I was thinking of using 14 gauge wire for my buss wires and for my feeders. My feeders are going to be three ft apart tying into the buss. My layout is NCE DCC controlled, in a 14’ X 24’ room. My layout is double decked and runs around the walls. Any thoughts
Fourteen guage would be good for the main bus wiring, but I wouldn’t use anything as heavy for the feeders because a wire of that size is going to be very difficult to solder to the track and to hide. I use a small gauge speaker wire from Wal-mart, K-mart, or other big box store.
I think the generally accepted convention for bus wires is 14 AWG or 12 AWG. Since you will have a rather long run, 12 gauge wire might be a better way to go. Most people I have read say that 18 gauge to 22 gauge is adequate for the feeder, and they should be kept under a foot in length. Obviously, the longer the run, the heavier the wire you would want to use.
FT
If it stretches around 3 walls or more of the room, definitely #12, those will be some long runs ont he bus wire. I’d also use a seperate bus for the upper and lower deck. Feeders can be much smaller, #20 is easily avaialble and easily soldered to HO track.
If you plan to allow for block detection, then a #12 main bus, tap off through the block detector to a #14 sub-bus that the feeders connect to. There will be more than one set of feeders for most detected sections.
–Randy