I am getting ready to wire a 2 district bus wiring system for my N scale layout. Myh question is :
Do I just dead end the ends of the wires , or do they loop back on themselves to complete a circle if you will? If I have an oval plan, do I connect the wires of the loop together and have one wire to run into the booster?
There's no need to connect the buss wire into a loop, on DCC or DC. Just take the last drop wire and connect it directly to the end of your buss. With an oval, the track already forms a loop.
Thanks for the quick respose. Thar was my assumption but wanted to be certain. Another question if you don;t mind.
I am planning two districts on the layout each having its own set of 2 wires for the north and south rail connections. I am only going to use one booster and install curcuit breakers for each district. When connecting the two districts to the main booster or better said through it's own breaker, How do I wire the ulitmate 4 bus wires to the booster?
I use a digitrax system. Digitrax does not recommend making a power loop with the buss wires. So just dead end them and do not leave any wires bare at the ends. Your buss wires go to their respective circuit breaker then a pair of wires goes from the booster to pick up both circuit breakers.
Run buss wires from each booster to the respective loop. Then run a separate wire from your booster to both circuit breakers. Keep the wire polarity the same to both breakers if there is any interconnection between loops.
If the loops are long, try to run the buss wires in such a way that the breakers are in the center of the buss wire runs; i.e,, branch out in a 'T' configuration from the breakers. Don't connect the ends of the buss wires together.
Thanks for the info. I am going to use a Digitrax system as well. All of the components should be here next week. I am anxious to get trains running!!!!
I am planning on using only 1 booster for both districts. If I now understand, I should run each power districts wires to it's individual breaker then run basically a bus wire from the booster to the two seperate circuit breaker unit. I just read an article about keeping the breakers in phase so I think I understand how those shoud be wired.
Your thinking is correct. You will need to connect an extra wire to each of the booster track power wires. That will give you two wires that look like a Y. Connect one leg of each to your circuitbreakers. Use a color code. I prefer red and black (matches the Digitrax A and B outputs) but the main thing is to use a unique color for everything that gets connected to each of the booster outputs. Continue that color code through your circuit breakers to the rails.
When connecting your booster track power wires to the circuit breakers, connect the same color to the matching input terminals on the circuit breakers. Continue the color code from the same output terminals to the rail. That should keep both districts phased correctly.
If there is a "ground/common" connection on your circuit breaker, connect those to the booster "Ground" terminal.
Martin Myers
retsignalmtrI use a digitrax system. Digitrax does not recommend making a power loop with the buss wires.
Texas Zepher Why not loop the bus and let the current travel the copper the shorter distance to any train instead of through the track?
Why not loop the bus and let the current travel the copper the shorter distance to any train instead of through the track?
Data crashes. I don't think they would be a problem on a small loop. On a large loop there could be problems. Fortunately, loops that are large enough to cause crashes are rare. Once they get that large they have been broken into more then one power district. No more loop.
The problem is deciding what a small loop is. Best to leave the wiring open. Tape the ends to keep the electrons from escaping
Texas ZepherretsignalmtrI use a digitrax system. Digitrax does not recommend making a power loop with the buss wires.Any idea why? As a prior poster (Tom D.) pointed out the track makes a loop anyway. Why not loop the bus and let the current travel the copper the shorter distance to any train instead of through the track?
The logic I can see there is that you will have signals travelling toward each other. Which means eventually they end up back at the source. That could result in distortion of the waveform, resulting in data corruption.
For the life of me I can't understand why everyone thinks the wires have to be looped. In any other situation would you loop a live wire back on it self? I can't seem to think of one, electricity doesn't need to find it's way home to work weather its a signal from a command station or power leeds coming from a DC power pack. What about guys who run point to pint railroads where does their power go off into space? As long as you have two power buss wires for purposes of simplicity lets call one positive and one negative connected to the rails via power drops or rail drops IE: a positive electrical connection to both rails the locomotive will make the connection. Think in term of your house, the power comes off the poll (your command station) leaves you panel box via circuit breakers (same thing in DCC if you so choose to use them) think of each circuit in your panel box as a district. It leaves the circuit breaker and travels through the wires in the wall (power drops) to the receptacle (your track) It's there but not doing anything until you plug something into it (Your locomotive) you send a signal to the appliance (your locomotive) via a switch of some kind. Your DCC throttle is nothing more then a digital switch sending different signals to the locomotive making it do different things. They key word is digital where straight DC is analog. You can really only do one thing with DC power increase it or decrease it making your engine go faster or slower. Hench the need to block control and switches etc. to run trains in different directions run on some places of the layout and not others.
I think we all think dcc is this great big two headed monster when it comes to wiring where actually you couldn't ask for a simpler system. Well you could but it hasn't been invented yet as far as I know. That is one of the greatest advantages of dcc or dc it's simplicity in wiring. Just what you save in time effort and cost between dc vs dcc makes it worth it right there. Some simple things to live by Color code your wiring so as not to get confused and to also make trouble shooting easier. Us the correct wire sizes for your power buss and feeder wires, make good positive connection either by mechanical connectors or by soldering and keep you track work clear of metallic objects one thing is for sure DCC command stations and decoders don't like short circuits.
Trust me if I can understand this stuff it aint that hard.
I realize it's not that hard, but what about twisting the Main BUS wires? I have heard some do this......what should I do for my "N" scale layout?
Thank you
mj
How long are your bus wires? Mine aren't twisted, at least not purposely. No problems. Some peopel use the heavy 2 condustor #12 wire used for low voltage landscape lighting as a bus wire, that's not twisted, and there are no problems. Twisting reduces crosstalk. Crosstalk is one signal inducing itself on another signal - with 1 pair of wires there isn;t crosstalk, there's only 1 signal. With network cabling you have 4 pairs of wires, where at least 2 of those are carrying different signals. There you cna have crosstalk, and the wires are tightly twisted.
What you do not want to do is bundle the bus wires with any 120VAC power lines, or with low power signals like connectios back from block detectors, or your cab bus. Keep those different types of things seperated from one another, and if they need to ross, use some sort of wire fastenrs and mke them cross at 90 degree angles. The issue is mostly the stronger DCC track signal inserting itselfonto the low power signals back from a block detector and overwhelming the weaker signal, not much will interfere with the relatively large amplitude of the DCC track signal.
--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 layout that is 12X13. The Mainline is about 60' long. I have the MRC Started kit. I have 14 guage wire that will make up the bus line. I guess I don't understand, but do I need to twist or just run side by side? In the future I will probably get a booster for the yard area.
You can do either. Our club layout is many times larger and the bus runs side by side. Twisting the wires won't hurt and can help against cross talk from other systems.
Springfield PA