Many of the electical minds here recommend 14AWG wire for connecting power lines...Would this work or is it overkill? Any other recommendations for where to get 14AWG wire?http://www.impactacoustics.com/product.asp?cat%5Fid=3104&sku=43089
There are two considerations:
You should use wire heavy enough to carry the greatest current that your transformer can put out. Many large transformers, like the Z and ZW, can put out as much as 15 amperes before the circuit breaker trips. This requires 14 AWG to be safe. If you have a smaller transformer and know what its circuit breaker rating is, you can safely use wire sized for that current. But keep in mind that you may get a bigger transformer some day and won't want to have to rewire your layout.
If you have enough track (or enough poor track joints) to warrant them, you should use heavy wire for feeders. The track itself is no better than the equivalent of about 16 AWG; so there is not much point in feeders that small. Ergo, 14 AWG or larger for feeders. (I would use at least 12 AWG.)
That "speaker wire" is priced to exploit audio fanatics. You can get much cheaper wire at any "home improvement" store (Home Depot, Lowes). The cheapest is non-metallic sheathed cable ("Romex"). You can also get individual solid and stranded wire in a variety of colors by the foot.
Bob Nelson
It does depend on what you are running but a lot easier to do it right the first time. You can go to Home Depot etc and get a 500ft spool for $60-70.
I am using 12 awg stranded. At times, I will be running two passanger trains on the same mainline.
88,
Aside from gauge, what's equally important is the method in which you wire your layout. Bus wiring works fine for conventional or TMCC systems but straight run wiring is best for DCS. DCS also works better using stranded instead of solid core wire. Decide which system you intend to stick with then wire accordingly.
Bruce Webster
lionelsoni wrote:I can't imagine how stranded wire would make DCS work better.
I don't know as much about electricity as Bob , but I don't think electrons take classes so they can tell the difference between stranded and solid.
(If any of you electrons out there have taken classes, I'm sorry if I offended you.)
Celebrating 18 years on the CTT Forum.
Buckeye Riveter......... OTTS Charter Member, a Roseyville Raider and a member of the CTT Forum since 2004..
Jelloway Creek, OH - ELV 1,100 - Home of the Baltimore, Ohio & Wabash RR
TCA 09-64284
Guys,
In the recent past OGR had a 2 part article on DCS in general ( I will dig these out and post what issues they were in later). As I recall the author had no end of troubles trying to make DCS work using the bus wiring and solid core wire that already existed on his layout. His ultimate fix was to rewire the entire layout with straight runs and stranded core wire. I can't explain the reasons why this works better but I do remember the authors insistance in doing it this way. I just reads 'em...I can't respond from personal experience.
Still waiting rather impatiently for my TMCCII order
You might check the prices at an electrical supply company called "Rexel". They have a few stores in Baltimore.
You will be able to purchase larger spools of stranded or solid core wire in various colors.
Chris
Buckeye Riveter wrote: lionelsoni wrote:I can't imagine how stranded wire would make DCS work better.I don't know as much about electricity as Bob , but I don't think electrons take classes so they can tell the difference between stranded and solid. (If any of you electrons out there have taken classes, I'm sorry if I offended you.)
OK, I am going out on a limb here as it has been a while since the engineering classes, but there is a phenomenon known as skin effect. This is the tendency for the electrons to travel on the outside of a wire as opposed to the inside. I believe that this effect increases as the frequency of the signal increases, so perhaps at 60Hz the skin effect is minimized.
However, if this effect has enough of a presence at 60Hz and the surface area presented by the individual strands of wire is greater than the surface area presented by the solid wire (have not verified this), would it not logically follow that you would conceivably have a stronger signal with the stranded wire, and hence better DCS performance with stranded wire than solid?
As I said - this is just a theory - I have not proven any of this mathematically or otherwise. Just some food for thought -- and what are your thoughts?
Luther
My above post assumes that the wire in question in fact carries the DCS signal.
That leads to an interesting question as I have never investigated DCS (only running TMCC). How is the DCS signal transmitted? I doubt it runs over the power bus.
Thanks,
God bless TCA 05-58541 Benefactor Member of the NRA, Member of the American Legion, Retired Boss Hog of Roseyville , KC&D Qualified
OK,
I thought I was dreaming for a bit there. I found the article on "DCS Wiring Tips" in CTT not OGR, the July, 05 issue. Jamie Haislip is the author and is subtitled "Adding MTH's control system to medium and large layouts". For quick reference you can turn to page 67 and read the section titled "Types of wire". Elsewhere in the article Mr. haislip states that MTH itself recommends using stranded wire. To quote Mr. Haislip " The first time I rewired my layout for DCS I used a standard twisted no.14 solid wire and had disasterous results - the signal loss was worse than with my original grid wire".
