John ks

There's nothing missing its using that new adaptive camouflage John

I Have had a similar problem with a long crossing & I fixed it by painting the rails with clear nail varnish The rails will need to be painted in four places, 2 are shown in the drawing I would think that the shape of the wheel will determine how bad the problem will be A conical section wheel should be less prone to shorts as only the flange side of the tread touches the (red) rail, the outside of the tread will ride above the black rail & there is no short a cylindrical section wheel is more likely to touch both red & black rails & short You may think that as the wheel goes from the red rail onto the plastic section it only shorts to the black rail while it either on the plastic rail or in the crossing gap, but in a loco that wheel is connected to all the other wheels on that side by pickups Hope this all makes sense & is helpful I think those rails are there for strength & rigidity If they were plastic it would be easy to snap the crossing in half & if the plastic deformed for any reason then the crossing could go banana shape John

If i understand correctly, the short happens when the wheel bridges the insulfrog The drawing shows the coarse of the wheel & where the short can occur A fix is to paint the area of the insulfrog (highlighted) with fingernail varnish (I use clear nail varnish) This fix can last for years depending on the use & is easy to reapply One disadvantage is short wheelbase locos could stall due to the length of the dead section at the frog being lengthened John

Assuming that your panels are 395W (which could be correct for modern panels) then 10 panels gives 3.95Kw Now for these panels to produce 3590KWh they would have to output at maximum capacity for 1000 Hrs As Hibelroad says KWh is Energy used or produced KW or W is the power rating of the device If you were to measure the power outputed by a solar panel it would vary from 0W at night to max output on a clear sunny day Sorry if i am being a bit pedantic but it can handy to know the difference between Power & Energy. Simply put Energy is power by time John

I didn't pick up on that , what i was referring to was early code 100 points , code 75 points should be closer to NMRA standards Back to back's & point clearances are still critical for catch rails to do their job correctly A NMRA standards gauge is very helpful But i just looked & their price ranges from US$16 From MNRA to US$38 on ebay John

I am fairly sure the E train wheels are to NMRA RP25 standards Peco point standards have changed over the years Originally to a coarser scale to accommodate Triang Flanges & back to back I was having problems with RP 25 wheels derailing at the frog of Peco & was told of a modification that improves the running of RP25 wheelsets Adding shim (red in the drawing) to the catch rails opposite the frog . They can be made from plastic strips about 5 thou thick & glued to the catch rail (much easier on older points with plastic catch rails) The following drawing, while a bit rough should give an idea how the problem occurs & how the shim fixes it With a little side force (blue arrow) on the wheel set the wheel can try to go up the wrong side of the frog & derail Adding the shim pulls the wheel set away from the frog & ensures the flange follows the flange way through the frog John

John

As i said earlier my only knowledge of the BM1 is from research on the internet I've changed the drawing to move the gaps to the RH rail in direction of travel & the feed colours (i originally picked the feed colours at random) Which terminal of the BM1 that is connected to the breaking section may be critical to the operation of the BM1 Nigel posted while i was writing this post Anything i was going to say have been done by Nigel who is a lot more knowledgeable then me regarding the BM1 John

A photo of the wiring might help Is it an XO4 type of motor If XO4 are both brushes insulated John

Would something like this work John

As i understand the BM1 it has 2 terminals One goes to the track feed The other goes to the insulated section breaking section NO, The BM1 doesn't require a DC supply As i said earlier This is based on drawings found on google The numbers on the bypass switch correspond to the Cobalt terminals the red wire from the BM1 & bypass switch goes to the rail . Instead of being connected to the rail it could be connected directly to the DCC Bus John PS follow this link. EDIT you may have to copy & paste it into google search Automatic Brake Control - DCCWiki

I did a bit of research on Lenz's site & if i understand correctly the the following drawing could work Assuming you are running in the direction of the arrow then the BM1 will protect the point I believe you can protect the main line ,siding or both with 1 or 2 BM1's The physical orientation of the cobalt will determine weather you need to use Cobalt term's 5 & 6 for the main ,5 & 7 for the siding or 5 & 7 for the main, 5 & 6 for the siding. If the switches in the cobalt are oriented as in the drawing & the turnout is straight then a train coming from the siding should stop in the braking section & a train coming from the main should proceed If the opposite happens then wires from the BM1's to the cobalt term's 6 & 7 should be swapped Cobalt terminal 5 goes to both BM1's & can also be connected to the DCC bus (red feed) John

Not sure how the BM1 is wired but with a 8 terminal cobalt i would think you would need terminals 5 & 6 or 5 & 7 depending on which route you are controlling John

