Im ready to put in a bus line under my 1st section of my layout. A friend suggested a while back to use house wire. Would buying a 2-dollar extension cord and cut off the plugs work? Just thinking it might be cheaper that way. How many individual feeders should I have per bus line conection? I have 36 drops (72 wires), so would 6 feeders for each of 6 connections to the bus line be too much?
Pat , You need two dufferent wires for your bus line if you are doing DCC.Are your drop lines two different colors. If so then i would get wire that matchs them this way you know which goes to which. I would also look into getting some posi taps. These have been mentioned here on the DCC board. Alan
By $2.00 extension cord I guess you don't mean one with very large wire. If you are using DCC I would recommend you stick to 12-14AWG wire. This is typical house wire sizes. As to connections. Your feeders should connect to the buss in the shortest distance possible. Grouping connections doesn't usually meet this requirement unless you have a lot of parallel track as would be the case for a yard. Try to keep you feeder length under 2' long. David
I am going to run in DC since this is a single track switching operation. I have the wiring laid out properly, Im not well versed as to describing electrical work. I guess it boils down to...I have all my wires in place and ready to go, is extension cord with 12 Volts DC acceptable? I'd imagine it would be.
It should be fine, but probably even cheaper by the foot to just buy a big roll of the same wire from Home Depot or wherever. Unles you happen to have it laying about allready. Color coding is always a good idea, even if the layout is relatively simple now.it is a simple thing to color code and label it all now in case you decide to expand things in the future.
HD has 500 foot rolls for cheap in 18 gauge. If you get the solid wire three stranded color coded wire in the roll, that is 1500 feet.
You can never have too many feeders. I would add more to provide excellent conductivity. Stay cool and run steam.....
How long is the total run from end to end? Low-Voltage DC Drop is more substancial than that of Higher Voltages and in low-voltage it's always best to use Stranded wire.
I like to use 14 gauge solid copper wire for bus lines and 22 gauge solid copper wire for feeders. The JJJ&E is run with DCC. The total run of the bus line is about 40 feet. Stay cool and run steam....
the total run of the bus line right now is a little over 80"....im trying to find connections/plugs to put on the ends for "modularity"
