I'm trying to finish identifying all the power busses my layout will need. Currently I plan to run 12GA stranded duplex wires for the following busses:
What other power/control busses should I consider adding?
Thanks.
Modeling an HO gauge freelance version of the Union Pacific Oregon Short Line and the Utah Railway around 1957 in a world where Pirates from the Great Salt Lake founded Ogden, UT.
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LION does thing differently, and has no DCC.
The most importand bus on layout of LION is GROUND. It is hard wired to the building ground system, if it were not there would be stray voltages on it that would wrek havoc with your mid if not with your railroad.
LION uses a ONE WIRE connection between the console and the Tortoise machines. Obviously one leg of the tortouse is connected to the ground. The other wire, enervated by a SPDT switch supplies either + or - dc voltage to the machine. Make them all the same. Normal position on your control switch is -12vdc, and puts the turn out into the normal position. If it does not, reverse the hot and the ground connectors at the Tortoise. The same single conductor can also enervate indicators on the control panel, signals on the layout and relays anywhere to handle power routing, track logic and any other turnout related application you may require.
LION has automatic block signals, the detection and signal equipment operate from a separate 16vdc transformer, - to Ground, + to the bus.
LION has aux power for lighting. - to Ground, +12vdc to the bus, used for LED lighting. The signal bus could be used, but doing so would require a much larger 16v supply and 12v supplies are far cheaper. Actually this 12 volt system is my man aux system. It consits of 2 identical 12v transformers and 2 identical 5 Amp rectifiers. The + output of no.1 and the - output of no.2 are tied together and connected to ground. This leaves me with a -12vdc and a +12vdc pair of outputs (with 24vdc across them--LION has many surplus 24v relays which him can use). Since the -12vdc output is used by the console to place turnouts into their normal position, there is spare capacity on the +12vdc side of the system for the auxiliary bus, since never will all of the turnouts, or even many turnouts will be reversed at any one time.
LION uses DC power to the tracks. The LEFT rail in the direction of traffic is GROUND. Any number of power supplies can be thus tied together in a block control system and would be connected to the Right rail. +voltage moves the train forward; -voltage moves the train in reverse.
Of course, layout of LION does not do that either. Him has one huge 12 Amp regulated power supply: Ties the - vdc side to GROUND, and the +vdc site to the right track, wich is applied between every station. Gaps in this track control train speed and stopping at stations. All auytomatic. LION *likes* simple. Never built anything that way, but him likes simple nonetheless.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Why use DCC for turnouts. LION could never figure this out. LION cannot even operate a TV remote, you want him to press tiny buttons to select a turnout, and then another to move the turnout?
LION has nothing to do with tiny buttons. Him likes MAN size controls. Better yet LION size controls. LION likes the operation of the switch tower. Gotta have a tower operator, even if you tower only has toggle switches in it.
LION thinks that buying and installing 25 pair cat 3 cable for the turnouts is far cheaper than all of those DCC modules for the turnouts. LIONS must work on the cheap.
BroadwayLion Why use DCC for turnouts. LION could never figure this out. LION cannot even operate a TV remote, you want him to press tiny buttons to select a turnout, and then another to move the turnout? LION has nothing to do with tiny buttons. Him likes MAN size controls. Better yet LION size controls. LION likes the operation of the switch tower. Gotta have a tower operator, even if you tower only has toggle switches in it. LION thinks that buying and installing 25 pair cat 3 cable for the turnouts is far cheaper than all of those DCC modules for the turnouts. LIONS must work on the cheap. ROAR
The primary turnout control will be fascia mounted toggle buttons with LED status lights. DCC turnout decoders will allow later computer control/automation.
My layout is an around the walls type, 8' X 11' N scale. I have one 14AWG DCC buss running all the way around on the front facia. A PSX circuit breaker is set for 1.27 amps which is more than the current draw of 7-8 N scale locos.
I also have a DC buss also 14AWG running around the facia to power the main line Tortoise switch machines and signals powered by a 3.3 amp wall wart. This will also take care of any lighting for structures and street lighting.
The DCC power is feed by parallel #16 THHN wire running around the layout. About every 10' is a shorting block that feeds the tracks in the area. The tracks have #20 solid wire soldered to them that drops down under the roadbed. The #20 is kept as short as practical and connects to #16 wire that goes to the shorting blocks.
Lighting is feed by #18 speaker wire. Shorting blocks are used under areas where there are a lot of connections. ( towns ) I use a retired Tech II for accessory power.
The few powered switches that I have are powered by the track using NCE Snap-it or PSX-AR controllers.
South Penn
I’m not sure what duplex wire you are talking about, hopefully not the landscape kind. It is hard to strip and is very expensive. I suggest you use #12 THHN stranded wire for your DCC circuits. It is very affordable if you buy the 2500’ rolls. Also you can use tap splices for connectors and never have to cut the wire. #12 wire might be overkill but you do have a very large layout and the wires are going to be very long and will have some degree of voltage drop.
I’m not sure what LED light strings you are using but if they are similar to Christmas lights you will want standard 110vac circuits. I suggest using lamp cord since it contains both wires, is stranded and can easily be cut to length and have standard plugs installed so plugging in lights is easy. This will also help in the future because it will be recognizable as 110vac instead of track or accessory voltage.
Don't mix the two types of wire because you never want to accidentally hook 110vac to your trains.
The tape reels of LEDs run on 12V.
I intend to have DCC track bus, accessory decoder bus, accessory power/lighting bus (15VAC or so), and a layout lighting bus, probably 4 wires or more, I plan to use RGB as well as white LED strips so I can do sunrise/sunset/night effects.
You'll also want a DCC system bus for your DCC system, and a heavy (#12, same as track wires) line for ground between multiple boosters.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I have a DCC track power bus, and also a DCC control bus around the fascia for throttle jacks. The newest section of my layout has no control bus and I usually use wireless throttles over there, although most of it is still accessible with plug-ins.
I've sub-divided my layout into power districts with circuit breakers for the track. I've separated out the lighting circuits, too, with independent power supplies. I generally use one bus for structure lights and another for street lights. I use 12 VDC for each of these, and run 16 volt bulbs at that reduced voltage.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Have you looked into LCC (Layout Command Control)?
Maybe in a couple of years, there's just not much in the form of devices for it yet. Plus it's just a control bus, you still need power for the things you control with it. If you have a robust control bus like Digitrax Loconet, you don't really need a second one to control other stuff. Outside of a couple of the Euro DCC systems that use Ethernet, none of the other popular systems have a control bus capable of doing much more than running trains on anything but a small and simple layout. Loconet, despite being proprietary AND commercial products being required to pay a royalty to Digitrax is THE most supported by third party commercial manufacturers and DIY projects. And since you need to run a Loconet cable anyway to connect boosters to the command station....
I run 12 Ga only for the DCC track power buss and use Digitrax dual decoders for switches running Tortous machines. These are on the track buss, of course. The wires to the tourtous machines are 24 gauge (no real current needed here and, thus, no chance for any voltage drop in the really small wire).
Likewise, I use 20 gauge wire for all the lighting buss. LEDs draw only a tiny amount of current. Even at the end of a long run on a 12 volt lighting buss the voltage drop is far less than 1 volt and you will never see that on the distant lights.
example: If you hung all your lights (30 LEDS@ 10ma = 300ma) 40 feet away from your 12 v supply (total of 80 feet of 20 gauge wire) you would see a drop of only 1/3 of a volt!! You would never notice it. Now, if you start throwing in a lot of old incandescent lamps at nearly 80ma each or more, that is another matter.
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed