I have an HO layout power problem. At the furthest parts of the layout, there is a noticeable power drop. How can I fix this?
What you need is a power feed to this part of track that needs power. If you use blocks, each block needs more that one feed from the block switch. Most people just put the power feed right in the
middle of the block. Instead, the feed should be split in two (or more) and one be put towards one end of the block and the other towards the other end of the block. More feeds, less chance of having
power drops. At my club, each joint has a wire jumper, and the joint itself is not soldered. This controls the expansion/contraction of the rail in the heat/cold environment.
Run a second pair of wires off of your transformer and attach them at the farthest point of track, or at the point where the engine seems to be slowest. This should allow the bad connections, or
resistance of the track to be eliminated.
Don't depend on track to carry your power to the ends of the world (layout). The conductivity of track isn't that good, and NS (Nickel-Silver) is even worse than brass. I've been told that code
100-NS track has the same conductivity as a #22 copper wire. NS is recommended over brass however for it's lack of corrosion. What you should be using is feeder wires from the track down to a point
below the layout, and a heavy gauge wire to carry the power to the feeders. Our club has a policy where we drop a feeder wire at every point where two tracks join. This insures that every section of
track has at least one feeder wire connected to it, and is some insurance against "dead" sections. I like to solder the feeder wire to the bottom of the track connector. That way the wire is not seen
on top. We use #10 stranded wire to carry power to the feeders.
I am in the process of connecting the lights for all the houses in the village. About 20 building have lights inside with wire, now all I have to do it hook them up. But, I don't want to end up with a mess of wires like I did. Since the wires are extremely fine (don't know the gauge), I am sort of at a lost on how to do it efficiently and look half way neat. A friend hook a long flex track underneath his layout and wired that track with all the building connected to the track. Sounds good, except when I started it, I found soldering almost impossible and it started looking sloppy.
Get the smallest size of crimp connectors (at the Orchard Supply I shop at they are the red ones.) You can crimp several wires of different sizes with these things and they totally avoid soldering. The crimp tool is about $10 and the connectors (I call them crimpees) cost about $6/100.
After crimping you can use a plain old stable gun to staple the crimpees to the underside of your layout. Stapling the crimpees is much safer than stapling the fine wires themselves.
At a GOOD hardware store, or a boat shop that services the 'home built' crowd. You can find some small sized BRASS nails. (They are often 'Ring Nails' i.e. they have a corrugated shank so that they don't remove easily.) These tacked strategically in the sides of the benchwork pieces (sides, vs. bottom, cuts down the likelyhood of additional 'parts' in the 'hairdo') provide very usable termination points for those extremely fine 'light bulb' wires.