Suggestions for different colored hook-up wires

Model Railroader Electronics and DCC
1

To avoid the rat’s nest commonly seen on layouts (guilty!), I purchased different colored hook-up wires. How to designate the various colors? In other words, how many different colors do I need and where to use them? I started w/ red and black for all the wiring and that became very confusing. Those colors can remain for the mainline only, and I can start re-wiring the sidings and switch machines. With your suggestions, I hope to get more organized. Perhaps (don’t laugh) I could enspire others!

Cheers,

Lee

2

NMRA MRP-1.3 is a good place to start, to give you an idea of how to color code your wiring. However I cannot reccomend using the same color for both rails, the diagram there isnt clear on that.

Edit: After taking a quick look at my own club’s wiring standard, it needs to be revised… so I wont provide that as an example.

3

The above mentioned NMRA MRP-1.3 is a good start, but is really limited to wiring a double track main on a module. The DCC standards for wire color code are for decoder to locomotive internal wiring((S-9.1.1). I really do not see any Standards or Recomended Practice for actual layout wiring.

The above said, here is how I wired my layout:

o - Track Bus - Red/Black(#14 AWG)

o -Layout Common - Green(#14 AWG)

o - Accessory feeders are Black

o - Tortoise motors get Red/Black feeders

The rest of the feeders are #20 AWG wire. I purchased the #14 wire at my local ‘Big Box’ store, and the #20 from an ‘on-line’ electronics supplier.

Jim

4

I strongly suggest keeping some notes if you get into anything cmplex or unusual. For example, my DCC has three sudistricts’ feeders plus the program track wiring, my turnouts have the buss wiring plus the (powered) frog wire, etc. I also violated my color coding a few times when my 25’ spool ran out and made a diagram markup in the layout wiring folder.

5

I don’t think it makes any difference so long as you keep track of what colors you use where. Track power will get one pair of colors, turnout power will get one pair of colors, and so forth.

6

My system is red and balck for the two rails, then use green for powered frogs and other places where changing polarity occurs.

What makes my system a bit different is I use different sorts of wire in terms of gauge and insulation for different purposes, which gives you an entire new range of designations in addityion to color itself.

For the main buss, I use 12 gauge THNN in red and blue. It’s stiff and huge, but is cheap (relatively, it still has copper in it [2c] ) and avoids voltage drop for virtually any size layout except ginormous.

For power feeders from the buss to the various blocks I use 16 gauge brown household/lamp cord. It uses small rib on one conductor to differentiate the two.

After that, I use standard hook-up wire in 16,18, and 22 gauges using the red/black/green color code above to connect from the brown power wire to the track. I solder all feeder to either under the rail or to the outside of it.

I started off use terminal strips to make connections other than to the track, but gave that up as time consuming and expensive. Instead, I use the very common, very cheap wire nut for most of my connections. They hold securely and make changes in wirimng very easy.

7

I use White & Black #12 THHN stranded wire for ALL of my Track Bus.

I pull the 2 wires from the 500 ft rolls out across the layout room and then every 18 inches or so place a wrap of Colored Electrical Tape. This keeps the wires together and the pulling out of the wires causes a natural twist of the wires needed for DCC.

Each Bus gets a different color Tape Wrap.

So easy to tell which color/Bus wire one is working with as the tape colors show right up no matter how big the bundle!

I attach the Bus wires under the Layout with metal conduit straps - they are the one hole kind and use a single drywall screw.

They are attached to the joists and can be easily slide sideways to drop the next Bus wire into the clamp (again so easy)!

As for accessory (depending on the number of wires needed) I use the old Telephone 4 color solid #20 wire that the old houses used to be wired up with (maybe still do for hard wired units).

It has 4 colors (Black/Red/Green/Yellow) inside the Beige covering. Easy to strip and you have 2 pairs color coded to run to Turtle machies Etc.

They also make 6 wire solid Phone wire for the time where one needs more.

Then there is CAT 5 Wire with 8 wires which is also the solid conductors! Now you have 4 pair inside a sleeve!

Now - How to keep these apart - out comes the Electrical colored Tape once more!

Make each run a different color

What happens when you run out of colors - 2 Tape strips around the wire side by side!

What happens when your run out again (as I did on my 2500 sq ft layout with 4000 feet of track and 500 turnouts Turtle Machines Etc) 3 wraps od Colored Electrical Tape.

BUT - the most important thing is making and keeping the records up to date - Mine is on a Spreadsheet with the lines colred coded to match the Layout wiring.

I print out the sheet with only the Track Bus wires shown or the Turnout wiring etc.

