My process

I use thin wire, #24 or #26 for my feeders. That way they will go through a 1/8" hole with lots of room to spare. First I made a tool:

This is a six inch length of 1/8" styrene tube with a random chunk of styrene glued to one end. To use it, I drill a 1/8" hole using an airline (long) bit:

My foam is 4" thick at the highest point-- this bit reaches just fine. Next I drop the styrene dohickey in the hole and push the wire through from the bottom.  The wire is still on the spool. If I put a slight bend in the wire, it will not drop out. The dohickey makes the hole easy to find from underneath-- in fact I can can usually just reach under and do it by touch.

The bend in the wire also makes it safe to pull the dohickey off and prepare to solder:

Soldering is an art that is thoroughly discussed on this forum. My technique:

• Strip 3/8" of the wire and bend it at a right angle.
• Scrape the web of the rail clean.
• Apply a bit of solder to the clean spot. (Rosin core of course)
• Hold the wire in place and heat it and the solder until it flows.
• Remove the iron but hold the wire steady. (Any movement at this time means a do-over)
• The solder will lose its shine when it is safe to let go.

Next step is to pull the wire from the bottom until it disappears.

(I'll have to remember to clean up my loose ends.)

Next, I get underneath, stretch the wire to the terminal block and cut it to length. Since I do use terminal blocks, I add a spade lug to the end of the wire:

Spade lugs = sanity when it comes to terminal blocks. Crimp tool = sanity when it comes to spade lugs. Without either, I'd be climbing the walls.

The view from on low:

Note that I do use suitcase connectors to get the buss to the terminal blocks. That way the buss itself hs no breaks. It's kind of hidden in this shot, but the block on the right is connected in two sections for the A (blue) and B (white) wires. You can see the wire I just installed going into its hole to the left. (The left hand terminal strip has connections for a Tortoise.) Later on, I'll dress the wires, maybe holding them against the ply with a clip or duct tape. The terminal strips make that process easy as well.

pqe

If my dentist could see me now...

My dentist is a good friend. He gives me broken tools that I regrind to make mini-chisels.

pqe

Mirror

I must remember the mirror the next time I am working on track in a bad position.

Why do you solder the wire to

Why do you solder the wire to the outside of the rail where it's visible? I always solder to the underside of the rail, drill holes before I install the piece of track, feed the wires through and glue the track. This way The wire is completely invisible. I did this even on my code 55 N scale track without problems.

Invisible soldering?

I have a couple of pieces of rolling stock that have complained about solder on the inside of the rail. I planned to move this track around a lot, (it's still only pinned down) so the underside feeder trick was not an option. I find that once the rail is painted the feeders are really hard to find. Maybe when my eyes are fixed I'll be fussier.

pqe

Some things I learned today...

The proper term for my doohickey is probably cannula. I'm going to stay with doohickey due to over-exposure to medical stuff. Also, I learned how to spell doohickey.

Sometimes the plywood will splinter a bit and the doohickey will bind up. (Most times actually.) This is fixed by drilling from the bottom with a 3/16" drill. Of course that means sawdust in the face.

When placing all of those barrier strips below the layout, avoid putting them under the track where any feeders might go. Guess how I found that out. No harm done, as I just grazed it, and they are easy to move. TOMA builders will benefit from drawing the track plan on the underside.

 I tidied up that solder joint that Michael spotted. 26 ga wire really does disappear with paint and ballast. 18 ga doesn't, so I stopped using it. Since there are a lot of feeders, there's no electrical significance. (Think about the size of the wires on the decoder.)

pqe

That is a great.....

....tip to remember. Working on the back side of anything would be easier. You just have to remember to think everything is reversed.

Do those suitcase connectors

Do those suitcase connectors take different size wires? I was going to use 12 or 14 ga wire for my bus, and 24 or 26 for the feeders. Could I use them to connect without the terminal blocks?

Do those suitcase connectors ....

Yes, they do. Check the specs for the various models to verify the wire sizes they handle. 

Dante

LUMI-NUTS

Instead of suitcase connectors, these look ideally suited for daisy  chaining the track wires and putting in a connector to track feeders.  works on a wide range of wire gauges (12 to 18) stranded or solid.

