC signal to stay a perfect square wave in the real world, but as Stan says, a decoder that passes DCC testing should be fine. I have all sectional track and there is a 100 foot section with 4 sets of drop in bridge clamps and still no DCC issues. 

Regards, Greg


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Posted By Dan Pierce on 31 Jan 2011 06:12 AM 
CliffyJ, the R7 has a reed switch and a magnet for powering the metal frog. 

Only the R2 and R3 need something to power the frog, and nost likely will not be needed for larger engines with 3 axles or more. 

Problems could occur at low speeds on 2 axle engines with traction tires. Myself I have the first trailing unit behind an engine with power pickups tied to the engine (I do this with all steam tenders and powered LGB tenders). I even found frr sleeve bearings wheel sets for the toytrain tender for extra power pickups on my toytrain porters. Thanks Dan, that's very helpful to know that the R7's have it and the R3's don't. Great tip. I'll be running one or two 2-axle loco's, so I'd better outfit accordingly. 
Axel, any comments?
===Cliff


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## Axel Tillmann (Jan 10, 2008)

The R3 and R2 switches can be retrofitted with the same reed switch. The reed switch is disproportionally expensive for the price range in the R3 and R2 market. Putting the reed switch in by default makes the switch too expensive for the market. But the retrofit kit is easily installed.


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## Axel Tillmann (Jan 10, 2008)

Stan and Greg

There is a good old German saying that talk about "graue Theorie" (grey theory) which tries to state more along the line the proof is in the pudding or praxis is what counts. I don't' care about DCC approved or not approved. The reality is that chipset need a so called quick transition time from 0 to the trigger level of the input. If you slow the transition (as common when the rectangular signal is being rounded) then the input chips don't see the transition and miss that bit. Point in case the engine runs beyond the buzzing clamp but you can't control the engine at all anymore. Enough power to run but the signal looses bit information here and there. Once I clean out the buzzers it comes back to live. However, on the far distance of my layout I used to loose sometimes control as well until a put another feeder line in. 

Once I replace the stainless steel with NI plated brass that effect will be gone, becasue at the core is brass therefore the slightly less conductivity doesn't play a role becasue we are still dealing with solid brass rail to conduct the electricity.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Axel, the DCC signal does NOT operate on voltage, it operates on timing. Extra resistance will reduce the voltage but not necessarily affect the timing.

Therefore basic conductivity means nothing to the DCC signal, brass, aluminum, plated brass, stainless steel, the DCC timing will be unaffected. That's why DCC works so well. (As opposed to carrier-based technologies like DCS) 

You have it partially right, the transition is what is detected, the transitions up and down define the timing, but voltage drop does NOT make the timing change.

It's only when severe distortion or electrical noise will you misread the actual timing, and modern decoders do a much better job with distorted signals. 

Only old, stupid decoders look at the "tops" of the signal, which are most affected by capacitance and inductance. Capacitance and inductance can alter the SLOPE of the transitions of the DCC signal, but not the basic timing.

I will agree the proof is in the pudding. Regards, Greg


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## George Schreyer (Jan 16, 2009)

If the transition is slow enough, then the timing COULD be impacted as the 1 bit times out before the next edge reaches a high enough level to be detected as a transition. This depends entirely on the design of the decoder and what part of the transition it used to make it's decision.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Right, but don't you agree George, that this could not be effected with resistance alone? 

Regards, Greg


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## StanleyAmes (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By Axel Tillmann on 01 Feb 2011 03:55 PM 
Stan and Greg

There is a good old German saying that talk about "graue Theorie" (grey theory) which tries to state more along the line the proof is in the pudding or praxis is what counts. I don't' care about DCC approved or not approved. The reality is that chipset need a so called quick transition time from 0 to the trigger level of the input. If you slow the transition (as common when the rectangular signal is being rounded) then the input chips don't see the transition and miss that bit. Point in case the engine runs beyond the buzzing clamp but you can't control the engine at all anymore. Enough power to run but the signal looses bit information here and there. Once I clean out the buzzers it comes back to live. However, on the far distance of my layout I used to loose sometimes control as well until a put another feeder line in. 

Once I replace the stainless steel with NI plated brass that effect will be gone, becasue at the core is brass therefore the slightly less conductivity doesn't play a role becasue we are still dealing with solid brass rail to conduct the electricity.


Alex

Indeed the proof is in the pooding. To call yourseld DCC you really should follow the standard and pass the tests.

The DCC spec only defines the signal between + and - 4 volts. The test uses a signal with a slope similar to a sine wave. YOu must recieve 90%+ packets in this environment to call yourseld DCC.

The DCC signal can be corrupted by a large capasitor (except for capasitence pickup decoders) but I have never seen this in Large Scale installations. I only say this years ago with a piece of ROCO track that had a capasitor built in.

I woule sincerly like to see a layout where DCC does not work due to installation problems. If you have one and a scope I would like to visit sometime.

Stan


Stan


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I'm hoping that George will respond too, I maintain that resistance alone cannot "damage" the signal, so brass vs aluminum vs SS vs nickel plated brass makes NO difference. 

Saying specifically that DCC signal quality is better on one track because that track is more conductive is NOT correct. 

Regards, Greg


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## George Schreyer (Jan 16, 2009)

If there is a resistance ONLY problem, then it would have to be a non-linear resistance. Corroded connections can easily make poor quality diodes. 

BTW, I've never actually seen this on my large scale track which is 1) brass and 2) soldered. I have seen some weirdness on HO track that got fixed with a small soldered jumper but I never actually characterized the bad rail joints, I just identified that they were flakey and fixed them.


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## StanleyAmes (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By Greg Elmassian on 02 Feb 2011 07:54 AM 
I'm hoping that George will respond too, I maintain that resistance alone cannot "damage" the signal, so brass vs aluminum vs SS vs nickel plated brass makes NO difference. 

Saying specifically that DCC signal quality is better on one track because that track is more conductive is NOT correct. 

Regards, Greg 

Greg

One test we used to demonstrate DCC was with a spool of 1000ft of 22 guage pair that we connected the far end together so we got 2000 ft. Thats a lot of resistance.

We could turn th locomotive lights on and off by the DCC signal but there was not enough power left to run the motor.

Since the power and the signal are combined it is real hard to destroy the signal.

I do not believe that one track type over another has anything to do with the quality of a DCC signal. On the other hand it may have something to do with how much power reaches the motor (ie dirty brass track will conduct the signal but the tarnish does not conduct the current well.

Stan


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

Yep Stan, I believe you are echoing what I have asserted. 

I agree with all you said. 

I like Axel's track, but it is not going to have a better DCC signal because the brass is a better conductor than SS. 

Will his clamps on nickel conduct better than my SS SJ clamps on my Aristo SS rail? Possibly a minute amount, but this resistance will not make a better or worse DCC signal. 

Why am I hanging on to this? So untrue rumors do not get started. There's already too many "old wives tales" about DCC. 


Regards, Greg


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## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Fascinating discussion!


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