color coded wire

[Anonymous]

Jim,

While I am not a DCC user, I know some of the basics. DCC power is provided to the entire layout through one or more power supplies. It is kind of like wiring two comon rails instead of one common rail and several 'block' rails. There are some subtleties (sp?) about switches and reversing loops which you will need to talk with someone else about. In addition to track power, a low voltage AC signal is transmitted through the rails and picked up by the engines. The engine with the matching digital code responds and the others ignore the signal. I recommend you get a book on DCC and after you read about it you can answer all our questions. I hesitate to say any more since I have never gone through the mechanics to install one myself. Good Luck - Ed

[Anonymous]

Ed,
Me again. You can follow my progress by the questions I ask. I had used the wire color code on my railroad 35 years ago. Just wondered if things had changed.
By the way, are you up to speed on DCC track wiring? That's the next obstacle. On my last layout, I had many, many blocks that used up hundreds of feet of wire and dozens of toggle switches. I'm hoping DCC will eliminate a lot of the wire.
Regards,
Jim

[Anonymous]

Ed,
Thanks again.
Jim

[Anonymous]

Polyjim,

It is common for power connections to use black wire for 'ground' or low voltage (negative) and red wire for positive or high voltage when wiring DC circuits. For AC circuits, green is usually used for ground and white, black and/or red wire for the other voltage connections.

Having said that, I use black insulated wire for the common rail and red wires for the other rail. I use green wire for the common (ground) wire on AC powered switch machines and other colored wire (like blue and yellow) for other switch machines. This leaves white wire for other future applications like block detection. You can also purchase wire with two color insulation like white wire with a grey stripe. I also tag the red wire with the block number and the blue and yellow wire with switch machine numbers. It also helps if you dedicate one color (either blue or yellow) to the 'normal' switch machine position.

I hope this helps. - Ed

[Anonymous]

The only color-coding that I know of is using black wire for the ground.
That seems to be common in most DC circuits.
I use the colors of the wire to code the blocks, green wire goes to green block for example.
Eric W - Doylestown, Pa

[Anonymous]

I would like to know if thee is a standard wire color code for HO layouts.