I’ll soon want to actually lay some track, having completed the framework and starting to lay cork roadbed. I’ll have 15 turnouts, all powered by Tortoises via a control panel. I will power the frogs using the Tortoise contacts. I have DPDT toggles, terminal strips and LEDs on the way.
So, I’m wanting to procure some wiring. I’ve decided on the DCC bus (14 gauge solid) for the main and 4 subdistricts and feeders (22 gauge solid) and found that locally. Here’s the questions:
a) what gauge wiring should I use from the control panel DPDTs to the Tortoise (via the terminal strip). The Tortoise instructions say “light gauge”. Radio Shack has 22 or 24 solid or stranded pair spools. Lowes has some 22 gauge 4-wire alarm cable and some 4-pair 24 gauge alarm wire, but I don’t know how to get the smaller wires out without damaging their insulatio. I could order any optimal stuff as a week wait is ok.
b) what kind of power source should I get for 15 Tortoises? Does it matter if it’s 9 or 12 volts (the LEDs I think will use 2). I have a RS power source on my stereo cooling fan that I think has a switch for 6, 9, 12 volts.
I imagine I’ve seen the answers to the above on the forum but could not find them today.
I’m no electrician but I have wired quite a few Tortoises. I have used six conductor low voltage cable that I found surplus. It can often be found with either two, four or even eight conductors within the cable.
The conductors are generally very light gauge (28 or 30?) stranded wire, each with its own insulation. They are usually wrapped in some sort of foil shield material all of which is encased in (usually grey) plastic insulation. Using a sharp hobby knife I slit six or eight inches of the outer insulation lengthwise, peal it back and cut it off, Then unwrap the foil shielding and cut that off. There may also be some nylon type threads or filaments running among the conductors to give the cable some added strength. If so, unravel those and cut them off, too. Now you have the conductors out in the open where you can strip each end, tin it quickly with a hot soldering iron (this keeps the individual copper filaments from having a bad hair day) and hook them up to your terminal block or whatever.
Tortoises are designed for 12 volts but many modelers prefer 9 for a slightly slower and quieter point movement. Whether or not your one poser supply will be sufficient for 15 switch machines depends upon its output amperage. I forget the amperage a Tortoise draws but that info will be in the instructions and/or on the machine itself. Multiply by 15 and see if your power supply has that kind of power. In my case, some of the tortoises are separated by as much as twenty five feet so I have generally used a wall wart power supply locally for groups of tortoises. I have as many as eight or nine on one power supply and have never had a problem.
Either would be fine. Which is cheaper? I use Bell telephone wire.
Each tortoise will draw 16ma at stall. 16 ma x 15 = 240 ma. or 1/4 an Amp., so as long as there is a quarter of an amp available a 9 or 12 V supply will work. The turnouts will throw slower with the 9 V. A diode will drop the voltage about 0.7 V. I would use a regulated 12 V. just because it is more a standard that I could use for other things as well.
