Hornby DCC Clips

[DallasOZ]

Hi Apologies if this question has been asked before. I'm relatively new to the hobby. Currently I use the Hornby DCC Clips and find they work well. I can't use a bus wire or droppers as I'm limited with space under the board. How long can a layout be using these clips? Many thanks Dallas

[96RAF]

It is not a case of how long but how much electrical load are you feeding through them.

They are designed simply to get current across a point to feed a siding or two, but not to power a whole range of extra track past the power feed location. They are after all simply very thin springy steel wires much better as heaters than conductors if you try to run a few loops from a single feed and rely on these for that power.

To pass a lot more current (say if you are running many locos), you could resort to link wires if you are restricted from soldering droppers to a bus, etc, noting that these wires are designed for DC tracks and must have the capacitors removed when used on DCC.

If you can solder then it is possible to solder link wires to the rails and run these wires between the sleepers to the next loop, etc.

[Fishmanoz]

Given these are the only means of making your entire DCC track live produced by Hornby (unless they might expect you to liberally spread power tracks throughout the layout), then maybe they are thinking more than sidings?

You might ask if they work in the first place, why would they not work forever? The answer is corrosion that will inevitably happen on both Clip and point. It will lead to higher resistance at the joint between them which in turn will lead to localised heating and damage (as Yelrow can testify having melted a point some years ago).

You might be able to manage this with a simple finger heat test to see if any high resistance joints are developing and clean or replace parts if they are. And given the experience some report here, it may be years before you have problems.

[96RAF]

If it promotes any more confidence in these clips I have seen Hornby’s test track, which is based on their full four loop track geometry diagram and is run from a single feed connection, which then relies upon point clips to make it all live.

The single feed is output from a bank of switched controllers of all types for testing DC and DCC.

I know they have had occasional point clip failures but as their track does not see heavy traffic loads as may happen on a users layout, they accept the failure rate, but recommend the use of link wires (modified for DCC) or additional track feeds on users’ layouts if a power bus cannot be installed.

[RDS]

I have also (previously) used these clips with my 4 loop layout with many sidings in the middle, all powered from one connector.

I have since fitted droppers, because I had the space to do so, not because the clips had caused a problem.

[DallasOZ]

Many thanks

[samfieldhouse]

I have also (previously) used these clips with my 4 loop layout with many sidings in the middle, all powered from one connector.

I have since fitted droppers, because I had the space to do so, not because the clips had caused a problem.

 

 

Same here. Except I have a very small number of droppers.

The biggest issue is they pop out and/or trap dirt - they need cleaning every so often.