Okay, as my wife would put it...here comes one of my Captain Obvious questions.
What should I do with damaged and/or discarded terminal wiring to ensure safety and a quality electrical ampage on my bus wiring? As I experimented with different layout ideas I either damaged some terminal joiners or pulled the feeder wire out of the suitcase clips. I have since replaced the damaged wires but what should I do with the old damaged wire or empty suitcase clip still attached to the bus wire.?
Should I,
1.Cut off the damaged terminal wire and leave a useless suitcase clip on the bus wire?
or
2. Remove the empty suitcase clip and tape off the exposed wire with electrical tape?
A third option might be to take off the empty suitcase clip and place the new one the exposed area with a new terminal joiner lead attached to it.
Just a little background On my wiring skills. I have been legally blind my entire life so electrical and wiring on my MRR is a whole new experience at the age of 52. I do not sdodder because I do not have the visual acuity or dexterity skills to do so without consistantly burning myself, so soddering terminal leads to Track is not an option. I was thrilled when I finally heard of terminal joiners.
So, any thoughts on safely removing damaged and/or dead wiring and suitcase clips would be appreciated. I don’t want a fire under my table or lose of too much ampage on my bus wires.
Thanks
Hey northeast_train_guy_1965!
My tendancy would be to not disturb the main bus wire any more than necessary, especially if it is stranded cable. Trying to remove the suitcase connectors might damage the bus wire more than the connector has already done when it cut into the bus wire in the first place. If you have clipped the damaged wires off as close as possible to the suitcase connectors there is little chance that anything will come in contact with them.
Dave
P.S. I congratulate you on the fact that you have not let your eyesight difficulties prevent you from being a modeller!
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Discard damaged connectors and replace with new.
Don't be the guy who took extra long steps to preserve his $20 shoes and wound up splitting his $60 pants.
It is very frustrating troubleshooting the intermittant problems cause by "repaired" connectors.
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
I agree. It's not worth the trouble to re-use old single-use connectors, terminal strips and the like. They aren't meant to be cleaned up, de-soldered and put back into service.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
IMO, wireing is one off those jobs you do once, and walk away. You do not want to go back and check every ''repaired'' conection when a problem comes up.
Leave the old suitcase clamps on,they aint hurting anybody. Get new suitcase clamps and term.jointers and if possible add some extra slack to wire ,to allow adjustments