# How many feeders do you use on your layout?



## afboundguy (Jan 10, 2021)

Is there a general "rule" for when feeder wiring is needed? I'm curious how few feeders people are using on their layouts? My buddy has a pretty large B&M layout and he said he only has 2 wires going to one spot on his whole track without any issues and he said I could probably do the same on my layout. I have noticed the few times I've been running some of my engines on his layout they seem to slow down a bit at the ends and I'm assuming that's where there's not as much juice on the rails. I already have the proper gauged wiring for bus wires but I haven't gotten any feeder gauged wiring yet...

While I think my layout may be smaller than his I will be planning on having a 4 line mainline with 1 very large yard and 1-2 other smaller yards and I'd like to have multiple trains running at once and his layout is a single track loop around with yards so I don't think he runs as many trains at the same time as I plan on so I was planning on doing a feeder in the middle and 1 at each end of the loops for a total of 3 feeders with maybe a "4th" on the large yard area and by "4th" I mean several feeders from the same point attached to each track in the yard as I think it will be 6-8+ tracks wide of a yard...

That being said I'm back to the original question of how many feeders are usually needed/do you use on your layout? I seem to remember feeders every 16-24 inches (forget exact number as I still haven't recovered/fully awake from my mandated overnight holdover yesterday even after an almost full night of sleep last night) but I was curious based on my friend's "just do one" suggestion for my whole layout what's the "least" amount of feeders people use on their own DCC layouts?


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## MichaelE (Mar 7, 2018)

I haven't counted lately. At least six on the dual gauge track and probably 10 or more on the main lines, and one for each track in the yard plus the yard lead.

I also have additional feeders on all three legs of the turnouts.


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## Homeless by Choice (Apr 15, 2016)

The most reliable and sage advice that has been given on this website many times is that, at a minimum, droppers should be connected every 6 ft. Several members including myself have droppers on the connectors between two sections of track where those sections are soldered to the connectors. Those two sections of track are then connected to the next two sections of track without any droppers or solder joints between them. In the greater scheme of things, wire is relatively inexpensive and provides another layer of reliability.
LeRoy


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## JeffHurl (Apr 22, 2021)

I went with at least 1 feeder between turnouts and on all spurs.

I have power routing turnouts (Peco Insulfrogs) but wanted the entire track energized all the time. 

With the Peco Insulfrogs, I needed to gap the frog rails to keep from creating a short because I was forcing power to all rails all the time. Here is a quick illustration of how I used black and red colored wires to run feeders on all three sides of a turnout, and the frog rails with isolation gaps (yellow).

Black and red dots represent feeders to track on all ends of the turnout. The feeder could be right next to the turnout or it could be 3-4 feet away, just as long as there is at least one set of feeders somewhere on all three sides of the turnout.










If I had any stretches that were greater than 6 feet between turnouts, I would add a second feeder to that stretch so I would never have more than about 6 feet of track between feeders. I also soldered most of my joints, except for the turnouts. I wanted them to be easily removed/replaced


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

i did mine with about three feet between feeders ...
no issues or slowdowns at all


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## cv_acr (Oct 28, 2011)

The more the merrier.

I don't think so much in terms of a fixed distance as pieces of rail. Rail joiners are a mechanical joint and can eventually get crud/oxidation/glue from ballasting infiltrate into the joint and prevent proper current conduction, leading to dead pieces of track.

You don't necessarily need to have feeders "every x feet" where x is basically some number under 20 or so for current drop/slowdown, but having regular feeders helps protect against total dead spots occurring later.


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## cv_acr (Oct 28, 2011)

Homeless by Choice said:


> The most reliable and sage advice that has been given on this website many times is that, at a minimum, droppers should be connected every 6 ft. Several members including myself have droppers on the connectors between two sections of track where those sections are soldered to the connectors. Those two sections of track are then connected to the next two sections of track without any droppers or solder joints between them. In the greater scheme of things, wire is relatively inexpensive and provides another layer of reliability.
> LeRoy


Similar to my reply above, what this is doing is effectively making 6' pieces of rail (by soldering pairs of 3' together) and applying feeders to every piece of rail. 

This is how you ensure 100% bulletproof reliability and ensure that you're never relying on a mechanical joint to not fail electrically 10 years down the line: 1 feeder/rail. By soldering alternating joints, you increase the size of each "piece" of rail and decrease the # of feeders.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

One feeder is not enough...every six feet has been the
suggestion much of the time on the forum...but it all depends
on the quality of your 'joints' between track sections. The point
is that you need good electrical conductivity throughout
the layout. A loose joiner can cause poor conductivity.

