where can I find this wire?

[artto]

I am having a very difficult time locating 10AWG STRANDED, BARE, copper wire. Anyone know where I can get this in 100 foot spools?

[StephenM]

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm

[artto]

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm

Nope. They don't have it.

This is not for speaker wire. I need it for a long bus wire that will have many feeder wires soldered to it. Removing the insulation from the wire for many feeders while under the table/benchwork after it is installed will be a pain. I don't want any voltage drop. Stranded wire has much more surface area and as we all know electrons tend to "flow" more across the surface of the wire than through it.

[tube fanatic]

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm

Nope. They don't have it.

This is not for speaker wire. I need it for a long bus wire that will have many feeder wires soldered to it. Removing the insulation from the wire for many feeders while under the table/benchwork after it is installed will be a pain. I don't want any voltage drop. Stranded wire has much more surface area and as we all know electrons tend to "flow" more across the surface of the wire than through it.

The best thing to use for a bus is copper braid, or copper strap. They are available in different widths. I've typically used 3/4" or 1" wide braid for RF grounding purposes with excellent results. Copper strapping is available from companies like Polyphaser. I've used their 3" wide strap for grounding RF entrance panels in transmitting applications as well as for bonding rooftop air terminals (for lightning protection) to the ground system.

[Guest " "]

They sell in 15 foot sections, but they probally can cut you a 100 foot roll. exactly what you want....stranded bare 10 gauge cooper wire.

http://buy.id.ebay.com/buying/en/display/120699613599_15-FT-10-STRANDED-COPPER-WIRE-SHINY-CRAFT-SCRAP-10-GA-

[M6 Driver]

Maybe here? http://www.skycraftsurplus.com/wire.aspx in Central Florida.

[USNRET]

We used copper rods or flat plates under our benches for this. I have no idea about the cost of plates and I know it's not stranded but how about a copper grounding rod?

http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=3126&sku=41005&st=rod

100' wow! I do see some 10' sections around.

[tube fanatic]

http://www.bluejeanscable.com/store/speaker/index.htm

Nope. They don't have it.

This is not for speaker wire. I need it for a long bus wire that will have many feeder wires soldered to it. Removing the insulation from the wire for many feeders while under the table/benchwork after it is installed will be a pain. I don't want any voltage drop. Stranded wire has much more surface area and as we all know electrons tend to "flow" more across the surface of the wire than through it.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish with this, and why are you concerned about voltage drop and skin effect? More information about this would be helpful in finding a suitable solution.

[artto]

Don't laugh.

This is for a power supply buss on a model railroad (HO scale).

I'm still running analog DC but the layout is large enough to run two trains on each mainline track, however the control panel is setup to utilize only two power supplies (eastbound/westbound), one for each mainline track.

The track blocks farthest from the power supply (50' roundtrip wire length) are experiencing up to 18% voltage drop with the wire I used when I built the layout 25 years ago. I guess I figured the inital wiring was temporary - just to get things up & running and then never finished the upgrade because thnings were working adequately. But nowadays, I might run trains using 5 or 6 powered locomotives and 12 or more lighted passenger cars. There can easily be a couple of amps required per train ~ well beyond what most power packs will supply and certainly requires more than the the 22AWG wire (DUMB) I initially used.

Eventually I will integrate Digital Cab Control (DCC) which is AC based but the situation is similar ~ high current/low voltage and requires a heavy gauge common buss and wiring throughout to reliably transmit the digital signal to the decoder chip in the locmotives/cars. One rail of every section of track, no matter how short, and all turnouts have to be soldered to the buss, with a minimum of four feeders per block ~ a lot of solder connections which why I don't want to strip wire insulation in dozens of places, very time consuming.

Last night a friend suggested McMaster Carr might have what I need (uninsulated automotive grounding wire) and there's one located nearby. I'll stop by there later today.

BTW, yes, I was looking at the flat braided grounding strap wire (Allied #876-4154) and that might be the way I go.

[tube fanatic]

Definitely go with the wide braid or strap. Both will be easier to install than a round cable, and if you go with the 1" wide size or wider, the voltage drop should be minimal. The nice thing about the copper strap, in particular, is that you can mount a lug on any wire needing connection to it, and mechanically bond the lug (rather than soldering the wire) to the strap with a large machine screw/lockwasher/nut making disassembly easy at a later date if desired. If you put some copper conductive paste between the lug and the strap you won't have to be concerned about any resistance related losses there. I used a similar technique when working for an industrial power supply manufacturer years ago- there, of course, when dealing with a few hundred volts at a few hundred amps, we had to use very large, thick, copper blocks and strips; but the idea is the same- minimal or no voltage drop and a secure electrical bond.

