What happened?

[Dobson]

Last year I required my layout with buss lines and I went to fire it up yesterday and nothing worked. I then looked at the wiring and it seems to break apart at several soldering sections. Not at one spot but at several. So my buss line is completely broken apart. I used 18 gauge stranded wire for my line.

Looking for some advice as to how to avoid this again bc this is really frustrating.

[Dobson]

Rewired not required. Damn you iPhone spell check.

[LIRR1926]

Is it possible that you used solder with acid flux? While this works well to clean the material to be soldered it needs to be cleaned off or it will "eat" the wire over time. All electrical work should be done with rosin core solder.

David

[jwse30]

Did you heat the wires or the solder? It sounds like "cold" joints, where you heated the solder with the iron and let it melt onto the wires. If so, next time heat the wires and then touch the solder to them and have the wire melt the solder instead of the iron. Makes for a much better connection, and it looks nicer too (no globs of solder hanging)

Hope this helps,

J White

[lionelsoni]

Since you will probably be repeating the soldering, I recommend that you bump the wire size up to 14 AWG at least.  Unless you have really poor rail joints, 18 AWG is probably not as good as the rails themselves.  You can get 14 and 12 AWG, solid or stranded, in various colors, at most "home-improvement" stores.

("Buss" means "kiss".  For transportation and wires, there is only one "s".)

[Dobson]

Even if it is my accessory or switch power?

[lionelsoni]

No.  I assumed that you were talking about track power.  It's not very likely that you would have trouble with voltage drop to accessories.  However, apart from voltage-drop considerations, all your wire--track power and accessories--should be sized properly for safety, according to the circuit-breaker rating(s) of your transformer(s).  That is 14 AWG for 15 amperes, 16 AWG for 10 amperes, 20 AWG for 5 amperes.

[BigAl 956]

Soldering is not a good practice. You are better served using 14 gage stranded for the bus lines and use blue tap splices (suitcase connectors) to tap into them. Here is a video I made on how to do this.

http://youtu.be/f3WYD7teKIA

[Buckeye Riveter]

BigAl 956

Soldering is not a good practice. You are better served using 14 gage stranded for the bus lines and use blue tap splices (suitcase connectors) to tap into them. Here is a video I made on how to do this.

http://youtu.be/f3WYD7teKIA

I have used hundreds of taps on my layout and when installed properly then tested, no problems.  I have had only one not work properly and I just took it off and put another on in its place. Make sure you pinch them down with square nose pliers and then flip the cover over.

[BigAl 956]

I prefer 14 gage stranded for all my power bus lines and 18 gage bi-color speaker wire for my feeds to the track and switches even though in some cases it may be overkill. Here are some advantages:

• 14 and 18 are readily available wire sizes and come at lowest cost.
• Having a larger gage wire than required does no harm. Having too small a wire does.
• Bi-color speaker wire is great for old fuddy duddies like me that have a hard time distinguishing between the power and return leads on a 2-conductor cable.

I also recommend using 7-amp circuit breakers to protect the wiring and trains from shorts. The breaker in the transformer only protects the transformer. 

[lionelsoni]

The circuit breaker in a traditional transformer protects the layout wiring too, but only if the layout wiring is sized to carry the current at which the circuit breaker trips.  The circuit breaker in the transformer does not protect either the layout wiring or the transformer from faults between multiple transformer outputs, because it is in series with the transformer's common return.

[cwburfle]

Why is soldering not a good practice?

[lionelsoni]

It is, if you do it right.

[EIS2]

I used alligator clips to attach accessory wires to the bus lines.  Then I can easily move/change accessories, which I do often.

Earl

[webenda]

Dobson

I then looked at the wiring and it seems to break apart at several soldering sections.
Looking for some advice as to how to avoid this again bc this is really frustrating.

Dobson,

All good tips so far.

Soldering is not good practice if you have not learned how to solder. Even if you know how to solder, it is difficult to do under the table. Typically you cannot lie down because you cannot quite reach the wires and you cannot sit up because you bonk your head under the table. Then you have to strip the bus wire before you can solder to it. I will never forget the time solder was not wetting the wires under my train table because, even though freshly stripped, the wire was oxidized too much for the meager amount of flux in rosin core solder. I applied more solder trying to get enough rosin flux to clean the wire; a drop fell and soldered my sock to my ankle. Learning to solder can be painful.

Suitcase connectors can solve the problem of not knowing how to solder, if you use the right size for your wire. The blue connectors mentioned work with wire sizes 18 to 14 AWG, stranded or solid. If you buy from Micro-Mark 18 to 14 AWG connectors are currently red. Red from other sources is for 22-26 AWG.

The way these suitcase connectors work is the blade you shove down into the wire, displaces the insulation but leaves it tight against the blade to seal out oxygen. The blade also cuts though the oxidation on the wire, digging into clean copper. Again, oxygen cannot reach the blade/copper contact because of the tight fit between the two. Cutting into the wire does not reduce the current carrying capacity, because current in the cut passes through the blade.

I was tempted to discuss soldering technique, but when I looked at BigAl 956's suit case video, I discovered Al has a video on how to solder that shows everything you need to know. (Excellent Al)

http://youtu.be/HCvMG_vOHFIA

I might suggest you watch this and take note that Al removes the solder gun immediately after the solder flows (wets the item being soldered.) If it does not flow, you have a bad solder joint. Also notice that Al applies flux to every solder task. That is important, even if you have rosin core solder. If there is not enough flux (and there is none at all before rosin core solder melts) the joint will oxidize quickly when heat is applied. You need to flux the joint before heat is applied, just as Al shows. The last point is Al tins (flows solder onto) both parts being soldered prior to joining them. Not always necessary, but pre-tinning just about insures a good solder joint.

If you reflow your solder joints, flux them first, then watch the solder wet the wires. If you have trouble getting the solder to melt, then your iron does not have enough watts or, if adjustable, the heat is not turned up high enough. A solder gun like Al uses would be a good choice if you need more heat.

One more bit of advice on soldering--do you see Al cleaning flux off his solder joints? Rosin flux residues are non-conductive and non-corrosive. Under normal circumstances they do not have to be removed. Rosin residue removal would be for cosmetic considerations.

Reference: http://www.kester.com/knowledge-base/

I found an on-line book called "soldering 101" by Ron Holmes. Ron Holmes has been trained and certified for NASA High-Rel soldering work and inspection. I suggest you read his "Soldering 101" up to page 22 (the rest is for radio amateur work.) It explains how to maintain your soldering iron

http://mercurymagnetics.com/pages/SSN/pages/Soldering101.pdf

Hope this verbose post helps you.

[Dobson]

Thanks for all the tips and insight everyone. I appreciate it as always.