Bus Wires (Best Wire to Use?)

[SDJR7F88]

Hi all.
I've been experiencing a drop it power the further trains get away from the controller, when they meet the isolating section which completes the loop they jump back up to speed.
(as seen in the update video below)

I have ran the line with the drop recently with my Analog Sound Fitted Piko 37121 DR V20 Diesel from the Freight Starter Set. I'm not quite sure, but think the drop my have broke the sound on it, as after the Horn or Bell goes, Triggered by track magnets, the sound shuts off, only to come back on a few minutes later, which is a pain.

The fix certainly is a bus wire of some sort, which will aid the power getting to the end of the track were it meets the isolating section.
My question is, what is the best wire for me to use for this connection. I've been looking at the Piko Wiring, similar to the stuff used for the track connectors, but a roll is in the £40 mark and seems to be out of stock everywhere. Is there a cheaper, more easy to obtain roll of wire (i.e from B&Q)?

So the sooner I get the drop sorted the quicker I can get back to running trains

 

[G-force1]

The general rule with bus cables is the bigger the conductor section, the better. The rail section is pretty big so it should be fine for a goodly distance, and especially as it will feed both ways round the track, are you sure you haven't just got a load of grotty fish-plates?

 

[dutchelm]

The first choice is anything that is going free, If you need to buy it I would suggest 1mm control panel wire such as

https://www.rapidonline.com/unistrand-control-switchgear-wire-tri-rated-black-1mm-100m-01-1840

Any colour you like exept brown. The birds think it's a worm & try pulling it out.

 

[Rhinochugger]

Check your fishplate connections first - these are the week link as G-force says.

I am the president, chairman, treasurer, secretary and sole member of the cooker cable club - I once enquired of an electrical engineer about the necessary size of cable to prevent voltage drop around half the distance of my line, and he worked out that 6.5 mm2 would take 18v without voltage drop for the distance. So I have a length of cooker cable that goes across the garden and basically bisects the circuit of track. In this way, the power only has to travel a quarter of the length of the circuit, and I don't have any issues with voltage drop.

 

[ntpntpntp]

I don't see how a voltage drop would "break" a sound system. Too low a voltage and it will just stop working until decent power is restored.

As others have said, if you really feel you need to run a bus then use the thickest cable you can get hold of / afford. But seriously, you should check your fishplates for a good tight fit and good conductivity. The rail section we use in G is thicker than most cables! You may find it's just one or two joints that need adjusting or bonding across.

 

[Greg Elmassian]

I used wire that is used to wire houses here in the US. I had conduit installed at the time of the landscaping, so I can use inexpensive "indoor" cable rather than more expensive outdoor cable.

But, warning bells go off in my head when you ask is there a cheaper alternative for what seems to be a single wire. It's a one time cost, that affects the basic operation of the layout. Go cheap and that is what you will get.

I use 10 gauge wire here, I believe that is close to 3mm...

Greg

 

[Neil Robinson]

As others have said, if you really feel you need to run a bus then use the thickest cable you can get hold of / afford. But seriously, you should check your fishplates for a good tight fit and good conductivity. The rail section we use in G is thicker than most cables! You may find it's just one or two joints that need adjusting or bonding across.

All good advice.
If you go for a bus and have to purchase the cable, single core earthing or conduit cable may be better value.

 

[SDJR7F88]

The general rule with bus cables is the bigger the conductor section, the better. The rail section is pretty big so it should be fine for a goodly distance, and especially as it will feed both ways round the track, are you sure you haven't just got a load of grotty fish-plates?

It's an isolated loop (cut of by my isolated passing loop), so no way for the power to go around both ways. Will check each plate working my way to the point of issue

 

[SDJR7F88]

Thanks for all the info Guys. Will check all the fish-plates first. If not I'll look out for some of that wire. Though not in brown as you say. Got plenty of birds in the garden

 

[stockers]

I use 2.5mm mains cable. You can get 50 m rolls in q&B but its cheaper from an electrical factor.
I suggest a jumper right across the isolated section (basically, join the two ends together either end of the section).

 

[KentKeith]

.... and looking into the long term consider replacing all the fishplates with the Massoth brass Rail Clamps as I did recently as well as laying in more power feeds using the 2.5mm cable as mentioned by Alan.

 

[Madman]

When I ran track power I found the absolute best way to ensure no power loss was to solder jumpers across every rail joint. It's a pain in the a** on an existing railway. Don't ask me how I know..........

That said, I found the best way to solder the jumpers was to drill a hole near the end of each rail. Then insert the jumper wire and solder with a good soldering gun.