Hope this helps somebody avoid a costly and agrivating rework in the future.
Luther,
Although I don't fully understand the properties of electricity, I'm learning. I think I even understand what you say about the halo of electrons around the outside of the wire. Maybe DCS electrons aren't as dumb as others suspect. .
Mr.Haislip had signal problems on the second wiring of his layout when he used solid wire and the home run method of wiring. Imagine having to rewire a third time? Argh! He doesn't go into detail describing why there was a signal loss but I can bet his somewhat complicated medium size layout also had something to do with it as well. People with smaller layouts might not have issues with DCS and solid wire.
Chief,
I have that video too. It was very influential when I was deciding which Command Control system to go with (rolling eyes here ). I wired my layout with #16 gauge stranded using home runs as per the DCS recommendations....then did a complete 180 and purchased TMCCII. LOL How much you wanna bet I have signal problems with TMCCII?
ChiefEagles wrote:As far as wiring, should have none if you have a good ground. TMCC and TMCC II work on radio signals. I have all "homerun" wiring on the new layout and TMCC does great. DCS uses the track to send signals.
You raise a good point there. I'm planning on running a new wire from a new circuit directly from my breaker box to exclusively power my ZW and any other transfomers I need for the layout. This way I insure a ground for TMCCII instead of guessing on wiring from 50 years ago. Old houses are a royal pain. Once it's all hooked up I'll report back on any signal problems. I'm expecting some kind of gremlin when trains run through that 8' metal bridge of mine unless I ground it as well.
The reason that I am skeptical about the need for stranded wire is that it is electrically virtually identical to solid wire. A stranded wire of a particular gauge has the same cross-section of copper as a solid wire of the same gauge. You would think it would be larger in overall size because of the air spaces between the strands. It is, but only very slightly, since stranded wire is customarily squeezed after stranding, reshaping the strands and filling much of the space between them. Since the strands are in intimate electrical contact, a stranded wire is much like a slightly larger wire made from slightly more resistive metal, whose conductivity is the net result of the copper and what remains of the voids.
Skin effect is a real phenomenon which increases the effective resistance of a conductor by concentrating the current in the outer part of the conductor. It is indeed negligible at power-line frequency. At whatever the (apparently secret) DCS frequency is, skin effect might come into play. However, the skin depth increases as the square-root of the resistivity. So the proportion affected by the phenomenon of the diameter, which also increases as the square-root of the resistivity, remains the same. Thus the effect of the very slight resistivity and diameter increase due to stranding would be very hard to detect at all.
There is a special kind of stranded wire--Litz wire--made of individually insulated strands woven in a special pattern that has all the strands meandering between the inside and the outside of the bundle. This is effective in thwarting the skin effect; but it is a very different thing from ordinary stranded wire. I suspect that much of the halo around stranded wire comes from a confusion between the two kinds of stranding.
Do I understand correctly that Mr. Haislip redid his wiring with a different geometry and with stranded wire replacing solid wire? And that he then attributed the improvement as much to the stranded wire as to the geometry change? If so, you can see the fallacy.
The purpose of stranded wire, I believe, is entirely mechanical--It's easier to work with.
Bruce, I think it is "overkill" but I did the same. Special 240 circuit to the panel under benchwork and then 120 to the outlet for transforemers.
Ran a special ground from the panel upstairs to the outside and to the driven ground for main panel for house. That is "overkill" too as all the circuits were bonded back to the main panel. Look to the right of the panel and along the baseboard. You see a regular outlet and a single twist lock four prong outlet with cable feeding the 240. That is how I fed the special circuit. My house was built in 1940 and see the wide baseboards with molding on top.
It looks like what you've done makes good electrical sense to me. Sure, those old ZW's won't benefit one bit from grounding since they have 2 prong plugs. On the other hand it's the safety factor for the miriad of modern wall worts and power bars, not to mention a proper ground for TMCC that's important.
The overkill in your system seems to be the power you have available for your size of layout. I mean, 3 ZW's? Holy cow, man! Are you planning on running a real GG1?
