The first wiring panel

A few sore muscles and scrapes later, the first wiring panel is installed, under Ridgway. I spent a good portion of this weekend planning and working on wiring, mostly trying to figure out how to organize things. I finally decided on 6 sub-busses, Ridgway, Durango, Ophir loop, Telluride, Dolores and Rico. Wiring for all those areas will terminate at panels in those 6 locations. All 6 panels will initially be powered from power supplies under Rico, but I could add booster supplies for any of the 6 panels at some later date.

Even though I'm using an older form of command-control, I'm still dividing each area into blocks, and wiring each block individually from the area's panel. This way, if I want to add detection or control-panel signalling later, it (should) be easier. I've decided to protect groups of blocks with 1156 automotive lamps, as several have suggested, so the panels and blocks let me lay that wiring out as well.

The panels themselves are sheets of plywood hanging under the benchwork, but hinged so that when I'm not working on wiring they can fold up under the layout. I really need the storage area under the layout, and this will keep the area under the panels more open, so I can get at stuff stored there w/o having to reach around behind the panels.