Hi All

I am now in the planning stage for my layout, I have decided to use the open frame option and support the main track beds with risers.
to allow me make the many changes in height for my alpine pass railway. (Lotchberg ish).

I will need to run a ring main under the track, Can I use standard 3 core house wire which and the make breaks to link up to the track above.



My Concern is the 3 core wire will corrupt the digital signal, with each separate wire being very close.

Does anybody have any answer to this question. If there is a problem I will use 3 seperate wires to make the ring main.

Thx

Tim

Why not slit the covering and save one of the wires for some other use? I did the same with five wire telephone wire and only used the wires to power decouplers. The only problem you might encounter in not splitting the wires would arise with interference noise if for some reason you ran power on two of the three wires. Electronic noise can bleed outside the wires. That is why you can actually sense power in wires without actually coming into contact with the core.

ok i will use 2 core wire, one for red and one for the brown
Tim

Hello Tim,

"Power" feeds include your 120/240V equipment feeds. However, there are also other "power" feeds that you'll have running under the layout. These are all the various voltages you'll need for lights, accessories (turnouts, semaphores, signals, motors, etc.). These "power" feeds should also be run in separate "bundles" from your "digital" feeds.

For ease of tracking and trouble shooting, I use "tie wraps" to bunch wires together and then run them in separate "bundles" under the layout. Attached is a printout of the various wires (colours) that I have running under my layout. Running specific colours makes it more expensive, but I found that it's worth the cost to save my sanity (and my hair) when troubleshooting.

I've also attached some pictures of how I bundle and run my wiring under the layout. It's easier to do it as you build your layout and make sure to label everything -- you won't regret it.

Cheers and good luck,
Andry