labelling your wires under the deck


BigE

BigE

Active Member
I'm starting to get quite a bird nest going on.
How do you all associate stuff up top - like lamp posts - to wires underneath?
At first I was keeping up with a nice diagram and had everything labeled.
Well I've slacked off on keeping up with that.
When I started a few months ago, I had only 2 feeders (I'm on DCC) and an old DC pack running my 10 turnouts off the AC tap. Now I'm using it's DC tap to run all my lighting stuff and a few circuits I've built.
Now I have 14 feeders - 4 for the 2 outer mainline loops and 1 each for each spur-yard line.

Now I find myself tracing wires if there comes a problem - and I'm about to replace 10 lamps with 10 different ones and will re-use the first 10 for something else. Plus an additional 10 more for future use.

So, what do you all do? Just write on a piece of masking tape and stick it?
I'll just have to make a map of what's up top-side and code the locations of stuff - like yard line #5 lamp #2 might be coded as YL5-2.

All suggestions welcomed!!
E
 
I use color codes wiring and use buses for:

Track wiring DCC

Switch machines (Tortoise running at 9 volts)

Lighting ( Set at 10 volts or less to prolong lamp life)

Not a perfect set up, but helps to keep some order and ability to trace problems.

Thanks.

Greg
 
Greg@mnrr said:
I use color codes wiring and use buses for:

Track wiring DCC

Switch machines (Tortoise running at 9 volts)

Lighting ( Set at 10 volts or less to prolong lamp life)

Not a perfect set up, but helps to keep some order and ability to trace problems.

Thanks.

Greg
Click to expand...

Roger all that Greg. I do try to keep to some sort of color coding. All my wire was given to me so I make do with what I have. My track feeders are indeed all red/black and I keep them taped together and they all hook to a single terminal bus.

My turnouts are the solenoid types so they still need the old AC hit. I have those separated on their own bus strip as well. Yes, that does help. But now I've grown past the ability to using "common" color coding since I'm running out of clearly different wire colors. Now I'm down to purple and orange type combinations. Which is which? All my lighting is LED so polarity does matter.
E.
 
+2 for color coding buss wires.

DCC bus: white/black
Switch machine bus: red/green
Lighting: undefined as yet.

Keep your feeders short (less than one foot) and post your feeders or run them symmetrically so it's easy to see what's what.
 
marriedshades said:
The is different color electric tape use it to mark your different wires. The tapes cheap and can be found at ace hardware.
Click to expand...

That's a fine idea but do they have about a hundred different colors to use? Good thing I'm not color-blind. Yes, I'm being a smart-a..ss. :D
 
BigE said:
So, what do you all do? Just write on a piece of masking tape and stick it?

All suggestions welcomed!!
E
Click to expand...

For all my lights the only marking is the masking tape with a + or a - on it. All of my turnouts go straight to the control so I don't bother labelling them, I keep the pairs bundled together right up to the control, however.

My stuff is all DC so nothing is very complex.

Having holes drilled in the framework ( with wires running through them rather than strung loosely and hanging down) of the benchwork helps create the "neat" appearance, however.
 
This was a friend's layout wiring, DC with powered switches.
There were four panels in total and countless bundles all marked where they went in or came out.
He Could tell you exactly what every wire was!
image.jpg

image.jpg
 
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