Red wire wsapping

[vidguy069]

Hello everyone;
It's been a while.
I recently acquired the Bahamian HO Motorized turntable. Somewhere in my misplaced instructions it stated that if i need a longer cord, I could replace the one of the red wires that came with the turnable with  a 10 ft. red wire.  My question is this, would anything be damaged if I swapped out the red wire from my reverse loop module and added it to the turntable.  Then of course use the red wire that came with the turntable and use it with the reverse module.

The turntable is a bit larger than I imagined.  But hey, that just makes it more fun.   


Thanks to all.
Vidguy069

[Jim Banner]

Wire is wire.  The electrons flowing down a piece of wire don't care what colour it is or even what size it is, as long as it is big enough to carry all the electrons that need to go through it.  We humans like colour codes to help us keep track of what the wire is being used for.  And often what it is being used for also determines what kind of plug was installed on the wire.  In places where we don't have to worry whether or the not the plugs fit, we can use whatever wire we want.  Wire is wire.

Bottom line, if the reverse loop wire and the turntable wire are the same diameter, then by all means interchange them if that is more convenient to you.

Jim

[Doneldon]

vid guy-

Sure. You can switch the wires but I'm pretty sure you will need to add a single wire for your turntable because the reverse loop module's wire has only two conductors while the turntable needs three. It's not necessary that you use Bachmann extension wires. They are terribly expensive and the conductors are a bit undersize for anything beyond a short run. I suggest buying some wire from a hardware or home store. You can even use a single color wire if you paint or label the ends. However, it is hard to tell which wire is which unless you trace them foot by foot. The colors are unimportant. What you must do is make sure that you have enough conductors for each of your purposes.
                                     -- D

[richg]

I use #22 wire. No problem.

Rich

[James in FL]

Hi vidguy069,

As layouts grow and get more complex, color coding wires just makes good sense.
It's almost a natural evolution of layout building.
More wire going to more places and different things, its best if not all of it is red insulated.
It is not necessary to use different color (insulator) wire, it is necessary to use proper wire gauge.

Generally, you pay for wire gauge, not what color insulator is surrounding it.
The benefits in troubleshooting by far outweigh
any negligible cost difference.

You make it sound to me as you are at the place to seriously consider color coding.
It's much easier to introduce a new pike to color coding than it is to change out existing wire on an established pike.

Color code...you will be glad you did.

Good Luck

[NarrowMinded]

Another thing to make life easy is to label wires at each end, it's nice to have a bunch of differant color wire (also Pricey) its really nice to read a simple label at the end especially when the box of junk you slide under the layout snags a few wires off of a couple differant spots.

NM-Jeff