As I'm new to the DCC world, and will be installing a decoder in my 1st locomotive soon, I wanted to start off right by using good practice wiring schemes from the beginning. My research has lead me to the following information for wire color, there are ten colors used in DCC, and they are as follows with their general use:
- red -power in
- black -power out
- orange -motor +
- gray -motor -
- blue -acc common
- white -front light/function
- yellow -rear light/function
- green -other light/function
- purple -other light/function
- brown -speaker(s)
Is this correct? And now for what colors to use for things like smoke units, electrocouplers, cab lights, marker lights, ditch lights, and so on. My thoughts were maybe to do the following:
- white -front marker lights & headlights & cab light
- yellow -rear marker lights & backup light
- green -couplers
- purple -smoke unit
Or:
- white -headlights & front coupler
- yellow -backup light & rear coupler
- green -cab light & marker lights
- purple -smoke unit
Or get fancy and find some striped wire for things like couplers (green wire with a white stripe for front and yellow strip for rear) and marker lights (white wire with a green stripe for front and yellow wire with a green stripe for rear). What do other do?
Note, this doesn't mean wiring them to the same output on the decoder, just using the same wire color. My brother asked that when I showed this to him, "Wouldn't that mean your coupler would fire when you turn the headlight on?"
