New to the hobbie and wondering what gauge wire i should use for bus wires and feeder wires on my n scale rr?
14 ga. for the bus. 18 ga for the feeders.
Yes, 14 gauge is good, and since it is common house wire at hardware stores, you should be able to buy rolls of it for fairly low cost.
I’ve used surplus phone wire (solid strand) for drops to the bus using suite case style connectors, you can buy those in hardware stores also to make it easy.
It depends on the size and shape of the layout as well as the number of simultanious locomotives, their groupings on the layout, and number of stationary decoders that will be used. The more decoders drawing current from the system the larger the gauge and more frequent the feeders. The further away a decoder is from the system unit the larger the gauge needs to be. So it all depends. On larger systems I try to position the DCC controller in the middle just to reduce the “max” distance a loco is from it.
I did a 4x8 with bus of 14 gauge wire which is way overkill. On the other hand I did a G-gauge 20x15 with no bus, only two feeds of 20 gauge which worked fine but probably way underkill had it been a permanent layout.
I used 12 gauge for mine, but the layout takes up half the basement and there are some areas where the wire runs over 30 feet. The guy at my hobby shop also recommeded using stranded wire vs. solid wire. Something about the electrons travel on the surface of the wire, and when you have stranded wire, there is more surface than solid wire. I’m not an electrician, so I can’t say for sure, but I don’t have any problems with the stranded.
Scott
Hi, Daveygee,
We’ve got a whole forum dedicated to DCC and wiring issues. I’ll move this discussion thread over there for you. Welcome to the Forums!
18 is rather large for the feeders. All you need is solid AWG 22, and keep them less than a foot long.
Keep in mind if you plan on using “suitcase connectors” (IDC, Insulation Displacement) there only specific wire size ranges that will fit.
I use the brown ones that take a 10-12AWG bus and 14-18ga feeder (MicroMark #84023. Specifically I use 12ga (stranded for bench routing) and 18ga (solid for soldering and pushing thru scenery). Stranded is slightly larger than solid, and insulation may be a concern depending on the source.
Eh… Well many of them are more than a foot long. 18 ga is not all that heavy, and besides, that is what was laying around the powerhouse (from florescent lamp ballasts, no doubt). When you build on the cheap you take what you can get.
Still, the LION likes his 18 ga. Him has a four track mane lion, and so leads from all four tracks are tied off to a single lead with a wire nut, and then attached to the bus with a suitcase. Him can pull the whole contraption out from under the table to work on it like a gentel-lion, seated upon a chair instead of some fetid primate swinging under the table by his tail.
ROAR
The whole ‘surface effect’ is really just a myth, at DC and DCC frequencies anyway. It DOES come into play with high frquency high voltage transmision lines (like you see hanging from those huge metal towers) but it has no effect on a DCC system. The REAL reason I prefer strnaded for my bus wires is that strnaded wire is much easier to pull along around corners under the benchwork. I use solid for feeders, so there is no chance of a stray ‘whisker’ not getting caught in the solder and possibly causing a short at some time when I least expect it.
–Randy