My Layout: Layout Track Wiring

Well, I don't have the ability to work on the layout, so now I can catch up with some blog posts here and there with projects I did awhile ago.

How do we get power to the rails?

Ignoring the dead rail movement, most modelers and books suggest soldering directly to the side of rails and I suppose you could do that on the side that no one sees, but I wanted to make it so one couldn't see after ballasting, the wires that power the layout at all.

I thought about soldering to the bottom of the rail, like I did on the AtlasO switches that I beefed up to ensure they wouldn't fail on me, but it was already a lot of work to cut out the ties and solder the wires to the switches without melting the plastic ties.  Then I had an idea to solder the the rail joiners like AtlasO sells.  Worried about contact, I also clasp down on the rail joiners with needle nose pliers to ensure they fit the rails super tight.

Below is a photo gallery of some work I did on the switches, followed by my method of soldering power leads to the rail joiners.  For planning purposes, I figured out where to put my feeders based on a general track plan I had for AtlasO track.  After having the track in place, I would mark on the roadbed where the rail joiners would be and then drill holes to have them come up in exactly the right place.

Now for the photo essay.

 The first track I initially laid.  This is where Pegram Shops will be and it is raised up on thin sheet of wood in case it needs to be moved in the future.

 I have a previous blogpost on how I did these, but I had gone through and soldered new jumpers across the tracks that can handle higher current. I also tapped and added wires to the frogs, though I'm starting to think I can get away with unpowered frogs.

 A photo when I set up a little switch assembly line to add/solder the new jumpers on the switches.

  Some jumper creation close ups to replace the existing ones.

To conceal these jumpers, I made sure the solid-core wire was flexed downward towards the ties.  That way when ballasting occurs, you can't see these.

 

Another AtlasO switch upgrade...the frogs can move...and possibly cause shorts...so better to cut pieces of styrene into the gaps and glue them in there and sand them in place to prevent this. Another assembly line was made for that.

Finished result of the styrene frog insulators. Thanks Ed Rappe for the tip.

 

 

This shows a few things.  The 18/2 I used for my feeders. The tunes I can jam to while doing this work. The Pegram Shops tracks in the distance are separate the same distance and consist of two pieces of track, a 10" and I believe ME flex (that doesn't really flex.)  For now, there is a piece of wood held down with clamps to keep anything from rolling off onto the floor.  The double-track mainline are the two tracks closest to the camera on the right.

This image shows the that there is a gap in the AtlasO track for wires.  I have to be careful in how I solder to the rail joiners so that the feeders come down exactly in this gap.

Here's a close up of clearance for the feeder wires.  You cannot put it on the right side without cutting in the plastic and hurting the integrity of the track connector.

Here's what a complete piece of track looks like.

So here's an example of how the process works.  We have a track in position and then drill the two holes for the feeders.

 

I used this bit for the holes.

 Find the holes underneath and feed the feeders through the holes.

Connect the joiners to the tracks.  This shows this works with other track too as long as the ties aren't in the way.  This is ME track I believe.

 The finished result.  Can't see the wires at all.

Another example.  Won't see it when ballasted.

Just a random progress shot.  It showed I used big mats of cork as it was easier to do than line up every track exactly.

A parting shot looking down the Pegram Shops trackage.

My Layout: Wiring AtlasO Turnouts Part 2

So I am very close to having all of the turnouts I need to complete my switching layout.

With that, I've already started laying most of the track and before I could finish that step, I wanted to go ahead and wire the turnouts to avoid failure and frustration later, due to failure of AtlasO switches (the contacts under the switches fail over time)

Cutting away parts of the plastic substructure under the rail is easy as is soldering to that (as witnessed in Part 1), but the frogs gave me some trouble and are shown below. I was using my Weller 50W variable soldering iron set at 850 degrees and even after filing a section of one of my wyes, I was not able to heat sink it enough to keep the frog from melting off the ties.  The alloy they use also corroded.  I did not have silver solder at the time to try to solder to this, so I went ahead with the method below.  Silver solder may work, but I have not experimented with it at this time.

After some suggestions from the OGR Forum, I decided to go ahead and potentially make eyesores on all of my frogs by drilling a hole in them and tapping them for .25" 2-56 brass screws so I could solder to the heads from the bottom.  I will be wiring all of the frogs to some Tam Valley Frog Juicers. 

Another tip was to add styrene spacers to the frogs to ensure they don't short with any of the other rails from either movement or rail expansion.

Below is one last photo.  It shows the top and bottom of how the rails are connected and where I chose to cut the ties to add my own wires.  The top photo shows the frog in red - it is isolated from the rest of the switch.  The blue and green lines show the same rails that should be connected and where I wired across under the rail.  On one side of the turnout, I soldered pigtails that would all three go together through a hole under the layout to connect to the 10AWG bus I have running around the layout.  Those pigtails and small hole are drilled after I lay the roadbed, so that they are really close to the roadbed and will eventually be entirely covered and hidden by ballast.

Hopefully this provides a stepping stone for others to use to do similar work to do their best to hide wires on the rails.

Layout: My First AtlasO Turnout Wiring Attempt

I was looking for ideas on what needed to be addressed and how to address shortcomings of AtlasO's 2R turnouts...here-forth called switches.

I was told to not trust the copper cross plates on the underbelly of the switches and to add my own wires to the frog, both sets of rails and also possibly the points, but I decide to let the points use the built in copper plating in the ties.

I went ahead and soldered 5 wires; one to the frog, one to each the right and left rail on one of the diverging ends, and soldered jumpers to the other diverging end's rails to assist the embedded copper plates.  I wanted to see if I could do the soldering myself without a resistance soldering machine, and I wanted to see if I could solder to the bottom to the rails to avoid unsightly solder joints on the side of rails.

It was suggested on the OGR Forum to use wet paper towels to  act as heat sink for a soldering iron.  I went a step further and soaked a sponge in water to do the same.  I set my variable setting soldering iron to its highest setting-850 degrees or so.  I used solid 18 gauge wire for all connections.

To prepare for the connections, I cut away several pieces of ties (see photos) in such a fashion that it would not hurt the overall integrity of the one-piece plastic tie casting. (I choose pieces between the ties that were at diagonals and/or were opposite of sections that weren't cut).

At this point, I filed all areas I was going to try to solder to.  I then added flux paste to each area.  I then tinned both the wires and the rails.  Tinning the rails was easy.  The frog is a big metal casting, so it took a lot of heat to tin it and you could hear the sponge sizzling from the heat.   I did push the switch into the sponge to ensure good contact with water and I did make sure not to melt any of the ties.  I was able to easily solder the wires to the rails by bending the ends of the wire into an L shape to allow more area to solder to the rail.  I did the leads first and then the jumpers.  An idea for the future would be to cut a piece long enough to do the jumpers and the leads and just strip some wire also in the center of that one wire so it can all be one piece and I wouldn't need to worry about the lead coming off when I try to solder the jumper.  The frog was a pain and as I tugged hard on the lead to make sure it was a good solder joint, it pulled off easily twice.  After each time I filed the same spot again and even harder than the time before.  I put more flux paste each time and got the third time to hold pretty strong.

I am curious to see how a resistance soldering device would make this any easier or stronger solder joints.  Perhaps I should consider using a high grade silver solder.  If anyone knows of a good resistance soldering unit for sale, let me know.

Here are some photos.  Feel free to click on the photos for larger sizes and to comment as always.