What type of bus wire is best to use. Strand wire or solid,what are the pros an cons of the two. What size of wire is best, the longest run will be 28' long. I am going to be running NCE system. Where would be the best place to hook the system in middle or end of table, this is a multi level layout 2 levels are main line and the 3rd is logging only. This is N scale also. Any help is greatly appreceated thanks Greg
Machs nicht. Use what you have that is of a gauge 14 and up to about 18 gauge if you won't be pushing more than about 5 amps through it continuously. 14 gauge will be good for about 15 amps. You mention a 28' run...that is substantial, and you will experience some voltage drop over that distance with an 18 gauge wire. I'd be inclined (edited for typo) to keep to 14 or 16. I happened to have some hefty speaker wire lying around, so I used that...which means that mine happens to be stranded.
If you don't have wire on hand and need to buy something, doing a search for "Primary Wire" will get you what you need. They sell it in spools of 50' and 100'. They'll have all the colors you need.. red, black, yellow, blue, etc. You might try to find it locally at Home Depot (where they sell it by the foot)... or an auto-parts store... hardware store. This will save you on shipping costs. Here's a place to start: http://www.acehardwareoutlet.com/(xkggzk55j2nmfrmmcscma2ap)/ProductDetails.aspx?SKU=83203 On the left you can select the guage and the color. This wire is stranded, which makes it a little more flexible and easier to work with. You could use 14 Guage for your bus wires and something thinner for your feeder wires. Hope this helps.
Thank you for the info this is a big help. I was not shore of the type of wire solid or stranded. I have 2 100' rolls of solid 14 gauge so I will be off to Home Depot to get some strand wire. Again thank you Crandell an SackOHammer Greg
Hey, if you've got the solid stuff there on hand and you don't want to spend the money on stranded, you certainly could use it. Really the only difference is in how stiff or flexible it is. How much of a deal that is will depend on your benchwork and how you're routing your wire underneath. Could be the solid wire is just fine for you.
I am in bench building stage as we speak so it would not be that bad to put in now then. The lower level bench is all built and working on second level bench. So now would be a good time to run my bus lines. Thank you again espaclly now that you save me some money. Now i can put that money to decoders. Greg :tb-biggrin:
I choose to use solid core. It will hold its shape better and doesn't need nearly so many supports. The red and black wires are the DCC bus; the others are Tortoise power.
Mike. I can see you're running your switch machines off the same bus lines as your track. This helps me with something I've had running around in my mind. I've heard some people say its fine to do this, and others recommend using a separate power source for the tortoise machines. I'm not even sure how that would work. Would I have to buy a whole separate booster? Anyway, I'm going to be running at max 3-4 locos at a time with a Zephyr. Am I going to need extra power for my 8 switch machines (tortoise)? Hammers
No they they aren't. They are hardwired to a +/- 7.5V DC supply through SPDT toggle switches. (The motor connections are the outer wires on the Tortoise - yellow and pink wires.) The DCC wires you see connected to the Tortoises go to one of the auxiliary contacts and the third wire of the group (marked black + red) takes the correct polarity from there to the live frog of the turnouts.
The frogs only want one polarity at a time, and that would be commensurate with the closed point rail. The Tortoise feeds that polarity through that solitary wire, and it feeds it based on the position of the actuating arm and wire since that is entirely associated with the points position above it. You should keep the draw on the rails to a minimum, so you would power the Torti using a secondary source, and that means it would also have its own "bus" of sorts to distrubute power here and there to the various mechanisms.
In my case (DCC), I had planned on using Insulfrog turnouts, so no need to power the frog. What would I need to run a separate power bus for the turnouts? A DC wall wart? Some type of breaker?
14 gauge stranded. I have a 18' x 9' three level layout and will be starting track & wiring on the lower level this week (vacation...woo-hoo!). I use stranded because it is more flexible and 14 gauge because I overdo everything. I probably will have some bus runs of close to 20-25 feet, but from what I have researched, any bus run under 30' should be fine. Jamie
Yes, a suitable wall wart is exactly what many use, but it may have to be a super wall wart, depending on what you need it to provide to your various accessories like the Torti. You may even need two or more, depending on how you want to break it all down. If you have one and it fails for some weird reason, will you be okay having no tortoise control until you can get a new replacement, or would you be happier having two or more so that at least if one dies the other can be pressed into service around the layout, or left where it is so that you can play trains in that serviced location? Something to consider.
Jamie where are you going to put your main power supply. I want to put mine at one end of the bench work, will that have any affect on the systems volt drop.
Big Steam You are discussing two different topics - 1) Main train power and 2) Power for switch machines. 1) Main Train Power Use solid or stranded (whatever you have) #14. You are using DCC I thought I read so it is better to keep bus runs to a minimum so place your DCC controller as close to the center of runs as you can get not at one end. 2) Switch Machine Power Generally run seperate bus for switch machines particularly if you are not going to use DCC decoders on the switch machines. Use AC/DC up to 12 volt supplies for switch machines - wall wart or old power pack picking off the supplemental power connectors on those old packs not the track power connectors. There is other ways of powering switch machines one for example is mentioned in the Jan 2008 issue of Model Railroader.
tejerrard No I only asked about main bus power for train, not switch machines. My layout has all hand operated switches. someone else asked about the switch wiring. Thank you for the info on where to place power supply. That was the only other thing that I was not sure of. Again thank you for that info of placement. Greg
Thank, it was me asking about the switch wiring. I'm doing my benchwork right now as well. Going to have DCC for trains. Going to use a couple DS64 stationary decoders to power some tortoise switch machines. So, I think you're saying I should run a separate bus using a wall wart to provide power to the switch machines. Thanks, Hammers
Hammers If you are going to use DCC to control the switch machine check the manuals for DCC - I believe you can hook them into the track DCC bus - but I would have to go read the books as well to be sure. The separate bus would be for non-DCC controlled switch machines.
Yes, you can use DCC track power to run your turnout motors. It's all electricity so it will work. It's also expensive electricity that could be better uses by the trains. Besides the extra draw on track power; when track power is down like from running a turnout, how do you set the switch to its proper position to clear the short?
