I am converting to DCC and am courious on how many of you use solid core wire and how many use stranded. If you don’t mind adding your 2¢ worth please explain why you use what you do.
The reason for the two types of wires, is applications. Solid wire works very well for applications where the wire will not move or move very little over time. Stranded wire is good for applications where there is likely to be movement, such as swing out panels or swing bridges that allow access to the layout room. While you could wire your entire layout with stranded wire, if desired, it is somewhat easier to solder solid wire to the tracks for feeders.
I use stranded wire throughout. My background is in automotive, so that is what I’m used to working with. My bus wires are 12 guage, the feeders are 18 guage and the short drop wires soldered to the rails are 22 guage, no longer than 6". Feededs are dropped from the rails at no more than 6’ intervals.
Tom Watkins
Hello Snake,
Deschane has the answer. I run short single strand pieces from the track through the baseboard and splice to stranded for the run to the panels or strips. If you use single strand wire that can possibly be moved you must ensure you have a good mechanical joint that is simply secured by the solder and not held by it. Single strand stays where you put it, stranded needs to be tied in place.
I use solid wire for the feeders and stranded wire for the main power bus.
I use stranded for the main bus and solid for my feeders
I use solid thru out. I find that stranded wire breaks down over time and will eventually cause shorts as all the strands break.
Ch
The main reason for using solid wire in place of stranded on a layout is the size needed to complete the job.
Thicker wire has less resistance per foot than thin wire. Hence solid core wire can be a smaller gauge (numerically higher, I’ve never figured that out) than stranded wire to provide consistent voltage the length of the buss.
As metioned above, solid wire is not meant for use where flexibility is needed.
I chose not to solder my feed wires to the buss, but instead ran the buss to terminal blocks on each of the three modules. Feeder wires have eyelets that are screwed to the terminal blocks and soldered to the rails. Feeder wires should be solid core wire to ease soldering to the rails, multistrand wire would be a real challenge in this application and more difficult to desguise.
I hope this is useful information