I will have a 14' x 14' around the room HO shelf layout with a 5 x 8 peninsula. I will be running straight DC and have a small window air conditioner/heater that runs on 110V. I am thinking one 20 amp circuit for the AC, one 15 amp for room lighting, one 15 amp for work area and one 15 amp for layout power and lighting on the layout. While this is technically 5 amps over the limit I should never be actually drawing the maximum from any of the circuits to exceed 60amps. Does anyone actually use more power for a similar sized layout room or shed?
Just for grins check out your main service panel for the house as a whole. The amperage rating for the main service is rarely greater than the sum of potential draws from the various circuits.
I'll give you the advice you're sure to receive from someone else if I don't chime in... Have a licensed electrician review your plans and ensure everything is done to code with the proper permits. Failure to do so could jeopardize your insurance coverage if anything goes wrong. The inspector's opinion is the only one that will matter, not that of anyone here on the forum. Good luck.
Rob Spangler
To answer your question at the end of the post, my layout and work area design sounds similar to yours, allowing one dedicated 120V, 15A circuit for train operations.
I would suspect the need for a 60A panel and feeder circuit. Assuming a residential-type installation, the distribution is most likely 120/240 Volt, with some of the outlets picking up one side, and some the other side. Thus, for example, the AC unit and the lighting would be together, and the work area and layout being together. A 40-amp panel and feeder circuit would be adequate. For my garage, I have a 100 Amp panel because I could not get the desired number of circuits in a smaller panel. However, the feeder to the garage is 40 Amp,
As already mentioned, beware of any advice given on these forums by anyone other than a licensed electrician who is registered in your home state. If you have a fire and the fire department determines it was caused by faulty wiring, your insurance company will probably refuse to pay and may even cancel your policy.
I'm not a licensed electrician but I am construction superintendent that has to deal with electricians and the inspector when his work fails. My advice, call a licensed electrician.
Your total amp rating on all the breakers in your panel can be higher then your service as long as there is a main breaker. Add up the breakers in your present main panel. I have 100 amp service installed in the work I run. Three projects I'm working on right now have fourteen 20 amp circuits and four-15 amp circuits in each panel. All that on a 100 amp main breaker. Two just passed final inspections this week. Third passed rough in a couple of weeks ago.
Haven't seen a 60 amp panel in years. ( except during demo) It may cost as much as a 100 amp panel which is the minimum allowed for a new service. You will have more room in the larger panel for future. Anyhow, I'd still call an electrician.
Martin Myers
The first thing I would do is go to the local building inspectors and TALK to the electrical inspector. Then, follow THAT advice. No one here can give you that level of ungarbled word.
Another thing. You WILL need permits, and you WILL have inspections. If the work is done by a reputable, licensed individual who has been doing business in the community for a while the inspection will be a quick (but thorough) look-see. If you do it yourself and are NOT a licensed electrician, the inspector will go over everything with a magnifying glass and a fine-tooth comb - not because you aren't licensed but because he can't be sure you knew and followed the rules.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
eaglescout I will have a 14' x 14' around the room HO shelf layout with a 5 x 8 peninsula. I will be running straight DC and have a small window air conditioner/heater that runs on 110V. I am thinking one 20 amp circuit for the AC, one 15 amp for room lighting, one 15 amp for work area and one 15 amp for layout power and lighting on the layout. While this is technically 5 amps over the limit I should never be actually drawing the maximum from any of the circuits to exceed 60amps. Does anyone actually use more power for a similar sized layout room or shed?
For a shop with HVAC, 60 amps may or may not be too small. Look at the plate on your AC unit and check the current draw in both heat and AC modes. If resistance strips are used for heat rather than reverse cycle AC, the heat load will actually be higher.
Another driver is going to be the shop equipment. Heavy duty power tools can draw substantial amps. Shop vacs and air compressors are typically big draws. The larger 110V compressors can be 12-13 amps, and take up a 20 amp circuit by themselves. But table and other heavy saws can also draw 5-8 amps in the larger sizes.
By totaling your current draws, you will be armed with the starting point for the electrician.
In the old days of no air conditioning, baseboard hot water heat, no electric dryer, and gas stove, small houses would actually be powered by a 60 amp fuse panel (not circuit breaker). But remember that under those circumstances, the biggest draw was the single refridgerator.
When I built a detached single car garage with no HVAC, I installed a 40 amp panel. But I had no heavy shop tools, either. And the house service was upgraded from 100 amp to 200 amp to support the garage and installation of central AC.
