Can someone tell me what the following mean in laymans terms. I am brand new in the mod RR world so I have no idea.
Feeder wires?
Bus?
For DCC- Bus wires are large gauge wires that run from the power supply under the general track plan. They are not a loop, just wires that sort of follow along under the track.
Feeder wires are smaller gauge wire that goes from the feeder wire to the track every 2 feet or so. These are soldered to the track.
I hope that gets you started.
Think of the simplest possible layout - a single length of track running from one end of the room to the other. Under the table, run a red wire and a black wire in parallel right under the track. The red and black wires are a bus. Connect the red and black wires to the outputs of your power pack or DCC system, and then run smaller wires up from the red and black wires and attach them to the rails, red to one side, black to the other. Those smaller wires are the feeders. You want to put feeders about every 3-6 feet.
The idea is to use thick wire for the bus, so you don't get "voltage drop" from one end of the bus to the other. You can use thin wires for the feeders because they're short, and even if they are a bit more "lossy," you won't lose much because of their length.
The other reason to use this bus-feeder arrangement is that your track isn't as good a conductor as the wire, particularly at rail joiners. Often, rail joiners can loosen and completely drop their "electrical connectivity," but your trains will keep right on running if you've got feeders on both sides of the breakdown.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
ARTHILL wrote: Feeder wires are smaller gauge wire that goes from the feeder wire to the track every 2 feet or so. These are soldered to the track.
I think he meant to say bus there !
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
Phishhead wrote:Can someone tell me what the following mean in laymans terms. I am brand new in the mod RR world so I have no idea. Feeder wires?Bus?
"Bus" is electrical talk meaning a set of wires or a set of conductors on a PC board carrying power or signal to a number of different places. For a model railroad, a power bus carries track power (DC or DCC) around the layout. A throttle bus carries signal from a walkaround throttle back to the powerpack. Power buses are made with heavy gauge wire (say #14 solid copper house wire) to prevent voltage drop. Signal buses carry little current and so are made with smaller wire.
Connection between the rail, and the heavy gauge power bus are made with thinner wire, say #22, because the thinner wire is easier to solder and bend, and the short distance makes the resistance neglible. Such shorter thinner wires are called feeders.
Power buses are used because the rail and the rail joiners do not make reliable conductors of track power, where as a run of house wire is very foolproof.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
David brings up a good point. Bus is a generic term. It is not something which only applies to the wires running along under the tracks. Even when referring to a DCC system, there is both the "Track Bus" and the "Control Bus." The track bus has been discussed, but if you've got a larger layout and you set up your throttles with plugs and jacks so that you can move around and operate from multiple points, then you'll be setting up a control bus to connect all those jacks back to the system.
If you put lights in your buildings, then you might run a pair of wires around, and call it a "lighting bus," or you might sub-divide this kind of thing and even have a "streetlamp bus." While this sort of thing seems like a lot of extra effort, and may not really be practical in many cases, it can be a good organizational structure for larger, more complex layouts. By organizing things into distinct "bus" groups, you make troubleshooting much easier.
the club I was in, we had a large solid exposed wire as the common ground for ALL track and devices, it generally followed the mainline underneath. You needed to have a HOT iron to solder to it. This was your Ground Bus wire. Every section of track was "feeder" wired to it. It used block control so there wasnt a second bus directly from the track, but 5 throttles had 5 wire insulated running along as well to terminal blocks where it ran wires to selector switches for each block.
Pre-DCC mind you.
Jay
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UP2CSX wrote:Unless my limited knowledge of electrical things is completely wrong, a bus does carry people and a buss has wires. Just a clarification here if you start searching the net for information.
Not really. Bus is an alternate, and I believe also improper) spelling, but I have seen bus used much more frequently (in places that should know). The is a company called Bussman that sells fuses, labelled, I believe 'Buss' which I think has lead to confusion.
Jeff But it's a dry heat!
Mark:
Electrically speaking - is it 'BUS', OR BUSS?
Stupidhead (me) wants to know.
It 'sparked' my interest.
BUS is the proper spelling for what we are describing, although it is not totally improper to spell it BUSS ....
An electrical bus (sometimes spelled buss) is a physical electrical interface where many devices share the same electric connection. This allows signals to be transferred between devices (allowing information or power to be shared). A bus often takes the form of an array of wires that terminate at a connector which allows a device to be plugged into the bus.
The noun buss has one meaning:The act of caressing with the lips (or an instance thereof)
The verb buss has one meaning:Touch with the lips or press the lips (against someone's mouth or other body part) as an expression of love, greeting, etc.
And, just for the helluvit ....
Buss (also called a herring buss) is a small fishing boat with two masts.