When it comes to electronics, I get flustered when it comes to wire size. Here's my problem. I have some 30 guage wire that I am going to hook up the power pickups from the trucks to a decoder.
Is this going to be OK? My DCC system is NCE Power Cab and I think the amps are 3.
Will
That's pretty much the gauge that the decoder wire is. Should be fine.
Springfield PA
wholeman My DCC system is NCE Power Cab and I think the amps are 3.
The bad news is that 30ga wire is rated for about 0.142 amps continuous transmission and 0.860 intermittent capacity. (ref: http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm, others may vary a bit)
The good news is that this limit tends to be less of an issue with very short wires.
The misconception is that all 3 amps from your power unit will flow through the wire.
The wire will carry only the current drawn by the motor in the locomotive which it controls. Most modern locos draw amounts of power that are within the safety limits of that wire.
Fear not. All is well in your situation.
Karl
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The Power Cab alone is 1.7 amps with the earlier Smart booster it was 3 amps.
30ga wire is what most Z through HO scale decoders use. I have used 28ga wire in the past but that is because I had rolls of the stuff. As long as it is stranded wire and not solid you will be fine.
Pete
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I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
larak wholeman My DCC system is NCE Power Cab and I think the amps are 3. The bad news is that 30ga wire is rated for about 0.142 amps continuous transmission and 0.860 intermittent capacity. (ref: http://www.powerstream.com/Wire_Size.htm, others may vary a bit) The good news is that this limit tends to be less of an issue with very short wires. The misconception is that all 3 amps from your power unit will flow through the wire. The wire will carry only the current drawn by the motor in the locomotive which it controls. Most modern locos draw amounts of power that are within the safety limits of that wire. Fear not. All is well in your situation. Karl
Have to agree with most of the above. 30 gauge wire is rated for about 0.9 amps in chassis wiring situations. Most Z-HO decoders aren't going to like loads that high for very long anyway - they tend to get hot and let the magic smoke out in their anger. If you are using a higher rated decoder (2 amp and up) because of heavier current draw of the motor, you might want to re-think using 30 gauge wire.
The real reasons for using heavier wiring in DCC applications is that 1) the wiring from the system to the track must take the load of more than one locomotive at a time; 2) excessive voltage drop (greater than 5% is often cited) can cause corruption of the DCC signal; and 3) you don't want your wiring to serve as a system current limiting device instead of the circuit breaker. When wiring is the current limiter, it is getting very hot.
As was pointed out, very short runs of light wire don't have enough resistance to cause problems. Which is why we can use much lighter gauge feeder wires than used in the power bus.
Assuming your decoder and locomotive are wired correctly, the most likely place for a short circuit to occur is across the 2 exposed, closely spaced, parallel conductors known as your track. This is upstream of your decoder wiring, making it highly unlikely your 30 gauge wire or decoder will ever see the full current of your DCC system.
As Karl said, all is well.
Fred W