Bus Wire Question

[farrellaa]

I am getting ready to put my bus wires in and have a question about location of the wires. I have a section of mainline track that parallels another section of mainline and they are about 10" apart. The question is: can I share a common bus wire for both tracks or should I run a seperate bus under both? I would assume I would have to have both on the same electrical block or section. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

bob

PS: I have always thought that there was no such thing as a dumb question if you don't know the answer.

[cacole]

For DCC, one bus wire for two parallel tracks is perfectly okay.  Just be sure you use wire of sufficient gauge to handle the load if you're going to be running multiple engines simultaneously.

I wired a large HO scale club layout using speaker wire and we have had no voltage or power loss problems anywhere.

[MisterBeasley]

For what it's worth, I agree.  Typically, your feeders will be about a foot long anyway, so that will easily reach either track if you center the bus wire between the two lines.

[rrinker]

 If both are in the same power district, then a single bus run down the middle will work just fine. No need to double up when the tracks are parallel. If you break up the layout into multiple power districts then it will depend on where the dividing line is. If each of the two parallel tracks is in a different power district then you'll obviously need two bus runs.

                         --Randy

 

[farrellaa]

Thanks guys, I will double up on the bus in these areas. I posted this last night/morning at 2:30 am and couldn't think of the term 'power district'. I had been removing a malware virus and when I finally got rid of it I finished what I had started several hours ago; to post my question.

Thanks again,

Bob

[rrinker]

 Wait, are the two parallel tracks in the same power district or not? If they are - 3 people have said NO to doubling up - just run a bus wire down the middle and connect the feeders from both tracks. If they are two different power districts, then you do need to run a bus line from each breaker or booster and connect the appropriate feeders to the appropriate bus.

                                    --Randy