petertg's Blog

Hi Peter,

 

From reading some of your earlier posts, you blew a couple when you had a wiring problem. But I can't for the life of me work out how a point motor can blow if all you're doing is changing the wrong one! What kind of point motors are you using?

 

You'll find that with DCC that you have more crashes because it's that you're more likely to have two things running at once. In my case I have reprogrammed most of the locos to have a more realisitic stopping distance as well and regularly end up crashing them into each other, the rolling stock or the buffers!

 

It is much more fun though! I've wired my points upto the DCC bus, using decoders from Lenz (for my main layout) and Train Tech for my little layout, the latter have a CDU built in which seems to work quite well. Good enough to throw two SEEPs in one go. Maybe consider a slow but steady switchover at some point?

 

Cheers,

 

Friso

Hi Friso!

 

I have Hornby points motors with the Hornby passing switches. Hornby warns not flick the switches across but accompany them by hand, or you risk blowing the motor. What I meant to say is that when I go to select a certain lever I run the risk of flicking the adjacent one accidently and this is what has happened.

 

I am considering fitting some dog leg shaped lever extensions facing in opposite directions on alternate switches, which might make it easier for me not to make a mistake. I am studying the possibility of upgrading my controller so as to be able to programme locomotives since, currently my set only allows address programming and since currently they respond slowly to go-slow commands, that is how the head-on crash occurred.

Hi Peter,

 

That sounds really dreadful! Point motors shouldn't blow up like that... Having said that, maybe it's actually something the switches are causing, so have you tried Peco ones instead maybe they don't cause the same problem?

 

What kind of DCC controller is that? It must be a very basic model! I can see that there could be a problem if you wire one DCC controller to the main track and a second one to the programming track.

 

My current setup is a Roco multi-Maus (with wires), which works well. As it does Programming on the Main, it also almost completely removes the need for a separate programming track. The one restriction is when you add a new loco to the fleet. But it's simple enough to lift all the others off so you can program it. I can reccomend this, if you later decide to get something even more fancy (e.g. the Z21), the maus will work with it...

 

A friend of mine has his layout wired such that power can go to the programming track only or the whole layout, which in hindsight I probably should have done. Maybe I'll change one of the tracks in engine shed to be insulated... Hmmm, if it rains this weekend, a nice job to do....

 

I think you trick will work, but then the levers will stick out quite a way, so this may cause other problems, e.g. clothing snagging on them as you walk past?

 

Good luck!

 

Friso