How I Install DCC Power Bus Wiring

NOTE: This model railroad video is not intended for anyone under 14 years of age due to the use of small parts, dangerous tools, electrical items, glues, and paints.

This video is about my method of installing DCC Power Bus Wiring. I use 12 gauge stranded wire. It probably overkill for N-scale but the performance is really great as I have measured zero drop in voltage across the entire staging level up to the top of the helix on each end. In this video, I am beginning the wiring for the main level by running the bus wires for bus # 3 and 4 (or power district 3 & 4). I call them buses as I am usually referring to the wire that is distributing the DCC power. I use red and green 12 gauge wire that is twisted about 3 to 4 turns per foot. For each twisted pair, I add a small piece of colored electrical tape (about every 4 feet give or take) that performs two functions. First, it holds the twist in place so it doesn't unravel and second, it marks the twisted pair as to which bus or power district it is providing the power. In the video, I marked bus 4 with white tape and bus 3 with blue tape. These markings are used to make sure that I will be able to easily identify the twisted pair so that the track feeders are fed by the correct power bus. The other important thing that I did for this layout is to pre-drill the holes for running all of the wire. I did not do that on my previous layout and that was an absolute mess and made it more difficult to run all of the wire. With the pre-drilled holes, it took about 40 minutes to run both of the twisted pairs from their end point back to the command station and booster located in the power cabinet. The next task will be to plan the installation of terminal strips for getting power to the track feeders, installing frog juicers and connecting them, checking continuity, and adding track to join the completed modules shown in one of the previous videos.