Does stranded wire affect a TMCC signal

No, the stranded wire does not affect the signal.

I would not think that it does, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out why I had that problem. All splices were soldered. Hopefully it won't happen again. The TMCC has been up and running in the layout for 20 years and this is the first time I've ever had a problem with it.

Is your base plugged into a powerstrip?

Some folks have had issues with powerstrips effecting the signal. ( one side of the tmcc/Legacy signal is broadcast through the wiring of the room the layout is in via the ground lug on the base)

Secondly. How are you "powering up" the layout?

The base wire signal can be a bit slower reaching the track than the power, resulting in engines starting up conventionally.

Powering up the base first. Then the track will resolve this issue.

I'm not sure what was causing your issue, but my electrical engineering background says it is 99.999% sure it wasn't the stranded wire.

@RickO posted:

Is your base plugged into a powerstrip?

Some folks have had issues with powerstrips effecting the signal. ( one side of the tmcc/Legacy signal is broadcast through the wiring of the room the layout is in via the ground lug on the base)

Secondly. How are you "powering up" the layout?

The base wire signal can be a bit slower reaching the track than the power, resulting in engines starting up conventionally.

Powering up the base first. Then the track will resolve this issue.

Rick,

Thanks for the input.  The base is plugged into a powerstrip, but that was also the case in it's original position, though it is now plugged into a new powerstrip.  That could be it. But I don't think it is the other reason you mentioned since the first time it happened, the train was running, and then the headlight started to flicker and then the train stopped. Any other thoughts?

There was a recent issue on another’s base where the banana jack where you connect the track wire had an intermittent connection inside the base. That would be the most likely.

John,

Thanks for your input as well. I too would find it hard to believe that the stranded wire is the cause.

It's just weird since in 20 years, I have never had a problem with TMCC.

I’ve seen more than once where that but inside the base gets loose. That’s not a bad idea. First and foremost the gauge of wire doesn’t extremely matter with this as it’s just signal no significant current going through that wire. Typically the Legacy base dose put out a stronger signal than the old TMCC base. So I find it hard to blame the base. With that in mind with a”stronger” signal that now could actually get effected differently by a power strip/ surge protector. I’d try plugging it directly into a outlet. While it’s not unheard of it’s EXTREMELY uncommon to get a weak Legacy base but here’s a way to test signal strength from the base and eliminate that possibility.

Since the signal is also exposed to all kinds of variables has anything else changed with your house wiring or anything along those lines? Is there new obstructions on or around the layout?

RF Radio Frequency signal travels on the surface of a wire. The diameter and surface area of a stranded wire is slightly larger than the same solid conductor.  ?? Stranded may be better than Solid for RF signal. ??   Each track joint can be an issue, even though it works fine at 18 volts, the resistance of a loose connection can inhibit RF.  Spent a lot of time with the Fort Pitt modules improving track joint connections. I soldered a small #14 gauge jumper across each track joint.    Dampness, application of a lot of ground cover, with water, and white glue can also degrade signal.  Usually about two weeks to dry properly.  IMO  Mike CT.

I had a legacy base which was not allowing my engines  to operate properly in some areas of my layout.  I tried ground wires which helped a little.  I got the booster  GRJ developed when it came out and the booster was not registering the proper signal from the base.   Had the base repaired by Lionel and it now works great.   So my advice is to check the output from the base using the procedure described by Zhubi above.

This is not germane to your actual question, but, you say you prefer solid over stranded.  Having wired my whole basement where code says use solid wire, you should run stranded where ever you can on your layout.  Believe me running solid and having to cut, join using wire nuts and making room in a box is infinitely harder than same gauge stranded.  Having said that, I do use 18/2 thermostat wire to all my switches, but 18 AWG solid is infinitely easier to work with than 14 and 12 AWG solid.  As I do use 14 AWG stranded for my power and neutral Buses.

Just my two cents.

For wiring the layout, I see no advantage to solid wire, I much prefer stranded for the reasons Jim mentions.  I am using CAT5 cable to run from each DZ-2500 switch machine to my panel location, that's my only concession to solid wire, but CAB5 cable is easy to deal with.  All my power drops and bus wiring are done with stranded #14 and #18.