Lioneroar88
Firstly, let me formally appologize to you for hyjacking this topic. It was my original intention to offer sound wiring advice ( from what I've read elsewhere ) concerning DCS since I knew this was the type of CC system you were considering for your layout. No matter which CC system you initially decide on, wiring for DCS as the MTH manual and Mr. Haislip advise will give you the option of adding TMCC later and have it all work together.
lionelsoni,
Mr. Haislip's medium size layout (19' X 19' ) had to be wired 3 times. Intially wired in the conventional mannerusing bus runs and toggle switches to power blocks. To quote him " Ive become quite familiar with DCS in the past year, due to my work as a " beta tester" for MTH's 3.0 DCS software (MTH asked me to test it's upgraded software and report any problems before it was released )"
It was rewired the second time using solid core wire in the home run style for the reason of adding DCS. At that time he eliminated his control panel to facilitate equal run wiring, cruitial to good DCS performance. He deterined through pre-planning that the size of his layout would require 2 TIU's to operate correctly. Poor signal problems were, as he puts it "disasterous". I believe he determine the poor signal problems using an Aple iPod digital music player to monitor his DCS signal strength ( a method described in a sidebar to this article).
Once rewired with stranded core wire all his signal problems were gone. It's this type of "process of elimination" that proves to me stranded wire is the way to go with DCS. I couldn't begin to explain why it works, Bob. It's simply what MTH and Mr. Haislip recommend.
Bruce, I agree that getting improved operation after doing nothing more than simply replacing solid with stranded is meaningful. Yet I remain skeptical because of the lack of any rationale for the improvement. I imagine that something else may have been changed too, probably inadvertently, or that the improvement was only imagined in some way. For evidence of the latter, check out this site that I came across yesterday:
http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?cablpowr&1171696496
It's an ad for a $649 power cable for audio equipment, made of exotic silver wire with gold-plated connectors. The testimonials are bizarre, to my mind.
In any case, stranded wire is not very much more expensive, it certainly works as well as solid wire in every electrical respect, and it's easier to work with--I use it myself, for that reason. So anyone who wants to, go for it!
lionelsoni wrote: Bruce, I agree that getting improved operation after doing nothing more than simply replacing solid with stranded is meaningful. Yet I remain skeptical because of the lack of any rationale for the improvement. I imagine that something else may have been changed too, probably inadvertently, or that the improvement was only imagined in some way. For evidence of the latter, check out this site that I came across yesterday:http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?cablpowr&1171696496It's an ad for a $649 power cable for audio equipment, made of exotic silver wire with gold-plated connectors. The testimonials are bizarre, to my mind.In any case, stranded wire is not very much more expensive, it certainly works as well as solid wire in every electrical respect, and it's easier to work with--I use it myself, for that reason. So anyone who wants to, go for it!
I take it you have never had the pleasure to experience a $100,000+ audio system.... that is what these people are discussing. I have only heard something in this realm once and that was back in 1989 while in Germany. These systems are flat out incredible. The closest I have heard in the states was a demo room done with nothing but McIntosh Audio Equipment. I have desired nothing more than a home theater done with Bang-Olufsen speakers driven by McIntosh A/V equipment... one day... one day...
Hi Bob,
Yikes! $649 for an extention cord? And since when did silver become " the best known conductor"? I thought gold held that position. Maybe it's the 99.999% pure silver thing? Hypothetically, if I were an audiophile and bought this item then found no marked improvement in "organic" sound the seller would find himself hanging from his own product
I understand what you're saying though. Electricity being the great unseen power leaves lots of room for questionable claims and theories. I'm still struggling to understand electricity enough so that it doesn't bite me, or become the great SEEN power in the form of sparks and flame.
I have no doubt that the whole thing would cost that much, if the power cord alone costs $650. I'll believe that stranded wire helps DCS before I'll believe that that much money and silver wire makes any real difference. Some people are just insane in odd ways. Would you believe that I know grown men who spend large sums on toy trains!
Bruce, silver is a better electrical conductor than gold.
lionelsoni wrote:I have no doubt that the whole thing would cost that much, if the power cord alone costs $650. I'll believe that stranded wire helps DCS before I'll believe that that much money and silver wire makes any real difference. Some people are just insane in odd ways. Would you believe that I know grown men who spend large sums on toy trains!
lionelsoni wrote: I have no doubt that the whole thing would cost that much, if the power cord alone costs $650. I'll believe that stranded wire helps DCS before I'll believe that that much money and silver wire makes any real difference. Some people are just insane in odd ways. Would you believe that I know grown men who spend large sums on toy trains!Not me! I buy my trains at rediculously low bargon blowout prices....just like everyone else on here claims Bruce, silver is a better electrical conductor than gold.
Not me! I buy my trains at rediculously low bargon blowout prices....just like everyone else on here claims
See! I'm learned something new. Or did I? This reminds me of silver soldering which I first heard of while thumbing through Model Railroader back in the 60's.
Luckily for audiophiles they don't have to resort to using gold wire power cords when those cheap ($649) silver ones do a better job.
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