Then there are turnouts, such as Peco Insulfrog which are
power routing...that means, if points are set to divert, your
straight thru track loses power. You would want a
frog rail drop to maintain power. Also, if you want power always on
in a stub track you would need a frog rail track drop. 

Don


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## timlange3 (Jan 16, 2013)

I solder a jumper wire (over the rail joiner) between sections of flex track. So I may run 9' between feeders. I have power routing turnouts so there are feeders around all turnouts though.


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## mesenteria (Oct 29, 2015)

The very best way to keep your tracks where you want them, and to have them all powered, is to alternate loose joiners and soldered joiners, with the soldered joiners having a 20 gauge feeder wire's bared end flattened and slid into the joiner or soldered to the bottom or web of the rail. This way, every other joiner pair can slide to allow expansion and contraction with changing humidity in the train room, or if temperature swings are very large, say 40 degrees or more. The other alternating pairs are rigidly soldered, but they also have feeders included. What this does is to ensure the feeder powers in both directions until the next joint. If it's full lengths of flex track, you get a total of 6' positively and reliably fed with power.

Schematically, it looks something like this:

====x=========0==========x==========0==

The x's are soldered and fed joiners, the 0 is a non-soldered joiner that can slide as needed. As you can see, where there's an x, it feeds two ways, left and right, for a total of 6'.

In truth, a single pair of 20 gauge feeder wires can power about 10' in either direction, but there will be voltage drop with that light gauge of wire if the feeders are not kept to under 2' or so, and considerable voltage drop over the 10' of rails in both directions from the contact point. By considerable I mean less than 1/2 volt. Hardly noticeable, but it could be.


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## vette-kid (May 2, 2020)

I have about 75ft of kato sectional track for my N scale and only 2 feeders with no issues at all. If you have solid connections you shouldn't need many. Not sure how many feet of track you are laying, but I'm sticking to about 50ft of track between feeders, PROVIDED that connections are solid. If you have issues, add more. But I see no need for drops every 24" or even 5ft as some have suggested.. won't hurt anything, but it's way overkill. 

Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk


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## Mixed Freight (Aug 31, 2019)

vette-kid said:


> I have about 75ft of kato sectional track for my N scale and only 2 feeders with no issues at all. If you have solid connections you shouldn't need many. Not sure how many feet of track you are laying, but I'm sticking to about 50ft of track between feeders, PROVIDED that connections are solid. If you have issues, add more. But I see no need for drops every 24" or even 5ft as some have suggested.. won't hurt anything, but it's way overkill.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G781U using Tapatalk


Kato has good connectors. As in REALLY good connectors. If it weren't for that fact, you probably wouldn't be getting away with 2 feeders for 75 ft. of track, unless soldering everything to perfection.

But you are correct, connections must be solid and clean. When it comes to N-Scale or HO, I tend to solder everything in sight, including turnouts! But I can remove soldered turnouts if need be, without ruining them OR the adjacent track. Learning good soldering skills over the course of my life, combined with common sense, mechanical aptitude, and problem solving abilities, has certainly helped me out in that respect.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

Not necessarily disputing the reams of advice from experienced modelers above, but my own personal experience tells me that 1) Warnings about voltage drop are overblown, and 2) Unless wiring is your favorite model railroad activity, fewer feeders is better. 

Consider: the layout I operate right now, my son's, has a single pair of AWG22 feeders from an MRC Prodigy Express2 for an 8x8 L shaped layout made using Atlas True Track with nary a soldered joiner. If there is a voltage drop at the far extreme of the track, it is not detectable in train performance. Both of my previous layouts used a pair of AWG 18 feeders every 10-ish feet, with enough extras to ensure each leg of every turnout had a feeder on it. Joints on each 10' section were soldered, the ones in between were floating. Never had a power issue with any of the three layouts.

Am I just really lucky? I doubt it. Looking at the rest of my life, I tend towards the unlucky side. Of course, everyone has to determine their own level of risk tolerance and how difficult jt would be to add a feeder after the fact.