Alternate low-tech doohickey method

Straws as wire conduits through foam

My layout has only 4 inches of foam, supported by cross-braces, for a base. To make my canulae / doohickeys, I take a sharpened pencil and ram-twist it down through the foam to make a hole. Then take a plastic straw (the bigger ones, the same size as the pencil), stick the pencil firmly in one end, insert the pencil eraser-end-first into the hole, and pull-push the straw through the hole. This gives a nice big channel, fit for several wires if necessary. Straw is cut to length, leaving some underneath sticking out for feeding-wire-by-touch. It is left in place for future wire insertion or revision. (This will also work with a plywood base under the foam, if you drill a pencil-sized hole in the wood first.) Top of straw is disguised with a dot of greenery or covered completely if no future access is anticipated.

Dropping feeder wires

1. Once again I'd like to mention my all-time favorite solution to the "wire-through-the-layout" ; coffee stirrers. Just drill down through from the top, stick the stirrer through the hole and feed the wire through it. When the wire's in place, pull the stirrer out & move on to the next. Distance too great through from top to bottom of the layout? Use a slightly larger & longer drill bit, and perhaps a soda straw instead of the coffee stirrer. Stirrers and straws are usually available gratis anywhere they sell coffee or drinks, so grab several "extras" on the way out! Incidentally, many thanks to David Popp for showing this in one of his videos for MRVP (it was his idea, not mine).

feeders

By the way Limi-nuts are a really great solution to daisy chaining  a bus and connecting feeders all in one connector!.  I use a PC tie to connect feeders to the rail.  The actual feeders are soldered to the bottom (cladding is cut in the middle on both top and bottom) so the feed wires  go thru a single hole down to the bus.  Then I solder the rails to the top of the pc tie.  You do all the hard work of soldering the feed wires to  the pc tie on the bench!  with a little effort I suspect you could insert a PC tie with the feed wires attached  to an existing track.  

"The actual feeders are

 This needs some clarification. How do you connect the bottom of tie copper cladding to the top of tie cladding? .....DaveB 

  Eek...  looks like melted

Eek...  looks like melted tie city.

I prefer to solder feeders in spots that aren't on top of ties and use heat sinks; melting ties almost never happens.

Once the feeder is soldered, I slide in ties into the gap.

Had never heard of a LUMI NUT

Had never heard of a LUMI NUT before but that’s cool and looks similar to this product.  not sure if the Ideal version has a daisy chain variant. Just started using these as bus interconnects between my layout modules. Much slicker and certainly safer than the semi insulated spade terminals I previously employed  

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ideal-PowerPlug-Orange-Ballast-Disconnect-Discs-5-Pack-30-1302S/202935637

theres a whole genre of push in connect style connectors and terminations these days!  The Wago Lever Nuts are interesting as terminal block alternatives  

Jeff

Eeek indeed

That’s mostly excess rosin catching the light funny, but the tie did bend a bit. After cleaning the rosen off, the goof is hard to see, especially since it is behind a fence. The real moral is don’t solder to painted rail. (I thought I’d scraped enough off.)

pqe

My soldering skills are

My soldering skills are servicible but I don't trust myself to solder a feeder directly on top of a tie.  As Dirty Harry said, a man's got to know his limitations!

Fishing wire thru foam

Solid wire and crimp connections

I see in one picture it looks like you are using crimp connectors with solid wire. Crimp connections should not be used with solid wire unless they are soldered. When the connector is crimped the wire crimps but doesn't keep tension on the connector. Only stranded wire should be crimp. I may work for years, but one day you'll find power not getting to where it should be and it will be one of the crimps is no longer making a good connection.

I've had to go back and look for crimps like that. Usually what I do just start soldering every connection the and the problem is solved for those connectors.

Richard

Marked for reference

I needed to mark this discussion so I would remember to come back very soon.

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Power Plugs

I use the Power Plugs from home depot on my modular layout. I am handicap and have a hard time getting under layout so these work great on each end of my modules for the bus lines. For me the only way to go.

Wire feeder tool

On our layout we use a similar tool. Ours is a hollow brass tube with a block soldered on one end. The block has a hole drilled into it to allow the tube to be soldered in. When using the tool insert the tube as in this article. Then we put a small kink in the wire and insert it into the bottom of the tube. Pull the tool up and it brings the wire with it!. Pull the wire out of the tool and solder as shown here in the article. The brass tube can even be used to cut it's own way down through the Foam. Cheers from the crew on the Spring Creek Railway, Montrose, Colorado !!