Feeder Joiners

[stevebalzer]

Retired now and revisiting the hobby I had as a youngster.  I will be using Kato N-Unitrack in an oval like shape with a turn out for a station and 4 one-way spurs on a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood. I used SCARM to design this layout and it's telling me I have a total of 488 inches of track. Most of which is in the oval like shape that runs on the outside. I plan on using the Kato 22-018 Power Pack with 5 Kato Turnout Switches. My question is how many Feeder Joiners should I use to supply adequate power to my layout? See PDF of layout attached.
Thanks in advance for you recommendations.

[Train Waiting]

Welcome aboard, Steve.

In theory, you could get away with one pair of track feeds.  It would be better to use two, or if you like, three.  In any case, I suggest one at the toe of the turnout leading into your siding and various spurs.

I'm assuming you are using DC.

With best wishes.

John

[ntpntpntp]

It's not so much about the length of track, but where the feeders need to be placed in order to feed sidings etc.

For your main oval I would have feeds at 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock, so you're either side of the passing loop points and will feed power into the toe end (the blade end) of the point formation which is a golden rule for wiring. This will also share power around both sides of the oval and help with any voltage drops due to the number of rail joints.  In theory that should also be adequate to feed power up into all your sidings.

You need to think about whether you will want any isolating sections in the sidings to park locos? I believe Unitrack points can be adjusted to operate as "power routing" or with both routes always live? It may depend exactly which points you use.

[stevebalzer]

Thanks for your input.

[Railwaygun]

see Kato Unitrack price increase warning

https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=51081.msg688074#msg688074