Sounds good. My local Ace is just down the street from me. That is what I was using but wanted to check and make sure I was good. Thanks again, Bob.

Quote from: Yampa Bob on February 14, 2009, 05:12:31 PM
Use the calculator.  .26 volt drop or 2%. ,probably not worth the effort or expense.

Personally, I wouldn't use speaker wire as the insulation may not have adequate temperature rating or abrasion resistance. 

I use only THHN/THWN wire rated at 90 deg C.

Do you use 14 AWG THHN/THWN stranded or solid for bus running the length of the layout and then tap into it with your feeder wires?, then connecting the DCC Power Booster section to the bus with 14 AWG stranded or solid?

Thanks again.

Jim

Thank you Hunt. That answers it.

I have a Bachmann EZ Track Right Hand crossover, Bachmann # 44576. As I understand it is wired, right out of the box, for DCC. My question is what are the two black wires, underneath, that look like they have half a rail connector, connected to them? I can run continuity and it looks like they are each wired, respectively, to the "points", one to the leading point on the outside rail, the other to the "points" on the inside rail. I'm just curious. Are these there in case you want to wire this piece of track for straight DC so you can isolate the rails?

O.K.  The wired rail joiners have feeder wires soldered to each and they are quite small, gauge wise, maybe 22 AWG but they are short maybe 6-8 inches, from them I am running 16 AWG to the center where they will tie-in to the main bus which will be 14 AWG. Do you think that will be o.k.?

I am wiring my layout, adding terminal joiners with soldered wires in various places around the layout. It's not big, yet!  It's only about 12 feet long by 4 foot wide, dogbone style. My questions I guess is this. Don't I have to keep the outside rail separate from the inside rail on my feeder wires? I can't just twist the two feeder wires from the outside rail and inside rail together and attach to one main bus!? I am using Bachmann track and I picked up some presoldered rail joiners at a hobby store here in the Mpls area. I plan to try and add feeder wired around every rail joiner but that's a huge undertaking and trying to solder something that small. WOW! Must take an awfully small tipped soldering iron!
Do I have to keep those rails separate? I'm not making any cross overs, no figure eights, I will have one passing siding. It's pretty simple right now. I figured start small and work up.  HELP! 

Yes, I suppose you are right. I was merely trying to see if anyone had any experience with The Dynamis system.  I did assemble my own research on DCC Systems. Actually I took your advice and took a hard look at NCE. Thanks for mentioning it.

Does anyone know anything about the Bachmann Dynamis Wireless DCC system? In comparison to other DCC Systems? Just wondering. Anyone have any experience with it?

Thanks all for your help! I really appreciate it. I purchased a Spectrum ON30 2-4-4 Forney w/Tsunami on Ebay from the "Favorite Spot". As far as the layout is concerned it is in a "dog-bone shape" so I can reach to the far corners fairly easy. I am just now putting the extruded foam down. I have been using a book published by "Model Railroder" titled "Building A Ready-to-Run Model Railroad" "A quick an easy layout from off-the-shelf components", it's by Jeff Wilson and has fairly good instrutions in it. My layout isn't exactly like his in the book, I had to reduce mine to 11 feet because of the wall I'm putting it on. It's sitting on 3 bookcases and fastened to a wall in one place as well as fastenend with "L" brackets to the 3 bookcases. Last night I was able to get the left side foam down and today I will work on the back and right side. I made the middle larger than what is shown in the book but I can still reach to both corners. It's fun, but also a lot of work. I getting excited now because it's all starting to come together, and once I get the foam down I can start on track work. I'm sure I will need help there. I have a lot of track already but will most likely be purchasing more, like turn-outs, etc. There are some good hobby shops here in Minneapolis, like Hub Hobby, etc. I find though that things are a lot cheaper online. Anyway, got to get to work on it. I am retired Navy so have time to do things like this. I'm building this kind of for myself as well as my granddaughters. They were here at Christmas and I had a batter operated train for the Christmas tree and they went nuts over it, so I'm sure they will be excited about this. Thanks to everyone so far for all the help. I may try tackling the Mogul at sometime in the future. I have been looking at DCC Starter sets. I have looked hard at the DigiTraxx Zephyr as well as the MRC Prodigy, I'm just not sure yet, but I have time to sort it out. Thanks again all.

I am new to On30 scale having dabbled in HO some, but not with DCC. I am currenlty building a layout in my basement that is going to extend about 11 feet and come out from the wall about 4 ft. I am looking at purchasing a DCC  and sound ready steam locomotive, preferably Bachmann. The one I am looking at is a Spectrum Steam Powered 28-Ton 2-Truck Class B Climax w/Straight Boiler-Pocahontas Lumber Company #7. The Bachmann product number is bac25760. It says it is DCC and sound ready, which I believe means it's ready for the install of a decoder as well as a sound decoder/speaker. I know only what I've been able to read about online concerning DCC. I have a On30 scale train by Bachmann but it is only DC (A Thomas Kinkade Christmas set). What do I need for a decoder? Will the E-Z Command Decoder w/NMRA plug #44915 work? It says this decoder has 28/128 speed steps, service mode decoder lock, programming on the main, 2 or 4 digit addressing, advanced consisting, etc. What sound decoder should I be looking at? I would like one that has a lot of sounds to it. Any help would sure be appreciated. Thanks