start the tapewire run

[ouchouch]

I'm at that part, but I'm kind of stuck as to where to start it. Where it's less visible? Under the house? On the side? Any ideas?

[Peggi]

On my Lily I put the hook up part on the side, on the Cambridge I have it is under the house and is hard to get to to plug and unplug. Pluse by putting in on the side of the lily (behind the porch rail) I was able to run a tape up the side of the house (which was covered later by siding) but run individual tape off of it to the different floors.

If your house won't be move much the bottom will work, but since my Lily hasn't found its permanent place yet, I wanted to be able to plug and unplug without having to turn the house up on its side to reach the hook up underneath.

Hope this makes sense.

Peggi

[pdlnpeabody]

I built my house with an actual crawl space, so I ran the wire under the styrofoam "yard." Then ran the line up a 3/8" diameter pvc pipe painted steel to look like an old water pipe. The pipe connects under the staircase, where the connection and on/off switch is. This completely hides the wiring and switch. However, the walls are all wood frame, so I hid the wiring inside the walls throughout the entire house. Also, the tape failed after about two years so I had to re-wire the entire house with a duplex hard wire. It requires some soldering and a place to hide (maybe routing a groove in the plywood or whatever you use for your walls). My best guess is that the tape gives out due to poor heat dispersion. Those thin copperleaf strips can only handle a limited amount of circuit load. I have ran into countless dollhouse owners who have had wire failures with the the cir-kit tape. My house has 15 lights, 5 fireplace lights and 5 wall plugs. I used the correct transformer, so maybe I exceeded the amps the tape can handle. Hope this helps!

[darrellandmelissa]

My best guess is that the tape gives out due to poor heat dispersion. Those thin copperleaf strips can only handle a limited amount of circuit load. I have ran into countless dollhouse owners who have had wire failures with the the cir-kit tape. My house has 15 lights, 5 fireplace lights and 5 wall plugs. I used the correct transformer, so maybe I exceeded the amps the tape can handle.

I think there must be something else going on with the failure mentioned here. I have houses over 20 years old using tape wire. The tape is capable of handling much more current than any available transformer of the dollhouse type can supply so it's not current limited in that regard.

Most often, if there is a failure it happens at the location of a "connection". Either the junction splice where the power from the transformer connects to the house itself, (likely place to check if NO lights are working) or at one of the splices where one tape run is connected via those tiny brads to another tape run. In this case lights past the bad connection will not work but those on the side toward the transformer connection may be working fine.

The "connections" are the weakest link in the tape wire system. This is why in my tape wiring pictorials I always stress repeated testing of the system before and after each new connection is made. Admittedly, I learned this the hard way. On the very first house I used tape wiring on there WAS a failure. But the tape didn't fail. I could not remember where all of the connections were made (first house and I didn't make a diagram) so I could not locate the ACTUAL bad connection. However, I ran a pair of wires from a working area of tape (on the first floor) to a non-working area of tape (on the second floor) and all the lights came back on. Now looking back I can tell you the most likely cause of the failure. The dollhouse sat unused in a damp garage for many years through all types of weather. The connection that failed, wherever it was, was most likely caused by oxidation (rust type corrosion) of a connection that I didn't make all that good to begin with. But even then with over 20 connection splices in the house the fix proves that only ONE of them failed.

Just wanted to make this clear, and let anyone know if you're having trouble diagnosing a tape system that was working and now isn't, I'd be happy to help you in finding it. There is always a solution.

smiles,

Darrell