The buss wire for my layout is 12 AWG, but for reasons not really worth getting into for the purpose of this question, I need to run about a foot extention of the buss using 17/18 AWG. All of the feed from the buss to the track are 22 AWG.
Is there any reason this short span of small buss would be a problem.
mreagantThe buss wire for my layout is 12 AWG, but for reasons not really worth getting into for the purpose of this question, I need to run about a foot extention of the buss using 17/18 AWG. All of the feed from the buss to the track are 22 AWG. Is there any reason this short span of small buss would be a problem.
Well that is quite a jump in wire size but how long of a run are we talking about and let me back up the buss a little how large of a layout do you have?
I also run 12AWG buss wire and now realize it's over kill. If your running a club size layout or a full basement home layout lest say 30x40 then you should use #12 wire but anything smaller then that #14 wire is fine. Actually more then enough for running DCC. If you choose to solder all rail joiners or run feeder wires from each section to the buss which some guys prefer and you have good continuity through out your track you may not even need the extended buss wire. I picked up Lionel Strang's book DCC made Easy it's a must read and has a LOT of useful information and answers a lot of the DCC wiring mysteries.
The layout is 27x12 around-the-wall with a removable duckunder at the door. The reason for the extention is to energize a DPDT switch which will power an isolated block in a reversing loop. The buss extention would be less than a foot and the overall isolated block is about 4 feet long. The DCC system control is located about the linear middle of the main line loop.
You won't have any problems, and even if you had to run that gauge wire another three feet, even six, you wouldn't have any problems, provided there were a few, and short, feeders up to the tracks off this contrived bus. If you need, say, three feeder pairs, that would be fine, provided they were shorter than about 24".
-Crandell
I use 18 AWG feeders off my 12 AWG bus. Some of them are 30" long and have no problems. So I doubt a foot will give you problems.
Enjoy
Paul
Thanks TZ, but that won't work because the feeder would need to go to an Atlas Connector which would not allow the polarity switching of the Atlas Twin (DPDT) that I need for the reverse loop.
Am I misinformed?