"All the splices were soldered"

Sounds like you have a cold solder joint. In fact, you shouldn't be soldering anywhere on your layout except for the connections to the track. Get a quality crimp tool and an assortment of crimp connectors (and if you want to be up with the times and have extra cash, Anderson Powerpoles). Your #14 stranded wire for track power is perfect!!

if you soldered copper clad aluminum wire, the joints probably corroded and that could be the issue?

To GRJ post below:

I was inside my amp rack just connecting wires when one came loose?

I looked at all my work and it looked like it had aged severely, like water damage? The joints had rotted and would snap right off.

That wire is OK for speakers and such, if not soldered. All my joints get solder so I can't have it.

@PRRMiddleDivision posted:

A few years ago, my son wanted a Legacy command base to upgrade our old TMCC command base. He added it to the system, but we found that the signal to the far end of the layout was a little weak. So after a few years, I finally moved it about 12 feet. Since the base was now about 15 feet away from where I wired it into the common for the track power, I wanted to use the heaviest wire I had to prevent any diminution of the signal. I had some 14 gauge, and while I normally prefer solid, all I had was stranded, and I went with that. It worked fine for about a week, then started to work intermittently. As soon as I powered up the track, some of the engines were starting up as if they were operating in conventional mode. I checked the base and even hooked up a new Legacy command base that I had recently purchased with a CAB-1L, but it too had the same issue.

I started to wonder if the use of stranded wire was the issue, though I had never heard that before. So I went out and bought some 14 gauge solid wire and replaced it. So far at least, that solved the problem, so assuming it continues to work, my question is more theoretical at this point, but does anyone know for sure if the use of stranded wire weakens the TMCC signal?

About 7 - 8 years ago I purchased three new Cab/Base 1-L sets. All three had a low signal output. I didn't have to argue very hard with Lionel, apparently it was a known problem, but it still took 5 returns to repair 3 bases....... Just sayin'

In my experience, on an typical casual layout, maybe 10 x 20 feet or so, the Legacy/TMCC command signal should be absolutely solid. If you sense any problem at all, you have a bad base. You might have a few trouble spots with yard ladders or overpasses but on the whole, it should just plain work with no hee-haw required. I can't begin to tell you how much time I wasted trying to get the system to work with defective bases. It didn't help that I was brand new to TMCC/Legacy at the time and had heard all the horror stories, so the base was about the last thing I suspected.

@Engineer-Joe posted:

if you soldered copper clad aluminum wire, the joints probably corroded and that could be the issue?

That stuff is truly JUNK!  I got bit by CCA once, never again.  Any wire I buy nowadays, I make SURE is pure copper!  The reel of CCA is in a landfill somewhere...

Thanks for all of the additional posts regarding my question. I had not refreshed the thread and did not notice them until this evening.

In response to some of the comments let me respond with the following. My layout is quite large and in its longest dimensions it is 47' X 37'. Hence, I wired it with very heavy duty wiring. It has 12 ga busses with and a 18 ga drop soldered to literally every piece of rail. Drops are connected to the buss with Scotchlok connectors. The entire right of way is elevated 8 1/2 inches above the top of the bench work on the entire layout so scenery can be built below track level anywhere on the layout. As such, I was able to wire the entire layout from the front while sitting on a stool rather than having to crawl under the layout. It was a piece of cake to wire it this way, and made pulling the solid 12 ga wire through the 1 1/2 inch holes in the risers very easy. Please see the picture below:

Since this shot was taken on the peninsula which has wiring on both sides, the wiring here is a lot lighter than on most of the rest of the layout. The bulk of the layout is finished and has fascia, so I could not photograph the sections with more wiring.

I probably should have explained that this wiring is NOT a work in progress. It was finished at least 15 years ago, and some has been in service for almost 20 years. It has worked almost flawlessly, with absolutely no voltage drop anywhere on the layout and but a single failure of a Scotchlok connector (I used about 500 of them)  which probably was not squeezed tightly enough.

All feeders are soldered to the rail. While I could have had a cold solder joint on the new wire in put to relocate the command base,  I'm quite experienced at soldering, so I doubt that was the problem. I prefer solid wire since I detest soldering stranded wire and having it flare at the end after I cut it. But I realize not everyone shares my preference.