So you need to keep in mind the total draw of the house plus shed unless the shed has a separate feed. Can your present house panel support another 60 amps?
If you are asking these questions on a model trains forum, you need an electrician to help you plan this out. And you will need permits in most localities.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
I am a electrical contractor. You did not list enough data to calculate your total connected load but your plan is a sound one. Ou should have no problems with your design. Good luck and keep them rolling.
Uncle fester
I have a 40 amp sub panel that powers my train layout garage and two sheds. My garage as a 220v air compressor. Most homes run on 100 to 150 amps. You will have more power than you will need. Rule of thumb is 6 outlets and 4 lights per. 20 amp breaker and 12/2 wire. I hope this will help. The 60 amp will be fine I don't know what size wire is need for 60 amp. Where ever you buy your elect. Equipment should be able to tell you. Just don't over. Do it you want the breakers to trip when they need to.
george
The best advice has already been given. Contact a licensed electrical contractor.
As others have noted, most household electrical systems have total amps in excess of the main breaker.
So, your proposed setup would be workable. Incidentally, a 60 amp subpanel would require 6 gauge wiring.
Regarding each circuit, each amp supports 150 watts so that a 15 amp circuit would break at 1,800 watts and a 20 amp circuit would break at 2,400 watts. That should tell you if the appliances on an individual circuit are excessive or not.
As you probably know, a 15 amp circuit requires 14 gauge wiring and a 20 amp circuit requires 12 gauge wiring.
On my layout, which is fairly large, I dedicated two 15 amp circuits for the lighting and the electronics.
Rich
Alton Junction
We have a detached barn-like structure about 100' from our front door. It is our garage, and added to its NE side is a garden shed. Above the garage, filling the volume under the hipped roof, is a loft in which I am constructing a layout 11' X 21'. The panel is near the garage man-door, and is 60 amps. That's tons.
Crandell
I guess one question you need to ask is : Do you have room in your main panel for a 60 amp breaker? The breaker is there to protect the wire so it will need to be in the main panel to feed the sub panel. A main breaker in the sub-panel is a disconnect. A disconnect is required if the building is detached from the home. Not always true if the subpanel is located in the same structure. That a local code issue and an electrician will know. I have installed 100 amp main breakers to serve as a disconnect on a 60 amp circuit. It's a toss up if you have a phase to phase or phase to ground short as to which breaker will trip first. As long as one trips, that's OK.
How are you heating this room? If you are using baseboard heaters, your electrical needs will be much larger. The same goes for plug-in space heaters.
And yes, check with an electrician. Ask him to price out a 60-amp service as you've suggested, but also a 100-amp service. The cost differential may be very small, as most of the cost is going to be in labor, not parts.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
The actual power draw of a layout is trivial compared to other loads in the building, including lighting, HVAC, power tools, appliances, etc. For example, a 10 amp booster @ 16V is only 160 W output (fully loaded), which even with really poor conversion losses will be less than 3 amps @ 120 VAC.input. Read the data labels on the power supplies, they will tell you how much power they can draw.
Get yourself a licensed electrical contractor, and be safe,
Andy
Whether someone needs a permit depends on where one lives. I have lived places that require one to change a light switch and other places that only require one for over a specific $ amount. There are many places that don't even require an electrician to do the work. As far as wiring fires, it is almost impossible to start a wiring fire with standard in-the walls wiring (look up forensic testing). I will quote what they have said " most cases that have the fire department saying the fire was caused by faulty wiring are wrong"). I have 30 amps for a 30x15' layout. Most of the power is used by the lights as I have no AC, don't need it where I live. 60 amps should be more than enough for what you described but one can only give definitive answers if all the facts are given (and for the one ones that say I don't know what I am saying, I have rewired entire apt. buildings and with electric heat, single family homes etc.
Eh... LION lives in a monastery, many buildings, many motors, many air conditioners, lots of lighting, refrigeration, elevators, and 100 AMP service from the street. Well, duh... that 100 amps is at 4000+ volts, once past our transformer we have a complex distribution system with all sorts of grey panels with levers and breakers on them, and we have our own 100KW generator just in case the power goes off.
Indeed, once upon a time (think 1900-1920) we were the power generator for the whole town. They kinda abandoned us when the utility company came in with this new fangled AC power.
