Can you have too many droppers on a layout?

[FrenchBrian]

Hi
Many "Exhibition" layouts will have two sets of droppers per track section and on the points too. Personal layouts its up to the induvial. For 100% operation then every section of track and all points have a dropper pair of wirers fitted.

Note the very best is of course soldering dropper wires to the rails. Solder them to the rails underside before/during track laying and passing them down to below baseboard means that once the track is ballasted the soldering and wires don't show at all. When soldered to the outer rail web area the wire and soldered joint are always visible, but if the track is already laid and ballasted then there is really little other choice.

Dropper wire size is important and more so when not every length of track has droppers fitted. I recommend the following... Every length 7/0.2mm wire and not longer than 300mm bus wire to rail**. Every alternate length 16/0.2mm (**or use this size for longer droppers) max. length 500mm bus to rail.
Bus wire should be capable of carrying the maximum output current of the DCC system plus about 50%. My recommended minimum to use is 32/0.2mm or 1.5mm2 solid. Increasing the Bus wire size on larger layouts too.

[FrenchBrian]

That was great advice - many thanks