Bill,
A lot of the answers depend on the physical size of your layout. For my layout my mainlines are about 100 feet long. For that NCE recommends I can (and did) use 14 gauge wire for the power buss. Larger layouts with longer runs than 100 feet could use #12 wire. I found that trying to use larger wire than necessary can be problematic. I did not need 14 or 16 gauge wire to run 3 volts and milliamps less than 30". It popped solder joints and created havoc on the DPDT toggles. I later spliced in 12" long leads of a much more flexible 18 gauge wire in its place with better success. For S Scale 5 amp power regions are usually more than sufficient. I have seen a photo of a melted HO truck when it was used on a 10 amp system - again overkill can be bad. If you are really considering using welding wire I can assure you after trying it for 5 minutes it will drive you crazy and you will stop. I have 3 power regions for now based on purpose - 2 mainlines & the code 100 track. I am linear in that respect. Some are "regional" in which all the track from 1 point to another is on 1 power region. While you should use DCC circuit breakers throughout, regional really needs them and broken down into smaller blocks because a short will dump all of the track in front of you. With my "purpose" power region logic, trains will remain running on adjacent tracks until you fix the short - possibly a benefit if you have an open house to keep trains running. I have a rather high end filtered and regulated DC power supply I was using in my S Mod control panel. In the end when it came to powering my DCC system I went with all NCE products. They positive point here are if there is an issue I would feel more confident bringing it to NCE for help knowing I was using all their products - not someone else's power supply that went amok. Further with the individual power supplies per region I can shut down just that region if I want to. Because I had to set up a variable voltage power supply with a center tap I have separate supplies for the turnouts and DCC. If you have a preferred DCC system brand there is likely a Yahoo group for them. Here is the group for NCE http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NCE-DCC That should hopefully get you started. Thank You, Bill Lane Modeling the Mighty Pennsy & PRSL in 1957 in S Scale since 1988 See my finished models at: <http://www.lanestrains.com/> http://www.lanestrains.com Look at what has been made in PRR in S Scale! Custom Train Parts Design <http://www.lanestrains.com/SolidWorks_Modeling.htm> http://www.lanestrains.com/SolidWorks_Modeling.htm PRR Builders Photos Bought, Sold & Traded (Trading is MUCH preferred) <http://www.lanestrains.com/PRRphotos.xls> http://www.lanestrains.com/PRRphotos.xls ***Join the PRR T&HS*** The other members are not ALL like me! <http://www.prrths.com/> http://www.prrths.com <http://www.lanestrains.com/PRRTHS_Application.pdf> http://www.lanestrains.com/PRRTHS_Application.pdf Join the Pennsylvania Reading Seashore Lines Historical Society It's FREE to join! <http://www.prslhs.com/> http://www.prslhs.com Preserving The Memory Of The PRSL [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
