Two loops of FasTrack connected by a single crossover. Two FasTrack power leads, one to each loop. Power supplied by a single 180 W Lionel Powerhouse. Grandsons managed to completely melt the insulation from the inside power leads before the circuit breaker tripped. Breaker seems to work fine when there is a short. How does something like this happen?
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What guage wire for the power leads?
Lionel recommends 14ga wire when connecting a 180w brick to the track.
I had that happen to me. By any chance does this thread help, although it's not exactly the same issue I think?
There were no uncoupler sections on the layout, but it did have 6 switches. The wires that Lionel uses on its FasTrack power sections look like 20 Ga or smaller. Granted they are only about a foot long, but I can't understand why they use such small wires. The layout in question was a temporary 6 x 13 floor layout set up while I visited them so everything was stock Lionel.
Something else is going on there. Two feet of #22 wire will carry 10 amps all day and barely get warm! The voltage drop would be .33 volts, and the power dissipation would be 3.3 watts. That's most certainly not enough to melt any insulation when spread over two feet of wire!
One issue is that if the connections to the track are not as absolutely tight as they can be, excessive heat will be generated by electrical arching between the wires and the track connector.
I vote for Ron's answer, it's not the gauge of the wire that's the issue, it's obviously high resistance connections that do the damage.
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