I am thinking about beginnig to wire my layout and am seeking some input on wire colors. My layout will have four power districts, I know I need to run a seperate bus for each district. my question is do I run the busses with one common color i.e. black and change the color on the other wire for each district thus needing 5 wire colors. Or is it easier to run each district with it’s own two colors thus needing 8 different colors of wire. I am interested in your thoughts.
I use colors to identify the wire’s purpose not it’s run. All my buss pairs are red/black. However, I label each buss pair with it’s power district. I find it a lot easier to have just a few colors designating DCC buss, accessory ground, accessory control and signal lines, and to clearly label each run.
Nick
I agree, stick to left and right, red or black, and use tape to label the runs/pairs every change of orientation or direction, or after every passage through a bulkead or frame member.
-Crandell
Dan,
When you say “power districts”, are you talking one booster powering 4 circuit breakers, or 4 boosters? I would be more inclined to use different colors for 4 boosters than just for one.
Still, I think the question here is, are you going to have a situation where these multiple “power districts” overlap? If they are simply bordering each other at the ends, then there is no reason to use multiple colors. However, if you have a spaghetti bowl layout with multiple loops and each with it’s own power district, then more colors may not be such a bad idea.
At our club, our wiring can be classed by size/type, color, and placement under the layout. We use nylon loops for all wiring, and we stack these in various locales to run the wire.
Colors:
a). red/black = track power bus
b). blue/brown/white/yellow = accessory DC bus
c). gray cable = switch machine control wire
d). silver cable = LocoNet
e). yellow = frog power wire
f). blue = diamond power wire
g). green = ground wire
h). brown/blue = stationary decoder bus
i). orange/purple = programming track wire
Size/type:
A). 10AWG = main bus from boosters to breaker panels
B). 14 AWG = track or detection bus, accessory power
C). 20 AWG = feeders and bond wires
D). round cable, 6 to 12 cond. = switch machine cable
E). flat cable, 6 cond. = LocoNet
F). ribbon cable, 10 cond. = signaling wire
Placement:
1). directly under the track = track bus
2). on the inside beam of layout = detection bus, main bus, accessory bus, etc.
3). on the outside beam of layout = LocoNet, switch machine wires
4). under middle of layout = signaling wire, switch machines, accesories, frog wires, etc.
Therefore, if I see 14AWG red/black wire running under the middle of the track above it, I know it’s track power for that block. If I see 14AWG red/black wire running
I’d stick with two colors - 8 could get very confusing and I’m not sure you can find wire in 8 different colors anyway. I used red/black
Tip: in dim light, red and black look the same. Try Red and White.
–Randy