Solid or Stranded wire?

[3railguy]

Rosy, a buss wire is a main wire that takes off with feeders to track or accessories. For instance, if you have a block on your layout and want feeders every four sections of track (for better rail conductivity) for that one particular block, the buss wire is what the feeders take off from for the individual track sections. MTH recomends home runs. the buss is terminated where the home runs starts. The home runs are what branch off to the track sections (feeders). Many layouts use a commom ground. A ground buss is the wire that all your ground feeders connect too.

I think chief eagles is confused about buss wires. A bananna plug is a connector, not a wire. You can attach a bananna plug to a buss wire.

[jwse30]

I'm an electrician by trade, so probably 99% of my layouts wiring as been done with scraps that were to be thrown away at work (example- a spool of #14, with about 50 feet left on it, too short to use). Because of this, I use a combination of solid and stranded. If I have a stranded wire hooked up to a terminal screw, I crimp a fork or ring lug to it.

I was fortunate enough to work on a fire alarm system at a local high school a few years back. I got several spools (10 or more, with about 50 to 100 feet on each) of 2 conductor 14 (solid). All of my track feeders and most of my accessories are run with it. And it's got a pretty pink, fire resistant outer jacket :)

All that said, you'd think my layout would be the best wired in the country. I've got so much wiring to do, it's not even funny. I've probably got 1/2 dozen accessories that sit idle on the layout because I haven't gotten around to running a few wires to them. I guess wiring is the last thing I want to do after spending a day at work wiring things.

J White

[ChiefEagles]

3rail, that is what I said.!!!!!!!!

I hope Katz does not mind, I am copying and pasting a reply to a person on OGR.
I believe you are referring to the difference between common bus and star pattern wiring. Common bus is used on a lot of traditional (meaning conventional) layouts. A large gauge wire is run under the layout and serves as the neutral for all power feeds. It was found that the DCS system signal would just wind around under the table and never get up to the track where it was needed.

Thus the star pattern is now recommended. You run feeds of neutral and hot wires to each track block. The idea is to keep both feeds of equal length.

Also, and this is very important, you need to have a terminal strip to which you connect all the wires and then feed in the transformer power. But you must use only one terminal strip per transformer handle. Do not have terminal strips feeding other terminal strips. This will greatly degrade the signal to DCS.

You indicated that command control (DCS) would be something you would be intersted in the future. If you lock yourself in now with bus wiring, you will pretty much have a miserable time later.

Jim Katz TCA 03-55573

[laz 57]

You can make your own buss bar by simply taking a piano hinge made of brass or some other metal taking out the metal bar that makes it hinge. Now you have 2 parts of the hinge. Drill a number of holes equally spaced and mount each strip onto wood. Run your + and nuetral leads to the end screws and everything off of the other srews to the different part of the track. Works great and doesn't cost much.
laz57

[Jim Duda]

My "Buss bar" is just a screw...get a long 6-32 machine screw and screw it partway into your board - maybe 1/2 inch or so. Then cut off the head. Screw a 6-32 nut all the way down to the board. Now just stack all of your wires that you want tied together on the screw. (I use ring terminals so they won't pull off the screw.) Clamp them all together with another 6-32 nut, or wingnut, or even transformer terminal nuts (most of them are 6-32)!

Pretty cheap...and it works great!

[ChiefEagles]

Great ideas guys. I do like to save a few $$$$.

[FJ and G]

I use single-strand 12 and 14 ga leftover wire from my ROmex basement wiring project. Single strand is much better; just don't twist on it or kink it up, i.e., anchor it securely.

If you're going to play with the wire and bend it, then multi-strand.

[ChiefEagles]

David, works great with conventional. The early question from rozy was concerning DCS. Rozy is using DCS and that makes a difference per the "Experts" [they are saying that in videos and etc].

[lionelsoni]

A buss is a kiss. A bus is a wire that goes to all of whatever you've got, short for "omnibus", "of all" in Latin, and the same word as the vehicle that everyone rides. I think the "buss" spelling must have started because of the Bussmann fuse company, which makes "Buss" fuses.

Stranded wire and solid wire of the same gauge have the same cross-sectional area and the same resistance. The only reason for preferring one to the other is convenience in making connections.

Wire should be sized according to the fault current that the circuit is protected for. If your transformer can supply 15 amperes, use 14AWG. If it can supply 20 amperes, use 12AWG.