Question about wires

Never heard of 'track wire.'  Isn't it convenient that he sells it also!  If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

If speaker wire works without problems, don't worry about it.

You use 12 or 14 gauge wire to minimize voltage drop. Voltage drop cause trains to slow down as they get farther from the transformer. Voltage drop usually occurs with lots of lighted passenger cars or multiple engines. also on big layouts. If the trains don't slow down, you are good to go.

I use speaker wire: 12 gauge for the buss and 18 gauge for drops to the track. It looks like copper but is actually copper coated aluminum as most speaker wire is. It works fine. BTW, I use standard wire nuts for most connections.

The size of your wire seems a little small, but if it works for your layout, then all is good.  If you expand, you might want additional drops or larger wire to get the required juice to its destination.

Have Fun!

Ron

I  do have a drop about every 10 feet, and all switches have direct power as well power. Thank you all for your input!

geysergazer posted:

I use speaker wire: 12 gauge for the buss and 18 gauge for drops to the track. It looks like copper but is actually copper coated aluminum as most speaker wire is. It works fine. BTW, I use standard wire nuts for most connections.

The copper clad aluminum wire (CCA) is a bit more than a gauge higher in number than the pure copper (CU). That is, 18 gauge CCA is like using 20 gauge CU. So if you want the current carrying specifications as to voltage drop that 18 ga CU provides, you should go to 16 ga when using CCA.

By the way, All Electronics has all copper speaker wire.

I think the train store guy was thinking that all speaker wire is copper clad aluminum (it's not) and his "track" wire is probably all copper. My guess...