Hello, in a recent thread "wire as a loop or a straight section" someone said "use good quality 16g oxygen free copper wire". when i searched for this wire i kept recieving speaker wire as a response. Premium 16/2 Awg 100 Feet CL2 Speaker Wire Cable - Oxygen Free Copper would this be good for a bus wire? thank you Leo
Save your money. Go to the local big box store and get 14/2 or 12/2 with ground house wiring. It will work fine and the money you save can be spent on locos, cars, structures, etc.
You can get affordable good clean copper from www.powerwerx.com. The big box stores sell what is termed PIG Copper because of all the impurities. The quality of the wire will translate to better long term performance because the PIG Copper itself changes over time due to the impurities. It gets lossier with age. This is more important if you are planning to run DCC rather than just DC.
The wire in your link is not twisted. I ended up getting 100 feet of 12 AWG in two different colors from Home Depot and twisting it myself. Yes, twisting does make a difference. I have a 60 foot bus and tested signals on both twisted pair and straight pair witn my oscilloscope. The twisting eliminated almost all the spiking. By the way, I ended up wiring as a loop. It produced, by far, the cleanest signal. Sent from my GT-N8013 using Tapatalk
I never said it was twisted, I only said it was quality Copper over PIG Copper. I have 100 feet of non-twisted but parallel wires and no spikes and no dispersion using my scope using 16 gauge wire from them.
This is Model Railroading. Aerospace Technology is not needed here. Neither is Oxygen free wire. Home Depot sells small rolls of 14 Awg Stranded Wire in 25 ' or 50' spools in several colors with THWN or THHN insulation. I have used it to wire several permanent as well as Modular layouts with no problems. Twisting is not necessary rather.
The rails are also carrying current just like the bus. Obviously they can't be twisted. I have read that with one way bus runs over 30 feet or so, twisting can help. We use zip cable for NTRAK with runs well over 30 feet. I've tested out to 100 feet one way. However, the two conductors are perfectly parallel just like track. All of our 12 ga wire bus is Carol outdoor lighting cable from Home Depot. We have over 2000 feet of it in use so far. Martin Myers
Air gap matters. If the wires are far enough apart, such as with rails, then twisting is not needed. You are right retsignalmtr, some of us get too deep in the weeds when we don't need too. My first degree is in EE and it is hard to turn off sometimes. The truth is that DCC is very forgiving and will work just fine on some really nasty signal. The clean signal that twisting provides just makes me feel better. And who knows, it might even prevent intermitant hiccups like run aways. Sent from my GT-N8013 using Tapatalk
Using oxygen free copper brings out micro details in locomotive sound. A more airy sound with every chuff and horn and diesel engine sound blooming like flowers in front of the listener. Just a much more complete presentation of every nuance. It is NOT subtle! Doug
Gotta be...the sound is generated in the decoder and does not travel via the bus or rails at all. The bus/track carries the DCC signal (i.e., data and power only, the latter of which is filtered in the decoder), so there is no impact on the sound unless there are actual data dropouts or errors.
He's parodying audiophiles. They love things like $50,000 dollar cables and putting speakers on stands that cost as much as a luxury car and all kinds of nonsense.
Actually, if the signal is cleaner then there will be more accurate processing by the decoder. Not saying it can be seen or heard, but cleaner signals will always be more accurate. As for the audiophile remark, I certainly am glad I don't pay that much for cables or stands for awesome musical playback.
Sort of reminds me of the chrome valve covers and air cleaners...folks thought sure it added 10-15 HP. Or Simonize waxing the front 1/3 of an SSN to make it "faster"...and I kid you naught....I was there when the Division Commander suggested it and was part of the crew chipping the non-skid off to do it. I have several large bundles of Bus wire. Got it years ago, saving it for some stupidity on my part, eye guess. Wrecking yard was scrapping 3 or 4 city busses, so knowing the penchant for dcc users to have proper bus wire, I got the harnesses out of them. Yes, it's Bus wire, guaranteed. Audiophiles......yes.....no on the stands and 50K cables, but I know what you allude to. I am analog. Big system, five 500W amps, DBX driverack, hanging array, column sidefills on top of 15 or 18" reflex sub woofers, fed from a Mackie 32/8. I can flex windows. And argue away....I can hear the difference when I walk into a room as to whether it's analog or digital. Dave
Yes, audiophiles can be very funny in their ignorance and flowery talk. Anyway, large buses (say, up to 14 gauge although they don't usually have to be that big) really are a good idea. You want the least voltage drop you can get, either in a DC or DCC system. Rail should not be depended upon to maintain voltage, expecially in the smallest scales like N. The rail cross section is pretty small and you also have rail joiners which are notoriously bad at maintaining conductivity over time. Same with rail-to-rail connectors in turnouts. Doug