 

[maxi-model]

Thanks for all the info Guys. Will check all the fish-plates first. If not I'll look out for some of that wire. Though not in brown as you say. Got plenty of birds in the garden

When you check the rail joiners make sure both the rail and the joiner are clean and bright then apply a little LGB/Massoth graphite paste or similar between then rejoin. Would certainly agree with replacing fish plate joiners with Massoth or similar type rail clamps. Again make sure everything is clean and bright before pasting and clamping. My line, ground based mainly running in shade, has operated without jumpers with no noticable drops for 12 years like this.

Dunno about the brown wire thing. I have brown (worm diameter) piping for my air powered points and signaling (SVRR) and the birds seem to be able to tell the difference . Max

 

[dunnyrail]

I have for some years now on my own and friends layouts that I have built been using the system of a feed at each end of all sections, this can help immensly and the advise of using Mains wire of sound. Though ensure that you understand what is where and I like to join a bit of Black for the last few inches to the Red for the other Rail as visible Red Wire for Track feeds looks horrible. That suggests looking for old Mains Black and Red wire, not so easily found these days. In fact I gather that there is now a premium for Black and Red on ebay, I wonder why! Lighting grade will be more than adequate. Looking to the future Track Clamps as has been suggested are the way to go.

You can always find where the problem is by using a Test Lead with Crock Clips and jumping each joint to see isolate the problem and just do a Track Clamp on the dodgy ones to start with.
JonD

 

[Frank Gallagher]

. It's a pain in the a** on an existing railway. Don't ask me how I know..........

T.

I would imagine its not too good on the knees either

 

[Greg Elmassian]

If you feed a section of track from 2 ends, it is more difficult to find bad connections, and over the years I have recommended isolating the sections that have feeders from each other. Yes, I understand that theoretically more connections between sections gives you more "voltage".

BUT

I have helped hundreds of people and the biggest problems is not absolute current capacity as much as bad connections that cannot be found.

Let me give the explanation that seems to illustrate best:

suppose your layout is in a circle like a clock. Your feed points are 3 and 9 o'clock. Let's also assume for simplicity that the "bad joiners" are one just one rail.

Now a joiner goes bad at 12 o'clock. But everything seems to run fine. Why? because 12 o'clock, while a broken connection, is fed from both 3 and 9 o'clock. So the power feeds around 12 o'clock are the same distance away. So you don't even know you have a failed joiner...

Here's where the magic happens. Now another joiner fails... lets say at 1 o'clock. Now the train stops between 12 and 1. Suppose you find the bad joiner at 1 o'clock. Hey! trains run again... but... hmm.. they are kind of slow in some places, and faster in others. This is because you still have a failed joiner.

What is worse, you now will have a heck of a time finding that single bad joiner, because power is coming from "two directions"... yes a little more voltage drop in some places, but if perfectly positioned like the example, it's heck to find.

So what has worked for me is feed from the middle of a section of track, insulated from the other sections. My sections are between 30 and 60 foot long. Let me tell you that debugging and finding problems are much easier.

I also have a "load box" I clip to the far end of the section, puts an 8 amp load on the rails. Under DCC, often bad connections "sing", and it's simple to put a voltmeter on a low scale and measure the voltage drop on either side of the rail joint. More than a few hundredths of a volt and you have a bad joiner.

Greg

 

[John Steer]

Hi Guys. Providing you get the polarity correct you can take the shortest route between sections with your feeder cable, that is, cut across the garden instead of following the track, I tend to use 2.5 twin power cable but have also used 8core alarm cable with the 4 solid colours twisted together & similar with the striped colours, very good for long runs and recovered from a paintball site, as Dutch Elm will confirm it's always more satisfying to make use of "Freebies".

 

[dunnyrail]

Sorry but I think that Greg and myself will need to agree to disagree. Must be remembered that Callum's line is quite modest in size, I know cos I have seen it.

What has probably happened is that the Fishplates will have expanded likely during join up pull apart and rejoin during construction of his line. Not sure if he used LGB Paste on the joins which certainly helps. But also tightning the Fishplates with pliers on final join helps. But you will get loss of power eventually, sometimes it takes years others as in Callum's case not so long.

Perhaps bonding might be his cheepest option as he has got his wiring succesfully in place and working. Use of Copper Wire from multi strand heavy mains cable stripping the individual roughly 1/2 mm wires will be more than adequate. Or the Earth Wire from Lighting Ring Main Cable Will of course need a large iron to solder to his LGB Rail but less of an expence to a younger modeller.
JonD

 

[tgood]

All this noise about wire, voltage drop, amps, and bleeding of power has convinced me that going to battery power from the get-go was the thing to do.
tgood

 

[Greg Elmassian]

hmmm.... all the problems with charging, space for batteries, limited run time, convinced me to go track power, mine's been down about 15 years and no issues, maybe one joiner needs cleaning in 850 foot of track.

touche

(as I posted recently one is not always better than the other, it depends. For some people battery is indeed best, for others track power... but coming into a track power thread just to say battery is better is helpful?)

Greg