At the end of a bus wire...is it capped off or is a resistor supposed to be put in place. i am wiring my layout and dont know what to do at the end? please help
Terminations at the end of the buss is only a worry if you have some serious buss lenght and interferance from other sources. Other than that just ending the wires are fine.
Pete
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
Pete is correct, but I simply route my bus wires back to the command station, essentially forming a loop under the layout that generally follows the mainline tracks.
On the Yahoo forums, Wiring for DCC, you can get information on "snubbers" that are used by some modelers on their bus wires for additional protection, but they really aren't necessary except on the largest layouts.
Rich
Alton Junction
could i just use electrical tape if i wanted to?
Yep.
Jeff But it's a dry heat!
richhotrain I simply route my bus wires back to the command station, essentially forming a loop under the layout that generally follows the mainline tracks.
Rich is this a complete loop, that is to say joined to the command station at both ends? I was under the impression that a complete loop was a bad idea?
I just cap my bus wires with wire nuts.
Simon Modelling CB&Q and Wabash See my slowly evolving layout on my picturetrail site http://www.picturetrail.com/simontrains and our videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/MrCrispybake?feature=mhum
You could tape it off or leave it bare. My entire buss is bare copper.
Springfield PA
Hi!
I asked the same question a year ago when I started my first HO DCC layout wiring. I've now got several sets of buss wires (14 awg), and the ends are taped and the wire stapled to the benchwork, underneath the layout.
ENJOY,
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
My buss wires end at my most distant feeder, where the ends of the buss are soldered to the feeders. Am I missing something here? Why would they run passed your furthest away feeders.
I was also told by a communications technician that running a DCC Buss in a loop can cause all sorts of problems, as it acts like a big antennae. It was better to run the Buss out like fingers. Maybe one of our resident experts can chime in here as I certainly stand to be corrected.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
I will tell you what I have done and has worked for me with no problems for years. I use NCE. I have three decks, and multiple buss lines, most of which are short. Each buss is terminated at a terminal strip, so I can add additonal length if needed at a future time. I have no problems at all with this setup.
Shouldn't really matter unless say, your layout is 50 linear feet so you did somethign REALLY silly and ran an EXTRA 50 feet of wire to loop the ends of the bus back on each other. Dunno why anyone would even think to do something so silly. But if your track arrangement is a big oval, it's not going to make any difference if the bus is a loop under the track or it goes almost all the way around and is cut on one side - it's all connected to the TRACK which DOES form a continuous loop.
There's all sorts of overkill and people talking about things that make no sense - like "oh, your bus wires shouldn't run in parallel" Really? Well, every 3 feet those bus wires connect to your track which had BETTER be perfectly parallel! If you have double track fed by the same bus, you coudl have 40 feet of bus wire feeding 80+ feet of parallel track!
DCC isn't very high frequency - yet peoplel talk about the high frequency AC skin effect. Not very likely, with DCC. I DO use stranded wire for my bus, but only because it's a lot easier to work with #12 stranded wire than it is #12 solid wire.
And the lengths people go to to avoid soldering anything - I had to laugh at the recent Cody's Office when they did the part about connecting feeders. Since there aren't suitcase connectors for #22 to #12, they lop off the #22 feeder almost tight against the bottom of the roadbed, connect on a piece of #16, and then connect that to the #12 bus. For 20 pairs of feeders, that's 80 suitcase connectors - 40 of each size. I'm pretty sure I could wire those up using a good wire stripper (like the Ideal that can strip the middle of a wire) and solder them with a 150 watt iron (the proper tool to attach things to heavy #12 wire) in far less time. And there is no reason to be cutting the #22 feeders so short. Allan Gartner did some actual testing and measurement and compiled the results on his Wiring for DCC site - foot long #22 feeders off a #12 bus is NOT EVER going to cause a problem, probably not even up to O scale based on his results. Definitely fine for HO.
There's planning sensibly so things work as they should, and there's overkill. There's a lot of overkill bandied back and forth on DCC forums.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
That there is.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Thanks Randy, you saved me a bunch of typing.
mfm37 Thanks Randy, you saved me a bunch of typing.
I have nothing better to do. Wait, I have a layout to build - oh yeah but I have to go to work in another 2 hours and work all weekend this weekend. Yay me. However, the extra money will allow me to - buy more trains!
Someday I'll just put all these things I keep posting over and over again on my web site and just post a link.
The link would be a good idea. Some people think they're going hi tech with this stuff and tend to over do or think.