[Davecv41]

IIRC the recommended practices for DCC are to put a twist in the wire several times per foot to cancel out interference. With DCC you can locate your Power Station(s) and boosters in the middle and not be restricted to a panel. Your trains sound like they draw a lot of current. now is the time to upgrade your locos to can or coreless motors and convert passenger car lighting to LEDs if you haven't done so already.

[Mike Dubay]

Hey, I used to be in trains not so long ago. How about a picture?

[WMcD]

I can't agree with the notion that there is any skin effect in this application and so stranded wire is not going be of any benefit.

But sometimes the mad scientist in us has a certain thing in mind and nothing else will do. It happens to me. Smile.

Looking at pictures of Artto's listening room, he IS a mad scientist. The train set is probably the product of the same mind. Smile.

Looking around I see that stranded wire with insulation is plentiful but w/o insulation can not be found, by me.

If I really needed number 10 stranded I'd buy a spool of the insulated stuff and remove the insulation from the 100 foot lenght before installation.

This could be daunting in that it is difficult to run the point of a utility knife down a length deep enough to allow the insulation to be taken off (like the skin off a sausage) without nicking the underlying wire.

However, I was recently working with some twin lead with very very tough insulation. The solution was a hot knife soldering iron from Radio Shack. It is like an Xacto knife blade on the end of a small soldering iron. This worked very well even though some attention has to be paid to temperature and cutting speed.

Essentially. The little knife point can't cut the insulation at room temperature. But up near 300 degrees F, it is the proverbial hot knife through butter. This avoids using so much force that the wire is nicked.

Ham Radio Outlet has ground braid if you're interested. Soldering could be difficult though.

BTW, how many amps can a little HO locomotive pull? Even the most demanding amp sucker slot cars of long ago had limits.

WMcD

[artto]

IIRC the recommended practices for DCC are to put a twist in the wire several times per foot to cancel out interference. With DCC you can locate your Power Station(s) and boosters in the middle and not be restricted to a panel. Your trains sound like they draw a lot of current. now is the time to upgrade your locos to can or coreless motors and convert passenger car lighting to LEDs if you haven't done so already.

True, with DCC twisting the wires to cancel interference between adjacent wires transmitting digital data is recommended. However, this is usually done when bundling all the wires together in some sort of hanger arrangement for cable/wire management resulting in all the wires being in close proximity to each other.

I prefer not to do it that way. All my + wires for each track block are wired discretely to each block while the - is a common return loop. There is usually at least several inches between the closest + wires, therefore no interference without the wires twisted. The + & - wires are not run together side by side therefore they can't be twisted together.

While I intend to eventually install DCC, it's not that big of a deal for kind of layout I have or the way the trains are run. This is primarily a "mainline" type of layout ~ allowing long trains running in opposite directions on two mainline tracks. The main reason (for me) to go DCC would be primarily for things such as lighting ( so locomotive and car lights stay on while the train is stopped for instance).

I won't be upgrading any locomotives. I've been buying the newer DCC ready ones which are fully detailed and have fabulous paint jobs ~ better than brass IMO. Same goes for passenger cars. I've been buying the Walthers cars in which I can simply drop in a lighting module. By the time I upgrade my older passenger cars with interiors, new trucks (for electrical pickup) and add some kind of lighting it costs more than just getting the newer Walthers stuff with everything set to go.

And regardless of DCC or DC or DCS I still prefer a control panel for turnout switching, train block indicators, voltage/current metering etc.

The newer locomotives (Kato, Proto2000, Athearn Genesis) draw about 1/3 to 1/2 amp per locomotive. However, since I have 4.5% grades at some locations (on curves) and trains may have 50+ cars, I often run up to 5 or 6 powered locomotives to pull a train. The current draw can go up dramatically uphill around curves. If there are two trains on one track the voltage situation gets rather unbalanced. I'm often using only 4-6 volts to run the trains. Voltage drop can be as much as 18-20% on farthest side of the layout with the 22AWG wire I originally used (dumb). However when I built the layout I never envisioned running 5-6 powered locomotives per train - only later did I start to realize I needed more powered locomotives on this layout (because of burning out motors) and one thing led to another.

[artto]

I can't agree with the notion that there is any skin effect in this application and so stranded wire is not going be of any benefit.

But sometimes the mad scientist in us has a certain thing in mind and nothing else will do. It happens to me. Smile.

Looking at pictures of Artto's listening room, he IS a mad scientist. The train set is probably the product of the same mind. Smile.

Looking around I see that stranded wire with insulation is plentiful but w/o insulation can not be found, by me.

If I really needed number 10 stranded I'd buy a spool of the insulated stuff and remove the insulation from the 100 foot lenght before installation.

This could be daunting in that it is difficult to run the point of a utility knife down a length deep enough to allow the insulation to be taken off (like the skin off a sausage) without nicking the underlying wire.

However, I was recently working with some twin lead with very very tough insulation. The solution was a hot knife soldering iron from Radio Shack. It is like an Xacto knife blade on the end of a small soldering iron. This worked very well even though some attention has to be paid to temperature and cutting speed.

