Eridge (P4) rebuilding

by 10800

original page on Old RMweb

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Comment posted by ian on Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:40 pm

Or a push-to-break momentary button that you push whilst changing the rotary. 15 of those would be a bit cheaper than converting to DCC

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??? posted on Thu Aug 21, 2008 2:38 pm

Not a bad idea Martin, could also be linked into the LEDs to act as another visual indicator as to whether the section is 'live'. Although to be honest we had the same system on Mk1 and never had any problems with momentary connections. [EDIT] But thinking about it further, this is possibly because of our system of only driving trains towards the operator, either at the panel or in the fiddle yard - so down trains would be driven out of the FY on controller B (panel) and then passed to controller D (fiddleyard) once stopped in the station; and up trains would be driven out of the down FY by controller B before handing over to A. If we wanted to have trains arriving at the station simultaneously from both directions (which we do) the down FY operator could come to the panel and drive out with his controller D. Controller C is there mainly to allow yard shunting to be going on independently of the running lines. So the possibility of momentary contact is minimal (but not impossible).

DCC would be the eventual solution of course - but not yet probably.

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??? posted on Wed Aug 27, 2008 9:43 am

Basic panel now constructed - very simply from white-surfaced hardboard, covered with transparent self adhesive film (the sort used by students to cover books etc) and framed with superstore pine. When finished there will be a removable hardboard rear.

Most switches have now been installed, and holes drilled for all the 3mm LEDs for route selection indication - these will be push fitted and fixed in place on the rear with copydex or epoxy. In passing I must compliment Rapid Online for providing unsolicited next-day delivery for all the LEDs (about 50 each of red, yellow and green at 16p). The three large pointy knobs on the rotary switches will be replaced by the neater type when I find some more (Squires seem to have dropped them from their catalogue). Also some more red mini-toggle covers need to be fitted on the lever frame (seems to be a nationwide shortage of them at the moment).

Tag strips have been fitted to the upper and lower frames ready for the wiring, and D-connector sockets will be fitted to the left and right ends for distribution to the boards etc. A tag reference schedule has been devised, and wiring will be colour-coded to facilitate testing and fault-finding. I cannot stress enough the importance of planning and documenting the wiring if confusion in the future is to be avoided, especially if the layout gaffer is absent for any reason when something goes wrong.

Everything looks neat now - no doubt that will change when the forest of wires invades it! We will see how neat I can make it

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Comment posted by pirouets on Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:41 am

Rod

What did you use to create the red, blue and yellow on the control panel?

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??? posted on Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:49 am

Hi Steve

It's a product called TrimLine by Model Technics of Shoeburyness. For about ??????‚??3 you get a 2.5m roll of self adhesive coloured strips in widths from 0.5mm to 10mm. It seems to be aimed at radio-controlled car and aircraft modellers for making fancy go-faster stripes (I came across it in a model shop specialising in those areas).

I have previously used Word to make coloured stripes printed on to self-adhesive label paper but this was easier! (the grey platform areas were done in Word by that method however).

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Comment posted by pirouets on Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:00 pm

Many thanks

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Comment posted by beast66606 on Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:01 pm

He was - rather too long though

You know my thoughts

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??? posted on Wed Aug 27, 2008 12:19 pm

Indeed so Dave - there wasn't the will or the budget in the team to do it any other way, so we'll just have to pretend that all the interlocking and individual loco control is there rather than actually having it. Hopefully from the viewers' side - and with a bit of concentration on our side - operations will look authentic enough!

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Comment posted by pinkmouse on Wed Aug 27, 2008 6:45 pm

Looking good Rod!

Just a thought re. the switching - I notice you seem to have an off position at each end of the switch, couldn't you rejig the logic to prevent most inadvertent circuit connections? Though it might not be needed, the switches may well be break before make, as a lot of rotary switches are.

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??? posted on Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:02 am

Hi Al

Not sure what you have in mind re 'rejigging the logic', but that's probably a step too far for my meagre electrical brain anyway! As you say the switches are break before make, so moving the position of the off locations is probably not going to change things significantly. I put them at the ends of the run so that operators had a positive 'feel' for where the off locations were, probaby 'safer' than say A-off-B-C-off-D (what do you think?). I think the main 'protection' is actually the operating procedure as described a few posts back.