Since I replaced the stranded wire with solid wire, the command control has worked perfectly, though so did the stranded wire for a week. Why it would fail after seven days is a mystery to me. Should the solid wire fail again, I will move the command base back to its original location but elevate it off the floor as it was originally before my son added a Legacy base to the original TMCC base I installed roughly 20 years ago. Until he made that change, I NEVER had a problem with it, and it still worked just fine with a CAB-1. The signal just became a bit weak with his CAB-2 at the far end of the layout and to a lesser extent with a CAB-1L, possibly because they do not have external antennas like a CAB-1.

So I hope that provides additional information/feedback. I'll just keep running trains and see if the replacement stranded wire does the trick, or if the problem recurs...hopefully not. Again, my thanks to all who responded, and I welcome any other input anyone may have.

Clarification: Are you attempting to run two Lionel bases at the same time?

@Bruce Brown posted:

Clarification: Are you attempting to run two Lionel bases at the same time?

Bruce,

I have my original command base hooked up as per Lionel's instructions to a Legacy command base.  It was like this in the old location about 12 feet away for at least four years and operated flawlessly like that.

Also got a question from Arthur Bloom asking if I stapled the stranded wire in blace or bundled it into a cable. No, I ran it through the  1 1/2" holes drilled in the wooden risers as pictured above. There may be a couple of cable ties where all the wires run into the back of my power distribution panel which is hinged for access, but the ties are not pulled extremely tight...certainly not enough to crush or deform the wire and in any case,  that too has now been replaced with solid wire.

My modular club sometimes builds a layout upwards of 45' x 60'. We have setup in various halls in Austin, San Antonio, Houston, and DFW.

We noticed at several shows that our original legacy base was slowly loosing range. We even tried attaching a fancy antennae to the legacy base. At one point we setup at the Amtrak Depot here in Austin and had 12' x 18' layout. We could not communicate with out trains from across the room.

We sent it back to Lionel after consulting on here and Lionel replaced it. It seems that it was a known issue as mentioned above. I would seriously consider sending your base back to Lionel before you do anything drastic to your layout.

I know of no reason why a stranded or solid wire would be affected by a bend due to a staple holding it, I think that's a "bridge too far" IMO.

And just a point of clarity on the skin-effect of RF signals on a stranded or solid wire.  In point of fact, regular stranded wire isn't going to behave any different than solid wire for RF signals, the strands are all interconnected!  If you actually want to have better conductivity with stranded wire for RF signals, you need to use special wire, commonly known as Litz Wire.  Each strand is individually insulated to maximize the surface area of the whole wire bundle, and the individual wires are then woven or braided to form a single RF conductor.

Standing waves are a real factor for DCS 3.27mhz signals, but not as much for TMCC/Legacy 455khz signals, this is all due to the wavelength of the frequencies involved.

TMCC/Legacy 455khz signals have a wavelength of 659 meters or 2162 feet.  Only a very large layout will possibly run into standing wave issues with these signals.

DCS 3.27mhz signals have a wavelength of 91.6 meters or around 300 feet.  Obviously, the potential for a smaller layout to experience some propagation issues with DCS is more likely, and indeed that frequently ends up being the case.

I used a lot of Litz wire to wind 455KHz IF transformers in an RDF lab back a few lifetimes ago. Incidentally, how do you strip the enamel off 40 strands of fine wire in a bundle. The answer was heat the bundle end over a Bunsen burner to red hot and then thrust them into a container of ethanol. All the ends come out shiny copper. And you have to put a cover over the ethanol every once in awhile to put out the flames.

@cjack posted:

I used a lot of Litz wire to wind 455KHz IF transformers in an RDF lab back a few lifetimes ago. Incidentally, how do you strip the enamel off 40 strands of fine wire in a bundle. The answer was heat the bundle end over a Bunsen burner to red hot and then thrust them into a container of ethanol. All the ends come out shiny copper. And you have to put a cover over the ethanol every once in awhile to put out the flames.

At the other extreme, large (50 MW or so and up) alternators generally use windings fabricated out of multiple, individually insulated bus bars "woven" into a Litz wire pattern. 50 or 60 Hz, but around 10 - 30 kV at a few thousand amps.

Yep, the key is insulating each strand, otherwise the RF just sees it as one big conductor.  I remember seeing a picture somewhere of the generator windings, probably when I did the Hoover Dam tour.