Idea for a Bus Cable

[Last Chance]

Try to keep it simple. I went down to the Home Depot and had the worker bee spin off some spools of 14 gauge wire Stranded in two different colors and I had em ready to go on one corner of layout. I think 120 feet of wire total ran me about 30 bucks if that... 24 cents a foot.

SPOOLS of wire start at 500 feet and 60 bucks minimum depending on gauge, stranded or solid and intended use.

Extension cords get expensive. I have 10 gauge contractor yellow cord for about a total of 150 feet for outside work and that was basically a dollar per foot if memory serves. It would be rather sad if I wanted to raid THAT cord to get wire.

It was a very simple and brain dead purchase for me, no effort what so ever to snip the correct length of wire and install it. Besides the wire I got was good for way more amps than the system can provide so Im safe there too.

Sometimes the thought of junking perfectly good extension cords is a very difficult way to get something done. In fact you might regret it when you find that you want a small 12 volt wall wart near something far away from the outlet in your train room.

Please, try to stay away from massive 12 gauge and larger shielded cabling and those common to drying machines. DCC is nice but let's not over THUNK it please. Or put too much effort into wiring.

Now... for another idea. A local hobby shop has used a variety of cabling similar to speaker cable and car power bus installations etc with a rather heavy gauge to make connections on a modular layout. We have had some success with it.

Finally another reason to discourage raiding extension cords for wire is maybe one day you forget what that cord was there for and you try to apply 120 volts to it off a house plug. The results will be tragic.

[jrbernier]

Brett,

  Salvaging an extension cord sounds sort of expensive.  Lamp cord will work for small layouts(usually #18 gauge).  But why not just buy a spool of red & black #12 or #14 wire at your local home improvement store?  This will be the most inexpensive route.

Jim

[Phoebe Vet]

I use speaker wire.

[cacole]

Removing the outer jacket sounds like a lot of unnecessary work.  Why not just purchase some lamp cord, speaker wire, or low voltage light wire in bulk?  Ace Hardware, Lowe's, Home Depot, Wal-mart, and similar stores that sell electrical supplies have all 3 types and it us usually cheaper than an extension cord.

[jeffrey-wimberly]

 I don't know. I've never tried it, not for DCC anyway. Sounds good in theory.

[mfm37]

 It will work but sounds like a lot of work to wind up with two wires to use. There is also the possibility of damage to the conductors while removing them as they are twisted along the length and covered with both the outer pvc shell and a paper wrapper.

Why not use what we do for NTRAK modules? 12ga low voltage lighting cable available at the local Home Depot. It comes in 14 awg as well. Speaker wire will work too, but it is usually priced more per foot than the low voltage cable. I generally get it by the reel which is cheaper but they also sell it in 50, 100, and 200 foot packages. Also available in special cut lengths. The packages and reels are much cheaper than cut lengths.

With the cable you will find that there is one conductor that has ribbed insulation, the other is smooth. Use that the same as color coding. NTRAK has an RP that calls for the front/colored/positive rail to be the ribbed wire. Rear/black/negative is the smooth wire. We also make that the Track A wire on a DCC system.

 

Martin Myers 

[Stardust]

HI all,

I am about to start wring parts of my DCC layout, which requires the use of a bus cable.

For the bus cable, I was thinkig of buying a standard household electrical extension cable (the type you may use to plug an iron or drill into) and striping the ends off it and coring the individual strands from it.

Is this a good idea?

Thanks in advance,

Brett