Re: SAMRA and New Ideas

["Ira Schneider" <ira_schneider@iname.com>]

Make sure you use good wire for the new corner modules.

The wire MUST follow the club's official color coding.  That means you need 9 different colored wires.
It would be much better to use stranded wire instead of solid wire.  Stranded wire is much better for
AC applications and would be more flexible (and less likely to break) for the ends which are bent and
unbent when connecting the connectors.  I would also suggest that we use a minimum of 18 AWG wire
to minimize voltage loss.

All that being said, the club could purchase 9 spools of 18 AWG stranded wire (either locally (I think
Fry's and Tinkertronics sells spools of wire) or via mail order (less expensive)) in the appropriate colors.
Alternatively, if we want to settle for solid wire, Home Depot sells 10 conductor 18 AWG wire by the
foot as "sprinkler wire" and as "thermostat wire".  Another possibility is the 14 AWG stranded wire
that Home Depot sells by the foot.  The problem with this wire is that it is too heavy to go into the
Jones plugs unmodified - you have to trim the ends down to approximately 18 AWG size with a wire
cutter.  The advantage is that they do sell it in all needed colors.

Also, I would strongly suggest that at least one of the new corner modules be wired with two female
Jones plugs (4-pin and 6-pin) near the front of the inside corner so we can connect the wiring harness
from the test transformer, like the Swamp corner module.  That way, if the Swamp module, which is
owned by Jim Smiley, is ever taken out of service for a show we can still connect the test transformer
during setup.




Ira