Take it out to the la

8

Various sizes of THHN come in mostly all teh same colors, so you can keep the same color code from the #12 main bus to a #16 sub bus, etc. I used red and white since they are more easily distinguishable in less than bright light compared to red and black. I have some #20 alarm wire that also comes in red and white, loosely twisted pair that is easy to seperate. I use that for feeders so it matches the bus wires.

Only other color I’ve used is green for frog power. And for the common between booster and command station.

What color you use does not really matter. What matters is that a) you are consistent - don’t have half the bus run be a red wire then tie it to a blue wire to continue; b) you keep notes - 3 years from now you will NOT rememeber what you did; and c) use labels - you can buy books of stick on numbered and lettered wire labels, or you can just use masking tape and a sharpie. Keep this information in your notes as well.

Document, document, document.

–Randy

9

These are my colors. All have good reasons, but some of the good reasons may not appeal to everyone.

Track bus: Black and Red, with the Red wire nearest the outer edge of the layout.

Accessory Bus 1 and 2: Blue common, White for structures, Yellow for streetlights. Streetlights are expensive, and you can’t replace the bulbs, so I wired them with separate switched bus lines so I can just turn on the buildings without the streetlights. Blue, White and Yellow are the 3 headlight wires coming out of a decoder, so I copied that.

Turnouts and DCC Control Bus: Tan 4-conductor telephone wire. It’s the only color Home Depot sells the stuff in.

Frog-to-Tortoise power wire: Green. What other color for a frog?

Randy’s suggestion “document, document, document” is a good one. I got a package of those little yellow tags with strings on them from Staples. These can be wrapped around wires to provide labels. I use them to label each turnout, and to label the plugs on my power strips.

10

Yes, a good practice. I use it myself. Good to mention it. I’m somewhat dyslexic, so this makes red a lot easier to remember, rather than left or right.

Same thing with the ribs on the 16 gauge brown lamp cord. Ribs = Red

11

LION obtains wire from many sources and color is almost irrelevent.

Bus wires are bare anyway, so position (and lables) tells all.

The TOP bare wire is COMMON. No, it is GROUND, a HARD Ground to the Building Ground system. If your common is used for many things, you will get stray voltages on it, so it is GROUNDED.

The next conductor (also bare) is the 16v DC signal and relay bus, Wayside LEDS can also be powered from this, so it becomes the full AUX bus.

The thrid bare wire is the 600 volt (well 10.2 v DC) THIRD RAIL. This is always on and provides power to the right hand rail. (The left rail goes to GROUND.) Clearly you do not want to do things this way unless you are a LION. But you can have any number of blocks (+ = Forward; - = Reverse) and can be powered by any number of controllers for any number of blocks, but you have to be something of a block - head to make things work.

Finally there are the distribution cables. I have 5 conductors for each signal block, but maybe all you want to power is your switches. All well and good. These can be any color, indeed, LION uses 25 pair cat 3 cables for such distribution, and of course each conductor has its own color. Slightly less complicated thatn the 66 conductor cables salvaged from an old pipe organ : all of those conductors were white and had to be tested out.

If you want to know more about the details, you may look at my “Operations Manual”, the wiring details are to the back.

ROAR

12

Hi,

I’ve got a 2 level DCC HO layout with 8 power districts. The “common” side of the 8 districts buss wiring is white, the other side is a different color for each district. Feeders are all black and red and under 18 inches. The black feeders go to the common rail with the white buss, the red goes to the rail with the colored buss wiring.

Turnouts all have the same color combination wiring, different from the buss/feeder wires.

Of course testing was done thruout the wiring process, and a cheat sheet showing which color wires feeds which power district is maintained.

I’m not saying this is the best way to do the wiring, but I will say it has been perfect for my situation.

13

Nothing to do with colors, but a couple of other tips for wiring.

I use cable ties to bundle groups of wires beneath the layout. This keeps them neater than just stringing wires hither and yon. My control panels are designed to be removeable, which makes them easier to work on, and all the wires coming off a panel are bundled this way.

I put large brass cup hooks under the layout on the underside of the benchwork. I use them to hang bundles or individual cables to keep them up and out of the way.

14

I have a rather large layout and for the main I use black and red and green for the frogs running 14 gauge stranded and Pos-taps to 22 gauge solid to the rails, you don’t need any more than that by the way as far as size. For the two yards I use yellow and blue for the buss and do the same feader drop colors. I don’t need a wiring diagram! If I was to need more colors (like for switch machines), you can get lots of colors from car parts dealers.

15

This may sound picky, but for a club layout I would suggest Black and White bus wires and feeders, for the same reason that household electrical codes do: Some of your members may be red/green or even red/green/brown/black colour blind.

If you have no such problem, then no fuss at home.

Dave