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I am going to hide my wires for my switches along the track using some sort of material as piping.  Just wanted to get your guys' input as to what you used for let say gas/oil pipeline.  Keep in mind this has to be a good size in diameter to hold 6 18 gauge 4 strand wire and 12 gauge power.  This is for my shelf system.

 

Thanks

  James

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James,

I would use styrene tubing because it has a thin wall and you may be able to keep the diameter smaller than if you use ABS pipe. You can get it from Evergreen or Plastruct.

If this pipe will be exposed and you want to simulate a petroleum or water pipeline, diameters in real life would be from approx. 12-inch to 36-inch. This would be 1/4 to 3/4-inches in diameter.

Alan Graziano

Another trick is to use short pigtails from the switches made of magnet wire (wire covered with very thin enamel, used to wind coils). It is much more compact than normal plastic-coated wire.  If you only use it for a short distance, the voltage drop will not be significant and you can get away with pretty small gauge wire (after all, the wires in the switch coils are the same stuff).   In fact, it is so thin that I often just run it on the surface and hide it with a sprinkle of grass or whatever. 

 

Last I checked, you could get magnet wire at Radio Shack.

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