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Reply to "Garrett's 2021 Christmas train layout"

At first glance, it was a mess under there.  Since it's been a few months and I need to clean up the room, my first inclination was to go for speed and just cut it all away and trash it.

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Then I mused how easy it would be to setup next year if I reused what was already in place.  So, under the table I went with a roll of blue painter tape and a sharpie.  I labeled every switch and wire.  Each button switch contain a module that pops in and out of place with a 1/4 turn.  I did not have to disconnect any wires from the button switches.  The only wire disconnects were from the operating accessory feeder wires in order to retract the feeder wires through the foam table surface.

In most cases, there were only two wires connecting to each button switch (see # 5).

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the wire lengths varied for each operating accessory depending on the position of the accessory on the table and the path the wires had to follow to complete the circuit

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The button switches do have the capability to illuminate via an internal LED bulb.  I started to wire some of them for illumination (see # 7) which is why there are additional wires.  My numbering system is 7P (for power) and 7L (for lights).

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After disconnecting all operating accessories and push button modules, the wiring is on the floor.  I will locate a decent size plastic bin (the type for storing items under a bed) and attempt to gently coil the length of wiring so as to make it easy to extract for next use.  I have learned to use newspaper and plastic bags to keep the wiring elements physically separated so that they do not tangle.  Fingers crossed for how it works out.  That is all I have to say about the wiring of this project.  Hope it gave you some ideas for your own layout.  It really was easy to do one step at a time.

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