I was working on my Z layout at the time, but this applies to all scales.... Well, after all the track had been laid, feeders soldered to the rails, and fished thru tiny holes to route them under the layout, I started to hook everything up. On my last layout, I soldered the feeders directly to the bus wires. Sure, it works, but looks like crap. Not only is it more time-consuming, it's more accident-prone for me. Hot soldering irons, long heat times, impatience, and carpet makes a nasty combo when you toss me into the mix. Kinda like tossing a monkey wrench into the works! Anyhow, I stripped, fluxed, and tinned the ends of all the wires, stripped a section from the 12-ga bus wire (overkill, but it's all I had at the time), fluxed and tinned that, and wrapped the feeder wires ends around the bus. With my underpowered 25W iron, (mistake #1--solder stranded 12ga wire with a too-small iron), held the iron tip to the wire, to the solder (.032" rosin core electronics solder from Radio Shack), and waited. And waited. And waited some more. By now, the wire is getting to hot to hold, my patience is getting shorter by the second, and the piece of solder keeps slipping off the area to be joined. Yikes, this thing is getting HOT. I have a high heat/pain tolerance, but that was really starting to burn. FINALLY, the solder starts to flow. That wire is really hot now, nearly burning my finders. I did one more joint, after that one. The second was even slower to heat. Yikes! Fast forward 6 days. I look at the joints, they look like a 7-year old did them, with plumbers solder. Blobs, messy, and melted wire insulation. Not a pretty sight. I thought long and hard about it, remembering that the Sherman Hill Model RR Club N layout I helped build 3 winters ago was wired differently. How did I manage to make this one look so crappy? The club layout I wired turned out so nicely! No spaghetti bowl of wires underneath. Oh yes! The light bulb comes on... I used solderless splices!! Walmart has them, as well as smaller bus wire. After a not-so-quick trip to Wally World, I scored the solderless splices, and new bus wire, 16 ga. Much better. I cut off the old bus wire, and re stripped the 24ga copper feeder ends, twisted a couple togther, stuffed them in the splice connector, stuffed the bus wire in, grabbed the pliers, squeezed the connector together, snapped the lid closed. No burned fingers, no hot tempers, no wasted time. Why didn't I think of this earlier?!? 30 minutes later, the entire layout was hooked up. Other than wiring the live frogs up, the layout works like a charm. Geez, I'm a goofball.
Hemi: The 12 gauge wire for your bus line was much too thick. For Z scale 16 gauge wire would be more appropriate. I used connectors to join the feeders to the bus line. I can ussually attach five feeders to the bus line using one connector, which not only saves time but also looks good as well. I used Posi-Tap connectors for solderless wiring of feeders to the bus line. Stay cool and run steam....
OK, those are certainly different than what I used.. Those are neat, tho! Where do you find 'em? Actually, the ones I used are called Tap Splices... Here's what they look like:
I will now reveal what I did. Exactly what Hemi did the first time around. It works, but it sure is ugly.
I plan on using the mechanical splices,,, as I want a easier way to trouble shoot, and most definitley a neater appearence. But I feel your pain. Adios Wyatt
