Would someone explain, and possibly diagram "STAR WIRING" to me? What is its benefit? I was planning to daisy chain my wiring on the new layout. Would Star Wiring use less wire? Thanks for any input.
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Barry must be away from his computer, you can find it on page 56 of his book.
Star wiring is used to improve the dcs siginal. Power from transformer goes to tiu, then to a terminal block. A loop is divided in to segments and each segment is wired from the terminal block. It doesn't save wire. I just did my first one, so I am not an expert.
But I do have Barry's book and read the section!! LOL
What type of control will you be using. If it's DCS you will want to use the star wiring method. It is all explained in Barry's book better than I can do it here, but I'll give it a short try anyway.
Here's how I did mine for one channel of my TIU. I used OGR wire, very nice and reasonably priced, comes in #14 & #16. That channel has 1 isolated loop of track (from all other loops) with 4 isolated blocks. I ran 1 pair of #14 wire from fixed 1 out to an MTH terminal strip located near the center of the loop of track. From the terminal strip I ran 4 pairs of wires, one pair to the center of each block and connected them to the center and one outside rail.
The center rail is the only rail that is isolated. Outside rails are connected continuously through all loops and not isolated anywhere. The outside rail connections are made to the same outside rail throughout the loop. Many folks here recommend connecting both outside rails which I would agree with.
To add, if you want to connect Legacy, all you need to do is connect the Legacy output wire to the black terminal of each TIU channel that you are using and you are ready to go. This is also how my Legacy system is connected. Legacy was added after I had DCS up and running for some time.
One more thing. Before using the 'Star' wiring I described, I had a few temporary layouts with just one small loop of track, one connection from the TIU channel to the track and no blocks. I had the occasional 'engine not found' or 'engine not on track' errors among others with this setup. I have not had one error message since wiring my permanent layout using 'Star' wiring described above and 10's everywhere. Made a believer out of me!
It doesn't save wire.
That was my experience too. I used a whole lot more wire with star on my first layout. On my second layout I broke from the norm and used BUSS wiring. A very nice and informative friend here on the forum gave me some advice on how to do it so there are no problems with DCS.
I'm sure the OP is not interested in a debate on Star vs Buss... so I will just end this here as that is not my intent either. If you are interested in Buss further, my email is in my profile.
Ron
Thanks to all. Since I am strictly a conventional runner, I guess it's a moot point as to what it is, and how it works. Thanks to all who took the time. Bob (OP) S.
If you plan to stay conventional then it really does not matter whether you use star or bus wiring. Bus wiring would most likely require less wire.
Bob,
I run TMCC and I use star wiring and even have a formerly "magic"�� light bulb (power indicator) in front of each power district. As other posters have pointed out, star wiring helps with problem solving. As your wiring complexity grows and time goes by, you may find it more helpful in tracking down issues.
George
I run TMCC and I use star wiring and even have a formerly "magic"�� light bulb (power indicator) in front of each power district. As other posters have pointed out, star wiring helps with problem solving. As your wiring complexity grows and time goes by, you may find it more helpful in tracking down issues.
George
