That’s the way I did it. I have three main busses each about 25 feet long. I ran the buss wire, marked where the feeders were to be located, pulled the wire out, soldered the feeders at the workbench and reinstalled the busses. worked fine.
When soldering, and you get drops of solder dripping, you are using too much solder and more than likey too hot of a tip. Wire should be wraped around buss, then soldered. Heat the wraped joint, then apply solder with flux-done, no drips or mess. Move to the next joint.
What a timely post! I too am working on what Rich is describing. What someone told me is to put the feeders parallel to the buss wires, wrap them around each other, and then solder.
To strip the buss wires in the middkle, I use a wire stripper to crimp the wires and a hobby knife to cut off the insulation. This works. What I learned is wiring requires a bit of patience.
You def ought to protect yourself and the floor from anything that can drip down.
Do invest in one of these
You can find them in the bog box stores, or on Amazon. They easily strip wire in the middle of a run, no fiddling with an ordinary stripper plus a knife. Makes things a LOT easier and quicker.
–Randy
Great point. I was having problems with drops of solder on the basement floor when using a 100 watt soldering iron. Switched to a 25 watt soldering iron and the soldering process was quicker and cleaner.
Rich
I dunno, for that #14-#12 bus wire, the heavier gun coomes in handy. Takes too long to heat up with a 25 watt or smaller iron. If you are getting solder blobs it’s because you are likely touching the solder to the tip of the gun - that’s not how it’s done, and I cringe when I see it on MR videos and others when people solder like that. You heat the joint and apply solder from the opposite side, not melt a blob of solder on the tip and then apply it to the joint. I see this on MRVP all the time - they twist the two wires together like a pigtail, then wiper the iron over the joint with the solder melting against the tip. About all that accomplishes is tinning the outside of the joint. With stranded wire, the solder should wick in between the strands. Dirty tip, and you end up having to hold the heat on so long that not only does the solder wick in around the joint, it flows back up into the strands and either melts the insulation or makes the whole end of the wire stiff, because the previously flexible strands now are impregnated with solder.
It’s like most any other task, there is a bit of a learning curve that you can only get over by actually doing it a few times, but it becomes second nature over time, to the point where you will know without even careful inspection when you mess up. On finer stuff, like PCB assembly, even though things like ICs get sockets, I stagger the joints instead of working in a line - and I’ll know as soon as I pull away from one pin that I didn;t quite get it on that one and need to come back and touch it up. The nice thing is, everyone always ends up with cut off scraps of wire - plenty of practice material. My previous layout ran for months with the feeders just tightly wrapped around the bus before I got them all done and went back to solder them all, plus this gave time to test before making anything permanent. If you’ve gotten a feeder crossed, now is the time to find it before the joint is soldered. While it’s not suc
Its tough to heat up the wire to melt solder from the backside without melting some insulation too. My father was in the electronics trade and taught me the basics a long time ago. I use plenty of flux, and that gets into the strands which helps the flow ofthe solder.
I just cut the bus and pigtail the bus and the feeders together, then move on to the next section. Do you think that’s a problem? I don’t see how it would impede the flow of current through the bus.
I don’t understand the advantage of stripping the insulation off the bus to leave the wire uncut, or suitcase connectors. It seems to be the preferred way, however.
I would expect that cutting the bus at every feed would increase the overall resistance of the bus - even a properly soldered joint is goign to introduce some additional resistance compared to a solid piece of wire. Is it enough to make a difference? Probably not for most layouts. Depends on how many feeders you have - if your bus ends up as 40 sectiosn each 1 foot long instead of a single 40 foot piece of wire, I’d think that wouldn’t be optimal.
The mid-wire strip keeps the bus intact, and is really no effort with the Ideal stripper. With solid feeders, it’s then easy to wrap the stripped feeder end around the bare spot on the bus and get a tight connection. As I mentioned, this was plenty reliable for months before I then soldered all the joints.
–Randy
I have a variety of soldering irons to accomplish different tasks. My favorite is a pencil-type soldering iron with a small point for soldering wires to decoder tabs. I am using that pencil to solder the 20 gauge feeder wires to the outside of the rail, and it does a fantastic job.
My problem is soldering the feeders to the 14 gauge solid bus wires. My soldering gun is 100 watts, and it heats up the bus wire quick. I use the Klein in-line wire stripper to separate the insulation on the bus wire. The problem is trying to work from an awkward position, and the separation of the insulation is not wide enough to get the tip of the gun in there without melting insulation. So, I started using the pencil there as well, and with good success.
Rich
The spec panel on the Scotchlok 567 box (for 12-14 AWG run, 18-14 AWG tap) states solid or stranded wire.
I use these for my bus-feeder connections, very easy and quick to install. Large pliers work, but if you’re going to use a lot of 'em, I found that the (expensive @ $70) crimping tool is a worthy investment. I buy the connectors on eBay for about $.25 each in lots of 100.
Jim
I use terminal blocks to connect feeders to the buss. No soldering except the feeders to the rails, which happens on top of the layout. Buss wires are 12 gauge stranded, and feeders are much smaller - too much difference to even consider suitcase connectors (which I wouldn’t consider anyway).
I suggest not soddering your wire to your bus wires. Its a lot easier
to use 3m 567 scotchlocks. Run your drops to a terminal blocks. From there use 18 gauge stranded wire and connect the wire using 3m 567 scotchlocks to your buss wire. Its just a matter of sliding the scotchlock over the 12 gauge buss wire. Take the 18 gauge wire and slide it into the other groove. Use the big adjustable pliers, and press down on the crimps.
Chris
I use these:
You can get them on eBay. One for plus, one for minus. Bus wires in one of the end screws, feeders leaving from one of the other screws. I spaced them every 6’ or where ever they were easy to get at without climbing under the layout.