I am planning my track power buss, do I make the buss into a continious loop or is it better to have a distribution block fed from the booster and have the power buss branch off into deadends serving different areas of the layouy.

-- Martin Rennison (rennison5@hotmail.com), June 28, 2004

Answers

Martin,

I do not recommend forming a loop and connecting the ends. Just have it branch off into dead ends.

-- Allan Gartner (wire4dcc_admin@comcast.net), June 29, 2004.

Branch off track (and throttle) bus feeders in dead ends as Allan has suggested. (Never form a loop with the Throttle/cab communication bus.) Twist the track bus wires together, 1 turn per 1-3 inches. Put an R-C load of 100-150 ohms, 1/2 watt resistor and 0.1 uFD, 50V (or higher V) capacitor in series at the end of each bus run to help suppress ringing.

None of this is mandatory, but each step will help minimize later problems sometimes encountered with larger layouts.

-- Don Vollrath (dvollrath@magnetek.com), July 02, 2004.