# Power to the Track - How many and distance between



## wishbone (Oct 9, 2021)

I am installing a shelve near the ceiling in a room 23 ft x 33 ft (a large oval 110 ft) O scale. How many power tracks do I need and at what distance between them? 

Thank you. one dealer suggested 4.


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## 65446 (Sep 22, 2018)

Whether you're 3 rail AC, or 2 rail O, AC or DCC, hook up your controller to track and go from there with normal track sections...
If you notice a power drop (train slowing when furthest from controller leads) then deal with a bus wire/feeders later...If it's merely a loop I think the one hook up will suffice..
Since it's (what ?) above your head I think we can assume you've no switches/sidings/yard/ reversing loops.. So...


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## Lehigh74 (Sep 25, 2015)

On my layout with Gargrave track (mostly 37” flex track), I have 4 power drops on each loop with each loop around the same length as what you will have. That works fine for me, but most people have more drops.

The number of drops depends on what type of track you use. Gargraves has good continuity between sections. From what I have heard, Lionel Fastrack continuity is not so good.

If you have sectional track, you may also need more drops. MTH recommends a power drop for every 10 or 12 sections of track for their DCS system whether the sections are 10” long or 37” long.


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## wishbone (Oct 9, 2021)

telltale said:


> Whether you're 3 rail AC, or 2 rail O, AC or DCC, hook up your controller to track and go from there with normal track sections...
> If you notice a power drop (train slowing when furthest from controller leads) then deal with a bus wire/feeders later...If it's merely a loop I think the one hook up will suffice..
> Since it's (what ?) above your head I think we can assume you've no switches/sidings/yard/ reversing loops.. So...


thank you


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

There is no hard and fast answer to this question. A lot depends in the level of risk you're willing to accept. If you intend to solder the track joints, then you might be able to get away with 4 (one per side). If you have turnouts, you can't relay on them to transfer power well, so you would need one on each section of track between turnouts. On my layout, I put feeders about every 10', plus one on each section between turnouts.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I put a drop every eight feet or less on my latest layout build. It's very easy to have too few drops, but almost impossible to have too many! 

I can put one recommendation to bed. One drop for 110 feet of track is absurd, that will almost certainly result in issues running!


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## mesenteria (Oct 29, 2015)

I doubt this will apply to you because of the length of trackage you're building, but in DCC the signal-to-noise ratio must be kept robust. If a quarter laid across BOTH rails fails to cause the DCC command centre to shut down power to the rails and to commence a series of alerting beeps, you don't have sufficient voltage to carry the signal at the ratio needed. The 'quarter test' is the gold standard, believe it or not, that anyone can recall and perform and get a solid indication that the rails are getting sufficient signal. 

I agree that there's no hard and fast rule. Whatever works reliably is what is best, and each person must establish that for his system and track arrangement. If you'd like my own preference, I solder a pair of feeders directly to the rails every 6-8' because it's cheap insurance. Also, I solder all but maybe 15% of my joints, and I control the environment with a dehumidifier 24/7. Again, more cheap insurance. But to be honest, I have fed 20' of rails with a single pair of 22 gauge wires at one end and had normal operation.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

110 feet of O-gauge track will require more than one drop.


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## Lee Willis (Jan 1, 2014)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> I put a drop every eight feet or less on my latest layout build. It's very easy to have too few drops, but almost impossible to have too many!
> 
> I can put one recommendation to bed. One drop for 110 feet of track is absurd, that will almost certainly result in issues running!


I did almost exactly the same thing with myO-Gauge layout, spacing drops at about eight feet. That is not necessary, but like GRJ says . . . . 
And by the way, back when I had several N-gauge days - the "full nest, paying for three college education days," I had several N-gauge layouts and I spaced those drops at only about six to eight feet, too.

I also did four other things that were "overkill" - for a total of five measures I took to see I had good feeds:

I ran drops to every eight feet or so, and to every switch. If there was a reason why I could not space a feed point at eight feet, I made the feed point closer, never farther away.
I use only radial one-feed drops. This means I ran a separate wire from the power supply bus to every feed point. I have seen people who run a wire to one feed point and then continue it on to a second and even a third. If big enough wire, that works well. An alternative I saw in a video once was to run a loop from the bus to three or four points on the track. I did not do either of those things. 
I used only solid-rail track (Atlas). The solid rail provides much more metal to conduct the current than tinplate like Fastrak. This means you _could _get away with farther spacing of feed points, but . . .
I soldered every joint of all three rails at every junction, and every drop (typically I was making feedpoints at junctions). No problems with power not flowing from section to section on this layout!!!
I used overly large wire - #12 copper. It costs 25 cents per foot and you need two wires for each feed. So for a layout like mine (335 feet of track on three loops) with drops ever six feet that meant I used a lot of wire - close to a 1000 feet actually, and the cost was about equal to a the list price of a new big loco. 
For feed drops longer than 20 feet as the wire runs, I paralleled the #12 (used two #12 wires side by side for each of the two conductors, for a total of four wires). The longest wire run I have is 45 feet (the layout is not the far across but the wire has to snake over and then sideways and around things).
Collectively this electrical overkill in the extreme. BUT: I never have electrical problems, and I cannot measure a detectable voltage drop on my layout, even when running a train pulling 10 amps.

More to the point, on a 110 foot ceiling layout I could write out the math for the engineering but won't here. For a ceiling layout - you have to run the wire alongside the track which means I would feed it by running a loop of #12 clear around next to the track (110 feet times two wires0, soldering a branch from it to the track (the branch, being only a short few inches, could be smaller wire, say #16 or even #18) every ten to twenty feet. With solid wire track with good connectors between sections, you would have no problems and with something like Fastrak, probably not. 
.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

WOW Lee, and I thought I was doing it good!  You wired like you were building a battleship! Did you get the layout wiring crossed with your boat building hobby?


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

Since I use CV ties and ME rail, the obvious choice was to solder 2 rails together to form a 6' long rail, which was about as long a piece of rail as I could easily glue to the ties. So that became what a feeder went to. The ends were either just a joiner or an insulated joiner. All the turnouts I make have their own power feed which also runs thru a micro switch on the Switch Master motors to power the frog. I like to keep things as much as possible all wired the same way so I can make "Kits" offline that eventually get used when I install the turnout. The turnouts usually have unsoldered joiners holding them in place so they can be removed easily. That's what governed the feed spacing. I'll do the same thing in the upcoming around the room layout.


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## Lee Willis (Jan 1, 2014)

gunrunnerjohn said:


> WOW Lee, and I thought I was doing it good!  You wired like you were building a battleship! Did you get the layout wiring crossed with your boat building hobby?


Yes, but: a) it was fun to over build, b) this was the last layout I intended to ever build and I wanted zero problems and c) I got my wish, never one problem in all these years.


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