Essentially. The little knife point can't cut the insulation at room temperature. But up near 300 degrees F, it is the proverbial hot knife through butter. This avoids using so much force that the wire is nicked.

Ham Radio Outlet has ground braid if you're interested. Soldering could be difficult though.

BTW, how many amps can a little HO locomotive pull? Even the most demanding amp sucker slot cars of long ago had limits.

WMcD

I hear ya Gil on the skin effect as this is primarily an alternating current effect and I'm still using DC. Later when I add DCC (Digital Cab Control) this may no longer be the case as DCC uses (relatively speaking) higher current AC. The other thing is 10 AWG solid copper wire can crack easily when bent especially when nicked (as in striping insulation).Since this is the second time around I'd rather be safe than sorry (again).

I did manage to find what I was looking for. It's used as automotive grounding wire. McMaster Carr has it.

One of the easiest ways to strip insulation from heavy gauge wire is to simply heat the insulation a bit with a torch. It loosens the insulation just enough to slide longer lengths off.

"How many amps can a little HO locomotive pull?" Well, the old ones (i.e. Athearn, Bachmann etc.) would pull about 1/2 amp. The newer "premium line" models draw about half that. But as I mentioned, I typically need 3-6 powered locomotives to pull the kind of trains I run on this layout. And sometimes two trains are run on the same track. Lighted passenger cars are real current hogs, more so than the locomotives. Running the trains at low voltages (slow speed adds realism) seems to compound the problem.

And speaking of slot cars ~ I'm not sure I can agree with you on that one Gil. Back in H.S. a friend of mine (now a physicst) and I made a motor for my slot car that pulled at least 13 amps of surge current from standing start, and still pulled 4-5 amps surge from 3-4 volts. At 10.5 volts we were getting an estimated 90,000rpm while still drawing a couple amps. We made the motor from a regular Cox can motor using a different winding technique and some special wire Tim's father got for us from Argonne National Lab (his father was also a physicist). It was a gas taking this thing to the race tracks. If the store's track used power off the grid (as opposed to storage batteries) this motor would draw most of the current leaving the other 7-9 cars in the dust as any remaining available current was divided between the remaining cars. The real hoot was when we let off the throttle ~ the other cars would get full current back, accelerate and go flying off the track on the turns.Needless to say we got kicked out of few places. []

[Taz]

Stripping any wire, any gauge, any length. fasten end of wire to long bench, or wooden board. Take old fashion hand plane and set depth of cut to less then thickness of insulation. plane insulation in one cut to end of board. Re adjust wire and repeat. When the full length of wire has been trimmed on one side, pull insulation off. of course you must have old fashion plain, and it helps if it is sharp. [^o)] If you can think outside the box, you can be outside the box. Had a cat that taught me that. Named him Houdini!

[Groomlakearea51]

Or the braided approach which IIRC is what the HO trains and slot car folks use.

[H]

[MikeFord]

I would use a good quality 12 gauge insulated stranded wire, and prewire a crimped lug connection to barrier strips, then just mount the strips as needed to the bottom of the board with a crimped lug connection to track etc.

[Panacea Engineering]

Artto,

I have over 600 feet of elevated rail and I use #12 THHN stranded wire. It strips very easily with a razor knife, solders easily and is very easy to insatll after stripping. Pretty sure that the Depot, Lowes and any electrical supply house should have it. As U said, I use #12, #10 is available at the same places but is much more expensive. You can terminate with compression lugs or solder. It is usually sold in 500 foot rolls. I'm running a Diditrax system with more locomotibes than I can count. My system is split across 12 circuits, each being a #12 run. Works flawlessly and no voltage drop problems. I buy my wire at the local Electrical supply house.

12 stranded is good for 30 amps, 10 is good for 40 amps according to Table 310-14 NEC for other than house wiring and not behind an oversurrent device.

W. C.

[Islander]

And speaking of slot cars ~ I'm not sure I can agree with you on that one Gil. Back in H.S. a friend of mine (now a physicst) and I made a motor for my slot car that pulled at least 13 amps of surge current from standing start, and still pulled 4-5 amps surge from 3-4 volts. At 10.5 volts we were getting an estimated 90,000rpm while still drawing a couple amps. We made the motor from a regular Cox can motor using a different winding technique and some special wire Tim's father got for us from Argonne National Lab (his father was also a physicist). It was a gas taking this thing to the race tracks. If the store's track used power off the grid (as opposed to storage batteries) this motor would draw most of the current leaving the other 7-9 cars in the dust as any remaining available current was divided between the remaining cars. The real hoot was when we let off the throttle ~ the other cars would get full current back, accelerate and go flying off the track on the turns.Needless to say we got kicked out of few places.

That's hilarious! Pity there was no YouTube back then.