Braided vs Solid Wire for layout's

[Brian1975]

Hi Everyone: I was just wondering what you guy's used on your layouts.... I am @ the point where I am ready to wire-up all my industry's all my sideing tracks are in... I decided to use Solid 12-Gauge wire over the Braded wire I feel it will be easer when soldering up my track lead's to the main track wire.. What do you guy's think....

[Desertdweller]

Use braided wire, not solid wire.  Braided wire is much more flexible and less prone to breakage.

Les

[CNE Runner]

I use Romex 12-gauge (house) wire for my busses on layouts I have built. The big home improvement box stores sell this wire in 25', 50', and larger quantities. After carefully stripping off the outer casing, one is left with 3 wires: a bare copper aux. ground (which I keep for other purposes), a black wire and a white wire (which are used for the layout buss wires). Spaced along the bottom of the layout, I glue small blocks of 1" x 2" wood that is predrilled with two holes to slip the wires through (you have to support the buss wires). Using 3M wire (suitcase) connectors I connect the track feed wires to the appropriate buss wire (it helps to have a diagram drawn on the bottom of the layout board). My track feeds are 22-gauge solid core wire because that is what I can purchase from Lowe's easily. Never had a problem with solid core wire.

Ray

[Doneldon]

Brian-

CNE's suggestion about Romex is a good one. Wire is much cheaper assembled into the cable than as separate wires off of a spool at the hardware store. Buy yourself the cheapest cable stripper you can find and you'll be able to strip 50 feet in just a couple of minutes.

I do prefer stranded wire but the price differential pushes me to the Romex trick for busses. Depending on how careful and neat you are, you can solder track feeders to the busses without even insulating them after the fact. I do paint mine with liquid electrical tape but that's just because I have a couple of little grandchildren who would get spooked if they touched the wires under the layout when I'm not watching. When carefully laid out there really isn't a safety issue. PREDICTION: I will be severely chastised for this statement.

                      -- D

[Brian1975]

I use Romex 12-gauge (house) wire for my buss es on layouts I have built. The big home improvement box stores sell this wire in 25', 50', and larger quantities. After carefully stripping off the outer casing, one is left with 3 wires: a bare copper aux. ground (which I keep for other purposes), a black wire and a white wire (which are used for the layout buss wires). Spaced along the bottom of the layout, I glue small blocks of 1" x 2" wood that is predrilled with two holes to slip the wires through (you have to support the buss wires). Using 3M wire (suitcase) connectors I connect the track feed wires to the appropriate buss wire (it helps to have a diagram drawn on the bottom of the layout board). My track feeds are 22-gauge solid core wire because that is what I can purchase from Lowe's easily. Never had a problem with solid core wire.

Ray

Wow: Funny you guys should metion Romex "House Wire" I had my hole layout wired with Romex-12 Gauge I got 60FT of the Stuff from Lowe's... My Friend that has a Huge Layout in his basement "goes all the way around his wall's" he's wiring all my buss's in & soldering my track leads for me" I will do it next time myself but this time I am an observer... He came Sunday to Wire everything & said to me it's NOT the Right Wire... I needed to get 12-G Braided.. He said something about the romex solid wire is prone to breakage & something about it's more of a hassle to solder track leads to wire... I really didn't argue with him I though OK I'll get the right stuff after all his layout is all of his basement wall's & he said that's the wire he used on his layout....

[jward]

i prefer to use 18 guage solid especially for feeders. 18 fits nicely against the side of code 83 rail, larger sizes such as 12 are too big to use as feeders.  18 is available in 2 conductor cables as doorbell wire.

for me the advantage of solid over stranded is that with solid, there are no stray wires to possibly short something out, or otherwise interfere with the smooth operation of my layout.

[Desertdweller]

I think this is one of the things that have no "right way" to do them.

Some of my light feeder wires are solid core.  I used what I had on hand.

Solid wires can be easier to solder to rail.  They can be bent to push against the rail while being solid.

All major buss wiring is braided.  The wires are not soldered together: they run to barrier strips, then to other barrier strips in the area of the tracks they serve.  Feeders run from this second set of barrier strips to the tracks.  Write on the underside of the layout what wires go where.

Common rail return wiring uses a buss that circles underneath the mains, with feeder attached by suitcase connectors.

This give me circuits that are easy to trace and troubleshoot.

Les

[richg]

Our club has two rooms and we use #14 braided and #24 solid for feeders. We have the NCE 5 amp Power Pro.
The original layout was wired with #24 for DC blocks as the club president worked for the telephone company. When we changed to DCC, we used the original feeders with about a six to seven inch length.
The solid wire is easier to solder to the track but has to be stripped carefully with the correct size wire stripper so there is no nick. With solid wire, if you nick it and do a sharp bend, the nick point sometimes will fracture.

Rich

[Jerrys HO]

Like Ray I use what's available from my friend the electrician. #12 Romex is readily available from him. It takes a little more heat to solder to them as I prefer to solder.

For my feeders and turnout wiring I use cat 5 cable solid that I picked up from a building being refurbished and wound up with about 300 ft. More than I will ever use but keep it around for expansion or helping out others. Solders easily to rail joiners or track.
I have picked up a little trick on mt own when soldering to EZ track that I find is easy. First I slide one rail out far enough to clip a heat sink to solder my connection then slide it carefully back in and I do mean carefully. Believe it or not I have not broke a plastic spike yet.

Jerry 

[Brian1975]

Our club has two rooms and we use #14 braided and #24 solid for feeders. We have the NCE 5 amp Power Pro.
The original layout was wired with #24 for DC blocks as the club president worked for the telephone company. When we changed to DCC, we used the original feeders with about a six to seven inch length.
The solid wire is easier to solder to the track but has to be stripped carefully with the correct size wire stripper so there is no nick. With solid wire, if you nick it and do a sharp bend, the nick point sometimes will fracture.

Rich

Lowe's had 16-G wire in stock too but I figured my friend who's doing the wiring for me said to get 12-gauge braided so that's what I got LOL...  He is coming to wire up my layout Tuesday I intend to ask him the pro's & con's or the reason he used this type of wire on his layout... I will be happy when it's all wired-up LOL & at least when I expand my layout in the future I'll know how to do it...... I am glad to see from everyone.. To use ROMEX House Wire was not a shot in the dark & other's have used it.....

[nfmisso]

The advantage of stranded wire is that it is more flexible, and a break in any one conductor is not a big deal.

Stranded wire is absolutely required for anything that needs to flex, for example wiring going through a hinge area into a door.

Romex (solid wire) is used in houses because it is cheap, and works well in stationary applications.

[jbrock27]

Jeff, I recall you mentioning the doorbell wire in a post, many moons ago.

Question for everyone: if Romex is good to use, why not 14 gauge (14/3) over 12 gauge?

[Desertdweller]

I did have some trouble with braided wire touching other wires at terminal screws.  The problem was solved by fitting all wires at screw terminals with forked spade connectors from Radio Shack.  When using these on Atlas electrical components, they need to be narrowed so they will fit.  I did this with a sanding drum in a Dremel Tool.

It only took me two months and $60 worth of spade terminals.

Am I the guy who said to keep things simple?

Les

[jbrock27]

LOL!

[electrical whiz kid]

The big difference between the two is fairly obvious in that with stranded (not "flexible" FYI) sytem, any movement, pulling, jarring, etc, will not neccessarily affect the perfornance.  I use #12 THHN/THWN, MTW stranded for any bussing sytstem I have, and tap off ofr that with #18THHN stranded for track/buss connections.  There are current-carrying differencees between solid and stranded, but for this discussion, it would be moot point.
Rich C.