Suggestions for actual physical DCS star wire routing and power source placement for an around the wall RR in a 40' X 35' room.
This is a display layout with six loops and 12 holding sidings.
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Tom,
To get this started:
Just encase you believe the wire running from your terminal block (to your track) has to be the same, it's a myth that was dispelled years ago but still persists and it would require way too much wire. I would recommend using the wire the OGR web store sells, either 14 or 16 gauge wire.
Added (to your track) with edit
Originally Posted by Tom Tee:
Suggestions for actual physical DCS star wire routing and power source placement for an around the wall RR in a 40' X 35' room.
This is a display layout with six loops and 12 holding sidings.
I think the first thing you may want to consider is the location of the tiu so the remote can communicate with the tiu and if 1 tiu can handle 6 loops and 12 holding sidings. I suppose with 1 tiu you'd want it near the center of the layout, Personally I think you may need a second tiu and run super mode. This will give you 8 signal generators working for you instead of 4. each tiu placed maybe about 10 feet from each end of the room. It's possible to place the terminal blocks just about anywhere handy. We have some runs close to 50 feet from the tiu to the terminal blocks where the paired feeders are distributed to the tracks.
I guess the big question is.... Loop wiring or divide the layout into sections .
Our large super mode layout is divided into sections, with single track a train goes over 4 tiu zones to complete one loop.(16 channels feed fused PW ZWs)
With one tiu and your set up divided into 4 sections, one channel would look after all 1/4 of all 6 loops . Yes to complete one loop you'd need 4 channels and the train would run over 4 differet power districts.
With 6 loops I think you're going to have to use 2 tiu. Anyway I hope this helps abit.
Don't forget to read barry's wiring tips,, terminal blocks , light bulbs etc excellent stuff.
Tom Tee,
Greg has spelled it out pretty much for you, however I have one other suggestion also, on my 4 level layout we used a engineeering technique, placing street lights and old time lighted lock ons at all our old 072 switches, we used Lionel FasTrack with them and the Engines never once lost signal at any time, using only one TIU. Your layout is probably different, however we found this engineering formate worked correctly for the 8 years we had the large layout on line.
PCRR/Dave
