What wire for power circuits in locos

peterbunce

peterbunce

1880's Colorado Narrow gauge on 45mm track
Hi,

I am building a new loco: the controller I use is a maximum of 5 amps at 12 volts - what wire do I use for its power circuits inside and where do I buy it from please?

It will be plain old anaologue, nothing fancy.

I have looked at bell wire which is not really flexible enough, and another source could be Squires Tools (elctronics catalogue link http://www.squirestools.com/e02.pdf ) who do some 1500v DC 6 amps wire at £2.99 per 10 meteres. Though NO I wont be using that much as I will need a couple of colours!
 
I have some silicone covered cable that will take 10Amps easy.
Its 600Volts, quite flexible and about 2.5mm diameter......have red and black.

Any good....let me know and I can post you some.
 
As a minimum, I'd say look for something like 24/02 equipment wire that will handle 6 amps and comes in various colours, for example;

http://www.maplin.co.uk/equipment-wire-24-0.2-6198

Unless you can find a handy supplier of shortler cut lengths, it tends to come in 10m lengths or 100 metre reels. I find I get through 10m quite rapidly when using it for layout wiring etc.
 
Unless you are using some unusual motor with an extremely high amp draw, the you really don't need anything very heavy duty at all - if you look at the gauge of wire used inside LGB locos, or in decoder wiring looms, it's pretty fine! It's the current draw of the motor that matters, not the maximum that your power unit will output - amperage-wise, the motor will only take what it needs. Anything sold by a model railway shop for general (indoor scales) layout wiring should be more than adequate.

Jon.
 
Zerogee said:
Unless you are using some unusual motor with an extremely high amp draw, the you really don't need anything very heavy duty at all - if you look at the gauge of wire used inside LGB locos, or in decoder wiring looms, it's pretty fine! It's the current draw of the motor that matters, not the maximum that your power unit will output - amperage-wise, the motor will only take what it needs. Anything sold by a model railway shop for general (indoor scales) layout wiring should be more than adequate.

Jon.
Click to expand...

Jon is correct.

I think the 24/02 stuff sold by Maplin is too thick to work with easily. I've usually used the 16/02 stuff, electrically even that is probably over the top.
 
Actually, yeah you're quite right. My bad. I used 16/02 for the last couple of loco wiring jobs, same stuff as I use for my N gauge layout's main bus cabling where it forms part of a modular system. 24/02 is a bit hefty. Think clearly before committing fingers to keys!
 
try cheapo telephone extension leads.... pounud shops have miles off the stuff..
 
What has helped me is to use different colour wires and keep to a common scheme throughout all locos.

I stick to the scheme used in (most!?) LGB locos for motor and track connections (i.e. yellow motor+, white track+, brown track-, green motor-). I also have a scheme I use for front, rear, interior lights and the common.
 
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