Can you have too many droppers on a layout?

[Buddyboy]

Is there such thing as too many ?
I assume droppers are the soldered feeds on rails to connect to the bus.
Newby here, please bare with me .

[End2end]

Hi and welcome to the forum Buddyboy.
Yes, soldered feeds on the outside's of the rails to the DCC bus
I've got droppers on every piece of track.
Hope it helps.
Thanks
End2end

[heda]

Yes droppers connect the track to the bus.
As E2E said a dropper for each piece of track is best, you are not then relying on power through the rail joiners.
Dave

[fourtytwo]

I find droppers on every piece of track a bit cumbersome so do every other allowing up to 50% fishplate failure, given I cannot remember the last fishplate failure in the last 3 decades of modelling that's good enough for me

[Flashbang]

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.

[Buddyboy]

Thank you all.
Very helpful so i will go mad and put droppers where poss. Awkward on flyover bridges though.

[End2end]

You could always glue the wire horizontally along under the flyover.
Thanks
End2end

[heda]

Or if the wire is less than the height of the sleepers perhaps run it along the edge of the sleepers to a more convenient point. It won't show once it's covered in ballast.
Dave

[End2end]

Also don't forget to tin both and make sure the track is clean. I use a fibreglass pen to rub the area to be soldered, clean.
You may find it easier to solder on the wires BEFORE laying the track by tilting it on it side and don't leave the soldering iron on the track for too long as you may melt the plastic sleepers and that, when melted, STINKS and is probably hazardous so don't breathe it in
Thanks
End2end

[Bufferstop]

If you are working with DC rather than DCC you need a branch off the bus connected via the polarity switching for sidings and dead ends. Clearly identify the feed to it then if you go DCC you cut the feed and connector to the main bus, it's the only real difference between DC and DCC wiring.

[Flashbang]

Actually, the major difference between DC and correct DCC wiring is the size of the wires used throughout for both Bus and droppers!

[Bigmet]

And to answer the direct question, yes: one dropper connected to the wrong bus is too many.

Adding the dropper wires to track before laying, and connecting to the bus once in place, takes a little more planning; but enables instant detection of a wrong connection if the DCC system is powering the bus. It's the one use I have found for my accidentally acquired sound decoder, if the sound cuts out when the dropper is brought into contact with the bus, you immediately 'correct your action' and then reset the system to verify.

...Awkward on flyover bridges though.

Planning is all! If the flyover is under a yard in length then a piece of flexitrack will span it. A false economy I have seen on occasion is failure to use whole lengths of flexitrack, where connections are difficult. That's both electrical connections and rail joints. Think in terms of ease of maintenance over the long term in layout construction, it pays off in trouble free operation. (Does not apply to those that only build a layout to run a train over it once, and then scrap the layout in order to construct the next one. I have known more than one such serial layoutist...)

[Bufferstop]

Actually, the major difference between DC and correct DCC wiring is the size of the wires used throughout for both Bus and droppers!

Depends on the performance you want from your DC system. For DC the minimum you can get away with is distinctly thinner, if you made a proper job of it not much less than DCC, and doing it for DC today allowing for conversion to DCC exactly the same.

[Flashbang]

Actually, the major difference between DC and correct DCC wiring is the size of the wires used throughout for both Bus and droppers!

Depends on the performance you want from your DC system. For DC the minimum you can get away with is distinctly thinner, if you made a proper job of it not much less than DCC, and doing it for DC today allowing for conversion to DCC exactly the same.

TBH around 1.0Amp is about the most common DC controllers output! Hornby ones are usually far less and some designed for larger scales - O and above have greater current output.
But dealing with UK mainstream N and OO/HO DC layouts, then 16/0.2mm is more than adequate for most medium sized layouts and 7/0.2mm can even be used on smaller layouts for DC track power.
On DCC the track output current can on many systems be around 4 to 5Amps hence a minimum 32/0.2mm is recommend.

[Buddyboy]

Thank you guys. All very helpful.