Jump to content
 
  • entries
    13
  • comments
    19
  • views
    7,543

Building a switch panel - part 3


ifoulds

691 views

I now have the switch panel, points motors, and electrical all done for the main part of the station. Very happy with how all this came together. I built a frame from the same 1x3" lumber that I used for the benchwork, so it fits in nicely:

 

blogentry-31723-0-92813600-1506111273_thumb.jpg

 

I tried to keep the wiring as neat and tidy as I could, but it pales in comparison to some of the works of art I've seen other people produce! At least here everything is mostly color-coded, wires are bundled together by function, and everything is labeled/numbered. Everything hooks in to connector blocks with screw terminals. This is the view from underneath once everything is connected:

 

blogentry-31723-0-20712300-1506111370_thumb.jpg

 

Some areas underneath the baseboards are starting to get pretty busy now. Here's part of the south-side of the station, showing the capacitor discharge unit (CDU), point motors, and wiring for the points, bus power, and DCC bus. Again, it's nowhere near as neat and tidy as some, but it's passable for me and allows me to still follow what's happening.

 

blogentry-31723-0-38057500-1506111526_thumb.jpg

 

A few of the LEDs don't correctly light up as they're the Peco PL-11 surface-mount points that don't have an accessory switch, so the frog polarity doesn't flip. That's a minor thing, and the wiring is all in place for when I get the frog juicers installed and polarity switching correctly. So, this is mostly the finished product all up and running:

 

blogentry-31723-0-15595000-1506111638_thumb.jpg

 

It's great to finally be able to run trains for real now. Part of why I've needed to do this is that there are just too many points to switch manually and I need the electrofrog points to switch polarity for the older Hornby locos to be happy. I can power through the two or three points that are using the PL-11s, so now I can move trains all around the layout and on to the various platforms. The fun starts on now getting to build out the station itself!

 

As always, he's a video from the YouTube channel that covers the final parts of the panel and some trains starting to run!

 

  • Like 1

0 Comments


Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...