If you have been reading my posts online you know electrical issues are a favorite of mine.  Having a background in computers I have a reasonable understanding of electronics and cabling.  That means at NTrak layouts I tend to be one of the guys troubleshooting electrical issues and getting frustrated by shady wiring.

Fortunately you don’t need to be an expert to get wiring right.  The wiring on the module pictured above was completed this afternoon in about an hour.  It is wired to meet NTrak Recommended Practice 25.  The standard tells you everything you need to know to have flawless wiring for a 500+ module DCC layout, and guess what, it works excellent on a 6 module home layout with DC throttles as well.

What are the wiring features of the module above?

1. •12 gauge stranded wire zip cord.
   

2. •Color coded Powerpole connectors.
   

3. •Colored electrical tape on all connectors and wiring connectors.
   

4. •Feeder-joiners at every track joint.
   

5. •Wiring run neatly, easy to see how the module is wired.
   

6. •A method to tie up the loose wires is provided (in this case, hooking them together).
   

A lot of this is “belt and suspenders” sort of thinking.  Take the picture at the left, having colored Powerpole shells taped with colored electrical tape, on wires where the joints have been taped with colored electrical tape may seem like overkill, but it’s not.  Should any troubleshooting have to happen it is immediately clear what goes where, and should something really bad happen, like connectors getting pulled off during setup it is easy to tell how they should be fixed.  My extra cost to do this was minimal, a few cents extra for colored tape, a few cents for colored shells in small quantities.  Probably less than $1 extra overall.  But should this module ever have trouble in a show I’ve likely saved 2-3 guys who would rather be running trains five or ten minutes; and time at a show is priceless.

Our trains are electrical toys, and yet as a community model railroaders don’t often discuss electrical and when it does come up it is almost always to curse something that went wrong.  I want to change that.  If you have taken the time to do the electrical on your layout right then you need to take pictures and show it off.  Good wiring is every bit as critical to a layout as track, scenery, or a locomotive and yet there seems to be a hesitation in sharing wiring success stories.

Almost all of the forums have a “what did you do this week” picture thread on Sundays.  Take that opportunity to show off some of your wiring and help encourage others to do good wiring on their layouts.