Cheers

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Comment posted by Penlan on Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:19 am

10800 - Quote "...(Squires seem to have dropped them from their catalogue). "

Squires have been promising an 'elctronics' cat for some time now, they dropped a lot of the electrical stuff from this years cat. which caught me out - my mother-in-law being a keen recycler, dumped the previous issue a day after the new one arrived, only for me to then find the electrical bits and pieces I wanted are not in the new cat. I sorted it out with Squires over the phone and referencing old invoices I had from them.

It would help if Squires had different colours for their cat.s. The 'Tools etc' and 'Arts and Crafts' are both green (I think, I'm writing this up in the local library).

Re. the tapes on the control panel, I have used tapes from car/auto finishing suppliers, they are longer than 2.5m to start with, but then I suppose you do not need that much for a control panel.

I agree with the control knobs having a 'Off' at the end of the travel, it is more positive location, especially for 'occasional' operators.

Penlan

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??? posted on Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:41 am

I think they change colours for different years, not subjects. As you say it's easy to get caught out by this, when the arts & crafts catalogue arrived I assumed it was a new tools catalogue and recycled my old one before I realised. Apparently lots of people did that according to the Squires receptionist!

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??? posted on Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:47 am

As part of my insistence (to myself if nobody else) on documentation of wiring etc here is one of the pages from the tag strip reference. There are eight strips on the panel altogether (lettered A-H) each of 28 tags. So the tag reference is on the left, then the wire colour, description and what tag it is linked to. I suppose I could drop some of them and run directly from switches to the connector sockets, but I find having intermediate tags helps to group and organise things better.

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Comment posted by ian on Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:52 am

Good man Rod. Despite it being a mundane and boring job, documenting the wiring will pay dividends the first time that there is a mysterious electrical fault or someone casually asks "Where did this wire go before I accidentally pulled it out?"

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Comment posted by nevardmedia on Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:32 am

No... lost me there

Looks very pretty though - I'm sure it will work beautufully too

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Comment posted by Captain Kernow on Thu Aug 28, 2008 11:21 am

Me too! But I agree, it looks like a right splendid piece of work!

For my latest control panel (for Callow Lane), I did a Microsoft Powerpoint track diagram in colour, printed it off, laminated it and glued it to a piece of white plasticard, before fixing the whole thing to a wooden framework that hooks onto the baseboard.

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Comment posted by Penlan on Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:02 pm

Re. CK's use of Powerpoint - I only have the standard MS Office software, thus Word and Excel, I used Excel with WordArt and Autoshapes for my Track plans, you can set Excel 'Page Set-Up' to whatever size you want, thus my control panel was printed off at 127% size, whereas the 'Bible' of wiring diagrams is printed off at 85% to give me an A4 sheet.

Presumably CK you can dictate the page set-up size in Powerpoint, or I suppose you can save it as a Adobe .pdf file and adjust the size after that if rquired. I expect in the end I will find everybody else manages to design their panel diagrams full size and don't need to adjust them.

Penlan

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Comment posted by shortliner on Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:08 pm

Re mini-toggle switch covers - ring Townfoot Models 01434 601453 - they had them at the St Andrews show at about 10p

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??? posted on Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:48 pm

Thanks Jack, I'll give them a bell

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Comment posted by Captain Kernow on Fri Aug 29, 2008 9:50 am

Sandy, can't quite remember what I did, will have to look at the document and work it out, I'll have to let you know!

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Comment posted by pinkmouse on Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:09 am

A teaser.

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??? posted on Sat Sep 13, 2008 7:59 pm

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Comment posted by Brinkly on Mon Sep 15, 2008 4:46 pm

I hope my track looks that good when its done! The control pannel is coming along very nicely too, for a 'basic' one it looks like the 'finished' one that I would have built!

Nick

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??? posted on Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:05 pm

'Eridge expands in unique NR joint venture' it says on the front of the new 'Rail', and 'Eridge on edge of a new future' it says inside. For a moment I thought the guys had done a very smart deal, but it's the real one (Good news for the Spa Valley though )

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Comment posted by number6 on Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:13 pm

...so they will be able to run into Eridge then? Pray do tell.

Raphael

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