Curious

about your sub bus.  Do you change gauge from the bus thinner as you go to the feeder?  My feeders are either 20 or 22, depending upon what I had readily available at the time, and my main bus is a nice 14 (see the New Years Resolutions thread).  I still have a section where I'm considering a sub bus and am curious if thicker-to-thinner really matters all that much- use the same gauge as my feeders, or just splice another 14 gauge onto the main as a sub.

Yes, the feeders are smaller than the 12 ga sub-bus

Multi gauge feeders.

Hi Steve,

After lots of reviewing, trial and error and pulling out lots of old wiring, I standardized my layout wiring in this fashion. I use 14 or 12 gauge bus.  The 14 is plenty good, I just had some extra 12 gauge to use so I did.  From the bus, to terminal blocks, I use 16 gauge or 18 gauge depending on length.  Anything over 18" gets 16 gauge to the terminal blocks.  From the terminal blocks, if the feeders to the rail are 12", I use 22 gauge to the rail.  If over 12 inches, I use 18 gauge lap soldered to the 22 gauge feeder wire. I once tried using 18 gauge to the rail, but felt it was overkill and very difficult to use.

In addition to the RAIL A and RAIL B DCC bus, I have 4 additional buses.  A 12 VDC Regulated for my push button control Tortoises, a 16 VAC for my dual coil turnout motors (no sense in replacing what still works.  A 3 wire +6, 0, -6, VDC for the dual coil indicator BI-POLAR LEDs, and an 8 volt structure lighting bus.  That is a LOT of wiring, let me tell you.  When you have that much wiring, you have to standardize and label all buses.

Regards, Vic Bitleris

Vic - thanks for your input

I have to add a big "AMEN" to your "label all buses" - and all wiring for that matter.  I once rebuilt a 1932 Plymouth and rewired the entire car.  Every wire was labeled and boy was that helpful when I needed to troubleshoot something.

A "war story" about labeling wires

DCC wiring

Curious, seems like a lot of wiring for layout size. I understand the modules, and connectivity, but unless you are creating circuit breaker power sections, I see no reason for the sub bus. Really no real reason for more than one power block. None of the drops seem to be more than 6 to 18" from the main bus. 

DCC wiring

It has been at least twenty years since I did wiring.I have one of the first

Digitrax systems.I am so old and that was long long ago,so I have forgotten

how I did it.But one thing I remember,I have five "Short" modules connected to

five sections.Therefore,if one those sections has a short it is isolated from the

others.

I don't understand why Rick is going to all that trouble.

Alternative

What I did was not worry about the "main bus" and just run a sub bus from a main panel with the section circuit breakers out to the sections.

Hub and spoke vs. parallel.

It allow me to put all the circuit breakers and electronics for the DCC system in one place.

The sub buss was installed

The sub buss was installed for possible changes where it might be disconnected from the main bus and it would become the main buss.  The previous main bus would become an axillary buss for powering other items.  

Circuit Breakers

Rick,

I'm considering something similar for my Narrow Gage layout built in 30" x72" sections.  I wondered if you were using a circuit breaker at each of your sub bus connections and if not where or how did you locate them?

Doug

Doug

I haven’t been using circuit breakers as I have never had a short on my layout.

Power Dist panel

Here is my power distribution panel.

The power supply and command station on the self at the bottom.  It is wired so I can add a booster (why there are excess red and black wires).

Above that are DPDT switches to turn off each block for trouble shooting and maintenance.

Above them on the board are the circuit breakers for each block.  You can see the breakers for the 5 existing blocks are "live" and the breakers for the 3 future blocks are "off".  The leads coming out of the top of the breakers go to the busses for each section.

Very nice, Dave!  Thanks for

Very nice, Dave!  Thanks for sharing.

Circuit Breakers

@dave1905,

What kind of circuit breakers are those? Where did you obtain them?

Rich N J'ville

They look like DCC Specialties PSX series

The DCC Specialties PSX series - comes in singles, including an Auto-Reverser module, or up to three or four of them linked together.

https://www.walthers.com/dcc-specialties has the rundown, but I think they're actually a subsidiary of Tony's Train Exchange.

DCC Specialties PSX series

@JeffShultz,

Thanks for the product name and info link, Jeff.