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I am about to start wiring up the layout.   The track power will be the typical red and black wiring, but should I use other colors for accessories, building lights, ect. 

I can see on a large layout that this would be needed,but my layout is pretty small, 3.5 x 6 with one loop of track and a few operating accessories and a few building lights.  

Should I bother with other color wires, or stick with the red/black for everything?

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I have two tables with three main loops on each table.  I ran white 16 gauge wire throughout, under the tables.  Each loop has four risers to the track lock-ons.  I used wire tie wraps (the ones you get with bread) of different colors to differentiate between the runs.  Then, I connected the wires to an MTH 4000 and a Lionel ZWL on each table.  Track loops one through three and an extra loop of wire for future on one side and one for the shelf layout on the other side.  Then I ran a red/wiite cable for accessories under each table.  

Last edited by Bob Severin

I most strongly recommend color coding your wiring.  Even if it is a small layout, you want to eliminate anything that will delay or prevent you from running changes.  Even by my standards, I'm a little extreme in this regard.  I have 8 power districts.  They all use Red/Black pairs for track power, but they are all tagged with colored cable ties (one for each district).  Track feeder wires from each Red/Black track power pair will get a label with the District Number & Terminal Strip Position (really a feeder number).  I have another page of the spreadsheet with each feeder's location and number noted.

Here's the wiring conventions in place on Panhandle 2.0.  There are also two 15VAC accessory buses - details TBD later which I have not shown.

Wiring Conventions

George

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  • Wiring Conventions
Last edited by G3750

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