Wire for DCC

[Al's B&O]

I need 16 AWG wire for the busses.  Should I purchase stranded wire?  Where can I find it at the best price?

 Thanks.

AL 

 

 

[Anonymous]

I used solid core wire house which I already had and seems to work just fine.  I bought 500' spools.  Since you won't need anywhere near that much for the average layout, I would first figure out how much you think you need and go to the store and only buy that amount with maybe a little extra.

I got mine at HD but Menards might be cheaper.

[Al's B&O]

Sounds good to me.  I'll try Home Depot.  I guess Radio Shack would have it too.  I just didn't want to drive to 10 stores looking for some cheap wire.

[CraigN]

I went with 14 solid for my railroad.

Alot of people say to use stranded because it is more flexible.

 

Radio Shack won't be the place to buy wire cheap.

Craig 

[simon1966]

Don't get it from Radio Shack, low prices on anything elecronic component or wire related are not part of the Radio Shack business model!!

[cacole]

I use heavy gauge stranded speaker wire from Wal-mart or K-mart for the bus wiring, and a smaller gauge stranded speaker wire for the feeders.

[simon1966]

Multi strand solid core thermostat wire works great as feeder wire.  Strip off the outer cover and you have 5 or 6 (can't remember off hand) different color coded solid core fine wires.  This seemed like a cheap way to get lots of feeders.