Layout Wiring

[motrainguy]

I am ready to start wiring my HO layout. I will have 3 mainline trains running. Each mainline track will cover approx. 40 ft. I plan to supply power to each mainline at 10 foot intervals. I will be suppling all 3 mainlines from a Bachmann 5 amp booster.
I want to run 2 feeder wires (1 for each side of the track) from the booster, then use
connectors to feed this power from the feeder lines to the track at each 10 ft point.

Question:

What gauge wire should I use for the feeder lines and also the lines to connect to the tracks. 

[richg]

Many recommend stranded #14 wire for the buss and solid #22 wire for the feeders. That is what our clubs has been using for some time. Solid #14 can be tough to wok with. Solid #22 is easier to solder to the rail.
We use suit case connector from Home Depot for this size wire. I have used these connectors commercially but some do not like them and solder the feeders to the buss. Some use a wire stripper which cuts the insulation and pulls it back far enough to solder the feeder wire to the buss wire. Easier than using a knife.

Rich

[jward]

i have used 18 guage solid wire for all my dcc connections. it is small enough to solder to the sides of the rail, but has low enough resistance that it won't degrade the dcc signal on a medium sized railroad. that way you don't have to worry about using two different wire sizes, and can buy your wire in bulk. 18 guage 2 conductor wire is readily available in lowes or home depot.

also, rather than use a bus wire system, i prefer a "star" configuration, in which the feeders are run from a central point rather than tapped off a bus that follows the track. i find that by doing this i can keep total feeder length under about 10 feet each on a layout that was 13'6" a side.

i am also not a fan of suitcase connectors. easy to use, yes. but for me and my friends they had a high failure rate as well. nobody wants to be ducking under a layout trying to troubleshoot wiring. a good solder connection to a central point, and to the track means fewer places for things to go wrong.

[Doneldon]

mo-

Well I'll come in here and upset the whole apple cart by recommending both larger and smaller wire. First, though, I'll say I'm not so happy with suitcase connectors, especially with small gauge wire. I think they are very expensive on a per joint basis, though they do save quite a bit of time when they work. And that's my gripe. Unless you have parallel jaws on your squeezer there's a good chance the junction won't be a good one. I've got way too many (make that way, way, way) to many tools already. The last thing I need is another one.

I like to use 14 or 16 ga wire for buses. Stranded is easier to work with but quite a bit more expensive. Solid is better if you'll be soldering your feeders because it's easier to take a chunk of insulation off of solid wire than stranded when you are taking it from the run of the wire, not the end. Either can be stapled to the bottom of the layout as long as you use separate staples for the two wires. I just leav a little slack between staples so I can easily attach a feeder.

I use very small stranded wire for feeders, even as small as 24 or 26 ga. I keep these short - a foot would be a very long one - and add them about every four or five feet. The fine wire is easy to push through a small hole, hide with paint and solder to the rails. I always twist my stranded wire and tin it before I push it through the layout. Then I clean and tin the rail, and a quick touch with the soldering gun is all it takes. No more melted ties, loose wires or cold joints.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              -- D

[CNE Runner]

Well Mo, yet another opinion on your wiring question ("Opinions are like noses...everyone has one."). I use good old 12 ga. Romex house wire for my buses (available in 25', 50', or larger rolls at your local home improvement store). I strip off the outer insulation material so that I end up with a black and a white insulated wire(s) (and the uninsulated ground wire...which I do not use). The buss wires are then affixed to the bottom of the layout via drilled 1"x 2" blocks (which are glued to the underlayment). Twelve gauge wire is heavy and requires a robust securing system. Additionally, by 'suspending' the buss wires, one can then easily attach the feed legs.

For feed legs I use 18 ga. (?) bell wire. Look for the loosely twisted red/white wire at the same home improvement center. [I just checked and the wire isn't labeled with its gauge.] Anyway, the feed wire is soldered to the side of the rail (although it could be soldered underneath the rail...which could lead to some maintenance problems in the future). The feed wire is then attached to the appropriate buss wire via a 3M 'suitcase connector' that is appropriate to the wire gauges being joined. I have never experienced any problems with these connectors and get them, in quantity, at our local electrical supply jobber.

Regards,
Ray

[motrainguy]

If I use 14g stranded wire as opposed to 14g solid wire as my bus wires, will I loose signal strength to the track on a DCC layout. I hear a lot of pros & cons about this. My initial plan is to use 14g stranded for the bus and 18g or 20g for the feeders, will this be OK for a DCC layout???

[Jim Banner]

No, you will not lose any signal strength using stranded vs. solid wire of the same gauge.  At very high currents and at high frequencies, electricity tends to travel along the outside of the wire so that a tube of the same outer diameter works about as well as solid conductor but at the currents and frequencies used in DCC, this does not happen.  What can happen on long runs (typically more than 20 feet) is that the fast rising leading edges of the waveforms start to rings, or oscillate, making it difficult for the decoders to read the signals.  A partial solution is to twist the bus wires together - I use about 3 turns per foot, making it easy to separate them where I want to add feeders.  Another solution is to add "snubbers" to the ends of long lines.  Snubbers for DCC typically consist of a 100 ohm resistor in series with a capacitor  connected across the end of the line.  Ideally, an oscilloscope is used before and after adding the snubber to check how well it is working.  On home layouts, this level of sophistication is not usually necessary.   

Jim

[motrainguy]

Thanks for all the replays and help. One more question. My longest mainline will cover approx. 40 ft. What is the maximum distance I can use for feeder hookups on a DCC layout. I plan for every 10 ft., is this too far apart ?. What is recommended ?.

[Jerrys HO]

Every 10ft. will work fine, but I do recommend Jim's quote on twisting your bus wires. Sounds like a nice size layout. You stated that you were going to use connectors to attach the feeders. I found soldering them was cheaper and easier for me.

[motrainguy]

Thanks!!! Layout is 12' by 9' rectangle. No room in house so I built the frame with PVC 1 1/4 " Whole frame is on Walmart swivel castor wheels and easily moved around. The top is made up of combining 4' X 8' house insulation panels 1" thick.
Needed layout to be mobile and and light and 2 X 4's and plywood would not work for me. Most of my track will be on foam risers with three mainlines running around the perimeter. The center section will be mostly maintenance facilities for 2 railroads with a working turn table. 2 roads will have engine servicing buildings with one of them having a engine shop and MOW facilities. I have a coal mine with a loop loading track. The outside track will host a Santa Fe passanger train, the middle track will host a Union Pacific manifest freight and the inside track will host a Burlington Northern coal drag. Each train will have 2 power units and a few dummies. The era is late 50's to mid 70's and I did not prototype any division or sub but the location is somewhere west southwest. The town called 'Logan' (just sounded cool) will be on a scenery backdrop around one side of the layout with a tunnel to get to it from the coal mine and engine buildings. (Coal mine is 'Logan Coal') Been waiting 35 yrs to build this layout and this will be my first attempt and I want to get it right. Power will come from a Bachmann 5amp booster, no sound (can't afford it on social security retirement money). Guess I typed too much, got to get to the garage to do some wiring, thanks all for the replys and help, its greatly appreciated...  Keep the wheels on the tracks and the power runnin...