Wireing a 4x8 layout

[KRM]

Kind of a very open question to answer. You can ask 5 people and you will 5 answers and not all the same. But it should be easy on 4x8.

 What is your power supply? How many amps will it put out to the lockons?

How many and what kind of accessories do you plan on using?

Are you going to run modern or post war?

Speaker wire works fine for lockons and the cost is not bad. Some will tell you 14 gauge but if you are putting a smaller fuse in the line out of say a ZW that will do 15 amps you can reduce down to 16 gauge as long as you have 14 gauge up to the fuse.. Accessories can use even smaller wire all the way down to 22 gauge but you need to fuse them with the right size fuse to protect the wire you are using.

 I got this information from Bob, Nelson here on the forum. Good place to start.

Fuse size

AWG Amperes
Gauge / amps

14            15
16             10
18              7
20              5
22             3.5

 

 

[palaz1954]

I am slowly building supplies to build a 4x8 O gauge layout and was wondering where other's buy their wire and besides gauge any special type to buy?