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

Lots of things to think about. The 6' foot rule is the most popular, I use it because I solder 2 3' rails together and then isolate them so they need a feeder, usually 20 gauge wire less that 3' long. My mains are 16 gauge. Sometimes I put DCC circuit breakers on the feeders so that if something shorts it does not take the entire lay out down. while it seems a lot of trouble to use feeders on short 6' lengths when a short occurs it a lot easier to isolate where the short is, if you only use one feed to the tracks then the short could be anywhere along the length of the track. If your thinking of 4 main lines and running lots of locomotives at the same time, then you will also want to divide you main lines so they can be driven by separate power controllers, so again is pays to divide things up in to separate blocks so you have the flexibility to add more power controllers as your 4 mains increase in length and more consist you start running on the same mains.


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## VTtrainguy (Jan 18, 2019)

I was advised to use a pair of feeders for each length of flex track. Works fine for me.


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## CTValleyRR (Jul 26, 2014)

VTtrainguy said:


> I was advised to use a pair of feeders for each length of flex track. Works fine for me.


Yes, there is a balance between reliability and the effort required to install feeders. A feeder every 9" segment of sectional track would give you some hellaciously reliable electrical flow, but does anyone really want to do that much work?

Personally, I hate wiring, so I'm willing to accept some risk to do less of it. YMMV.


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## VTtrainguy (Jan 18, 2019)

Every 9" seems a bit of overkill but every 3' works well, and I hate soldering rail connectors. Would rather have the expansion joints, as my space is not as climate controlled as one might wish.


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## VTtrainguy (Jan 18, 2019)

CTValleyRR said:


> Personally, I hate wiring, so I'm willing to accept some risk to do less of it. YMMV.


To each his own. I find meatball work like wiring a lot less frustrating than something that requires real talent, like painting backdrops, doing convincing weathering, or modeling waterfalls, rapids, or wave action. Techie I can handle, artist I'm not.


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## OilValleyRy (Oct 3, 2021)

My benchwork is modular in design, so each section there are feeders for the mainline(s) and for every spur. All of the bus lines will connect via Wago connectors probably, or something similar at each section. Feeders tap off from terminal strips, so no soldering upside down. 
I don’t plan on relocating again, but 007 taught me to Never Say Never Again.

For a non-modular benchwork style, I agree with most that about every 6 ft is good. Regardless of insulated/plastic frogs or gapped rail, I like the peace of mind having feeders on each side of each turnout. Overkill? Or Extra Credit? That’s a habit from my prior use of Kato power routing turnouts.


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## Lemonhawk (Sep 24, 2013)

I solder 2 three ft lengths of track together and then put a feeder somewhere on the 6' section. My feeders are PC ties so the wires are solder to the bottom of the pc then the top is soldered to the rails. No clumps of solder or wire visible!


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## Cab4worde67 (Mar 3, 2021)

afboundguy said:


> Is there a general "rule" for when feeder wiring is needed? I'm curious how few feeders people are using on their layouts? My buddy has a pretty large B&M layout and he said he only has 2 wires going to one spot on his whole track without any issues and he said I could probably do the same on my layout. I have noticed the few times I've been running some of my engines on his layout they seem to slow down a bit at the ends and I'm assuming that's where there's not as much juice on the rails. I already have the proper gauged wiring for bus wires but I haven't gotten any feeder gauged wiring yet...
> 
> While I think my layout may be smaller than his I will be planning on having a 4 line mainline with 1 very large yard and 1-2 other smaller yards and I'd like to have multiple trains running at once and his layout is a single track loop around with yards so I don't think he runs as many trains at the same time as I plan on so I was planning on doing a feeder in the middle and 1 at each end of the loops for a total of 3 feeders with maybe a "4th" on the large yard area and by "4th" I mean several feeders from the same point attached to each track in the yard as I think it will be 6-8+ tracks wide of a yard...
> 
> That being said I'm back to the original question of how many feeders are usually needed/do you use on your layout? I seem to remember feeders every 16-24 inches (forget exact number as I still haven't recovered/fully awake from my mandated overnight holdover yesterday even after an almost full night of sleep last night) but I was curious based on my friend's "just do one" suggestion for my whole layout what's the "least" amount of feeders people use on their own DCC layouts?


We have a large layout with dual main lines, I went all the way around the layout with 2 sets of THHN stranded #12 and drop feeders every 9'. it has worked perfect for 25 years on DCC


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## pgcarlson3 (Oct 29, 2021)

As I lay my N scale flex track , I make up plenty of wired joiners . I usually put powered joiners on every other joint , plus extras for switches and insulated sidings .


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