hi. i am beginning a layout and it will eventually be DCC. my question is what size wire should i use to wire it up?
Answers will be coming from those with the expertise and experience. Meanwhile, since I see this is your post number one, welcome to TrainBoard. I urge you to explore it at your leisure. You will find many friendly, knowledgable people and lots of fun, too.
Welcome to Trainboard!! I use 14 gauge solid copper wire for my main bus wires and 20 gauge solid copper wire (doorbell wire) for the feeders to the track. Both of these are readily available from Home Depot. The 14 ga. may be a bit overkill, but everything I do is usually a bit overkill.
First, may I suggest checking out http://www.wiringfordcc.com. I personally use #12 gauge wire for my busses. However, the size is really dependent upon the length of the run. The larger the distance the power has to travel the larger the wire needed. You want to prevent a drop in available power and signal strength. In my case I have runs as long as 50 feet. I use #20 wire as feeders to every piece of track. That means there are feeders at least every 3 feet. So the question becomes, how long will your buss wire be? David
Ncng, now that you mention it, I maybe be using 12 ga. wire for my bus too. It's been too long since I bought it.
NCE recommend these sizes for the bus wiring: Up to 10 ft - #16 Up to 50 ft - #14 Over 50 ft - #12 They also recommend feeders every 3 ... 6 ft and preferably to every piece of rail (ie. not relying on rail joiners).
What I would like to find is a FAIR priced source for the 32AWG stranded wire they use for the decoders. I want a spool of say 250 feet in each of the 8 popular colors. Some people sell you 3 feet and 10 feet pieces, but charge 150X the cost of the stuff, Reasonable is something like a 250 foot rool for $8 Unreasonable is 10 feet for $11.99
Robert. Go to Home Depot and check out their multistrand phone wire. You can buy it by the foot and it is available in several multistrand sheath wire. I bought about 50 feet and it had 6 different colored insulated wires. I used a sharp knife and slit the cover and the wires came right out. I know they have wire with more wires inside. I get a kick out of all the guys using 16 to 12 gauge wire. I use about 22 gauge and smaller wire to my main lines and several of them run about 10 feet before hooking up to the track. I have no trouble with voltage drops. Just think about how long those telephone lines are with that small gauge wire. Humdres and thousands of feet and they carry milavolts. You can still get a spark if you short them out.
I enjoy giving people a kick. As I said before, I use either 12 AWG or 14 AWG (don't remember which) as my main bus which runs (or will run rather) directly beneath my mainline. I will then have 20 AWG feeders going to every or maybe every other piece of track. If I have electrical problems, it won't be because of a lack of getting power to the rails.
An excellent source for very fine colored wire is from RS232 extension cables. You can get a 6' cable for $1.99 (plus shipping) from http://www.hosfelt.com. Each cable has 25 wires plus a ground. That should be enough wire to last for many years. David
I use the suitcase connectors, and have had no problems whatsoever. Much easier than soldering under the benchwork.
Hoss, Unless I missed it, your rail images album doesn't say what scale you are in. You might want to include that in one of your comments. If you have it there and I missed it, my apologises. As noted above, the bus you use is dependent on the length it needs to be. Remember on a larger layout, the power booster can be in the middle with wire going out either side. For those on a budget, if you go #14 you might want to buy the wiring used in home construction. It is covered in an outer protective layer that you just cut off (one long cut along the length and strip off - piece of cake). The inner wires have their own protective coating so it doesn't matter that you strip them out. With suit case connectors, if you are going from #22 to #14 about the only way you will get them to work is to double up on the thickness of the #22 wire, double it back on itself and the stripped off area; this will work. You won't find a connector for a 22 to 14 jump.
I model in HO and use 14 gauge for the bus lines and 20 gauge for the feeders. For both of the above I'm using solid copper wire, not stranded, although I don't think it makes much of a difference performance wise. The difference in resistance will be unnoticable. Long term, both solid and stranded wire will become brittle and break. The other small difference is that stranded wire is just a tad larger in diameter than it's solid wire equivelent (ie. 14 gauge stranded is thicker than 14 gauge solid wire)
Rick, thanks for pointing that out. I don't think I ever even thought of telling what scale I use. I'll go fix that now.
I used 14 gauge for my bus wires and 18 for my drops. I may have gone overboard, but I also put a drop for each piece of track. I have had no problems with current, except for the Atlas turnouts. Of course I had problems with those in DC too, but I have solved the problems with some jumpers. The jumpers were left over wires from the Atlas switch machines. Anyway, I model HO scale and to say the least I got very good at soldering wire to the rail. If you check out my website, I did a long section on my history and initial frustrations with DCC. I also get a little bit into soldering and what tools make it easier. [ 08. January 2004, 03:51: Message edited by: ajy6b ]
A real cheap source for most but not all the colors is regular telephone wire you can get at radio shack. Strip off the insulation and you may have four or six of your eight colors at the right gauge too. That is what I use.
