I would just like to ask a few questions for wiring standards to make a diagram to put under the layout with said standards. My questions:
1) Which wire is supposed to be powered, the red one, or the black one.
2) On the Digitrax DCS 50, which plug gives the power, "Rail A" or "Rail B"
3) Is there a standard in Model Railroading for which rail should be powered? The closest rail (inside), or the farthest (outside)?
~G4
19 Years old, modeling the Cowlitz, Chehalis, and Cascade Railroad of Western Washington in 1927 in 6X6 feet.
A Google NMRA search would have answered this quite rapidly. The right rail is positive and red wire.
Right rail positive voltage, left rail negative voltage and the loco moves forward.
Put you multimeter on DC voltage and check the power pack terminals.
If no multimeter, Harbor Freight right now has them for $3.99 each. I have three of the same type that I have used for some time. No good reason to not have a multimeter when doing model railroading.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Both are powered. It really makes no difference. My Digitrax system has the red wire on the bus attached to 'Rail A', and the black wire to 'Rail B'. On my layout all of the closest rails are attached to the Red bus feeders. Using colors to keep things organzed helps!
Jim Bernier
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Oops. I just looked up Digitrax DCS 50 and it is DCC. Just hook up the wires to the track. For DCC, I have never found the connections to be an issue until you start getting into power districts, then you have to watch out.
I disconnected my DC power pack years ago and connected the DCC controller, disregarding any polarity issues. It worked first time.
Rivet counters may disagree.
Be careful when labeling under the layout. It is easy to reverse things. Our club used #14 red and black stranded wire to keep things simple.
I just remembered something, you controller comes with something called a manual. Use it. At you age, start out early reading instruction manuals. It will help in the future.
Unfortunately, there is no manual I know of for getting married and surviving. It seems to be mostly guess work.
Voltage is like height. It only has meaning when it's compared to something else. Thus, if you are 6 feet tall and you are in an room with an 8-foot ceiling, your head is 6 feet above the floor, but it's also 2 feet below the ceiling.
The DCC voltage is a modulated square wave. If you put an AC voltmeter on it, you will see that the red wire is about 12 volts AC with respect to the black wire. But, if you reverse the probes, you will also see that the black wire is 12 volts AC with respect to the red wire. So, the short answer is, both wires carry the power.
I also highly recommend using red and black wires beneath the layout for both the track bus and the feeders. That way, it's hard to mix them up. When you've got the subroadbed down and you're "dropping" feeders from the track, it's a piece of cake to connect them to the right wire below. My layout is a number of loops for continuous running. I've used the convention that the outer rail of the loop, the one closest to the edge of the layout, gets the red wire.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Below is a good link with a lot of DCC info. Store the link in Favorites if using IE or Bookmarks if using Firefox. He uses a NCE system but there is a lot of other general DCC info.
http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/nswmn/index.htm
The amount of info can saturate you so take a little at a time.
Thanks!