So I had a problem with sloppy wiring and two shorts in my "scenic network". The layout scenic network delivers power to the scenic lighting like street lamps, buildings, bridges and Lionel operating accessories. I decided I had to rip it out and do it over. There was just too many opportunities for problems thanks to my sloppy work.
For scenery lighting, it seems to me that we have 3 choices: We can power each scene with it's own wall wart and run AC house power to the wall warts. We can run everything back to one central power supply with the long wire runs that implies. Or we can implement a wired network with multiple power sources serving branches where each branch supports one or more scenes. This last one is the approach I took.
On my layout, scenic power is supplied by 3 dedicated Lionel 180 watt AC bricks (transformers with on/off switches, power-on lamps and circuit breakers). These 3 feed 3 fuse blocks with one or two sub-panels wired into the fusing. I used 12VDC blade fuse blocks that are commonly sold for marine, RV and automotive wiring. You can get blade fuses in almost any size down to 1/2 amp. The fuse blocks have an LED associated with each fuse that lights if that fuse blows, making trouble-shooting easier. The pic below shows one of these fuse blocks installed in a very crowded box on my layout.
The blue connection block next to the fuse block connects to one fuse and gives me 12 connection points for lights and anything that wants 18VAC. The wires used on some of these lights are so fine that I put a tiny ferrule on the wire end before inserting each wire into the block. You could just tin the ends of the wires instead, but I find the ferrules easier to use.
The green board on the far right is a Wehonest-brand (eBay) power distributor for LEDs, It takes my 18VAC and outputs DC voltage for LED street lights and bridge lights and so forth. This saves me from having to also supply DC voltage to my scenic network for the LED stuff.
It's not related to scenic lighting, but just to be clear, the 3 old-fashioned terminal strips that you see in the box each serve as connection points for the center rail connections for one track block. My layout track is divided into 7 blocks and this box supports connections to blocks 1, 3 and 6 (because track for each of those blocks runs near this box).
It ain't art, but this configuration works for my needs. The boxes and panels are covered by the layout skirting so no one ever sees them except me. That's a good thing!
All the best!
Don Merz