Ok, so we got lotsa power on our campus, but up in the train room... well it used to be an old classroom building, and in those days it was sufficient for a class room to have two outlets, one in the front and one in the back. And it is on a circuit with a 15 amp FUSE! Well duh... how much power do you need for two florescent light fixtures and MAYBE one projector of some sort or perhaps a record player. They did not anticipate the room being used for any thing else, and the only typewriters were manual.
We have come along way since then. The rear outlet is just that, the rear outlet: I have a couple of extension cords plugged into it just in case I want to run a drill or a dremel tool at that end of the room, but the front one I re wired with a row of outlets above my workbench. They are controlled by a switch, I can turn the switch off as I leave the room, and can be assured that there is no soldering iron left on.
But it still all comes off of that 15 AMP fuse. The only time it blew, I was not up there and the power was off, so it probably happened during a lightening strike or something.
Yo do not know how hard it is to get them to instal proper power around here. The computer office (my office) has an air conditioner, five computers and monitors, and lighting, all on a 20A circuit. Well the time came to add more computers, and so I wrote as part of the proposal for upgrading the servers to include the power. Now I have separate lines for the Air conditioner, a 30A line exclusively for the computer rack (With a 20 AMP power backup system) and lines for aux power and lighting.
Now back a long time ago, when I was still a cub living in my parent's zoo, my brother and I were home alone, and we managed to blow the main breaker. we were drawing so much power on each circuit, that we did not overload any one breaker, but we sure as heck overloaded the main breaker. Taucht us something about conservation at least. The family had never drawn that much power when all six of us were home.
Since Your project involves new work it must be properly installed and inspected, and not just for insurance reasons: some day you will sell that house, and then the building inspectors will be called in to inspect the house and everything had better be right or you will be holding an implicit warranty that it was in proper condition at the time of the sale.(I shudder to think of some of the installations that I have done over the years. One building that I worked on had some very questionable wiring by myself, and I am glad that they tore that building down before something happened in there. (They built a 61 story building in its place).
Even if you know what you are doing, get someone else to do it for you. Someone who works to code and is bonded and insured.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
A 60 amp breaker... NO NO NO,,, Each subway car has a 600 amp breaker just for the traction motors, plus another 150 amp breaker just for the hotel load.
Wait. You are building in 1:87 scale.... ?
Never mind!
BroadwayLion A 60 amp breaker... NO NO NO,,, Each subway car has a 600 amp breaker just for the traction motors, plus another 150 amp breaker just for the hotel load. Wait. You are building in 1:87 scale.... ? Never mind!
............................although, a 600 amp breaker would certainly cover any future expansion needs.
{ As far as wiring fires, it is almost impossible to start a wiring fire with standard in-the walls wiring (look up forensic testing). }}
I dont want to start a big arguement here or take this off on a new tangent....BUT,,, Standard "in the wall" electrical wiring most definitely can be an ingition point for a fire...usually a loose connection on a wall recepticle. This can cause arcing & heat generation that has a snowball effect. The more heat..more arching, more heat...you get the pic
That is why the National Electrical Code requires Arch Fault breakers on new residential construction now
Recently completed my own installation of service to an outbuilding (30x40 pole barn). 100A panel is minimum allowed. Pulled from house 200A panel. In Michigan, homeowner is allowed to do own installation but must have permit and followup inspection. Must have utility disconnect and reconnect meter. Not allowed to do own meter disconnect. Your locale may or may not allow you to do the install. Needless to say, installation must comply with all building codes. If not 100% confident you know what you are doing then hire electrician.
Alan
Freelancing the LK&O Railroad
dbduck { As far as wiring fires, it is almost impossible to start a wiring fire with standard in-the walls wiring (look up forensic testing). }} I dont want to start a big arguement here or take this off on a new tangent....BUT,,, Standard "in the wall" electrical wiring most definitely can be an ingition point for a fire...usually a loose connection on a wall recepticle. This can cause arcing & heat generation that has a snowball effect. The more heat..more arching, more heat...you get the pic That is why the National Electrical Code requires Arch Fault breakers on new residential construction now
Another "in-wall" issue is caused by a one time ill advised idea of using aluminum wire. If that was connected to brass or copper terminals then the interactions between the metals will be a problem. You you tie an aluminum wire in a wire nut with a copper wire, the same issue will occur.
LIONS have been known to do in-wall wiring and him is NOT up to date on the fire code.
Do not trust what is in the wall unless you KNOW what is in the wall. Someone may have added an aluminum wire to an existing copper branch and an inspector (if one was called at all) might not even notice.
At the moment a certain young felid is howling at my window. I suspect she wants a bowl with some calories in it.