To the best of my knowledge the Peco American HO range started with code 83 in both live frog & insulfrog Code 70 in HOn3 came later & IIRC these may have the first unifrog's from Peco Recently Code 70 was announced in HO standard gauge to complement the HOn3 I suspect that all Peco turnouts will become Unifrog, will set track be an exception? In American HO scale track is either Code 100, code 83, code 70 & the occasionally code 55 & are described by numbers whereas Peco OO points are described by radius & as Pete says " I do not believe these are available in code 75" & i am sure he is correct John

Surly the tramcar would cost what it costs to make, adding a toad to the pack would cost the price of the tramcar & the toad Makes no sense to me, but what do I know I would like the deluxe set & the tramcar But it means i end up with 2 toads I think i could sneak one toad into Australia but if i imported 2 toads & they got together then there could be a plague Many years ago toads were introduced into Queensland to fight the cane beetle & my understanding is they were released into the cane fields & they hopped out of the cane fields & ate any thing that moved They have been spreading ever since I vaguely recall when i was going to school (late 50's ,early 60's) & had to cross a main road. I had to be careful where i stood to avoid standing on squashed toads Provided i got the scale correct this shows the spread from 1935 compared to an island country most of you may be familiar with John

Nigel Some times you get the idea of using a relay stuck in your head Then someone comes along and shows you a simpler way Thinking about it, if you needed a relay then connecting it between the orange wire & the negative should work John

I have added pin numbers to the relay (looking from the top of the relay) & should be clearer which wire goes where If you decide to run the relay from 9V then the positive for the relay connects to the positive 9V (follow the dotted red line), same for the Negative (follow the dotted black line) If you use 12V for the relay then ignore the dotted lines Relay pins 9,11 & 13 are the second set of contacts C= Common, NC = Normally Closed & NO = Normally Open I have show the relay connected to Cobalt terminals 4 to Positive & 3 to relay coil (pin1) Connecting Cobalt terminals 5 to Positive & 6 to Relay coil would also work John

Just got the same email Not happy Jan John

After a mixup with the dispatching company mine is now on its way from Canada to Oz Go figure John

Either supply should be OK for the LED Signal I would tend to use the 9V supply Providing the signal was bright enough The upgraded circuit with the cobalt connections changed to better indicate the original Cobalts with 8 connections & the pin layout of the relay The spec for the relay shows "Coil Operating Range 70-150% of coil voltage" which works out to 8.4V to 18V so the relay should work OK from your 9V supply You could run The Cobalts, relays*, & Signals from the 9V supply ** John * Provided the relay works reliably on 9V, as i said earlier you may need to test it on 9V ** Provided that your power supply can handle the extra load which wont be much Maybe 30mA for the relay & 10mA for the LEDs

If i understand your requirements correctly then this drawing is what you want The connections in the drawing are for the Cobalt Classic Omega Point Motor. The original Omega had 8 connections & terminals 1 & 8 are connected to the Point control switch & the internal switches were terminals 2 thru 7 Assuming that your signal uses LEDs The polarity of the 12V dc* for the LEDs will depend weather the signal is common Positive or common Negative * (the signals could probably be supplied from the same 9V you use for the cobalts) Common Positive will require the 12V DC on the left (R1 End) to be Positive Common Negative will require the 12V DC on the left (R1 End) to be Negative Depending on how your signal is supplied it may have 1 (R1 , R2& R3 are not required) or 2 (R2 & R3, R1 is not required) resistors If the signal shows the wrong aspect for the route selected then connect the relay coil to term 4 instead of term 5 on the cobalt OR Swap the wires from the Red aspect to the NC relay connection & the Green aspect to the NO relay connection As I don't know what relay you are using i cannot show where the physical for the relay John

Peter I have had shorts at on at least 1 long Peco code 100 insulfrog crossing bur not where you may think ( the drawing should help) My fix was to paint the surface of the rail with clear nail varnish a majority of my wheels are RP25 & IIRC i have had to paint a few Peco Large radius points at the frog I have a recent extension that uses Code 70 bullhead rail, I've left the unifrogs unswitched & so for have had no problems with stalling or shorts.(admittedly most of my locos have pickups spread over 4 or more axels) The metal V on the code 83 slip is IMHO to short & looking at the image of the new unifrog point it suffers from the same problem Some times i think Peco tries to hard to get things 100% when 80% or 90% would please most people For example i bought some Peco code 70 HOn3 track & the track spikes were very close to scale size but this made them very weak & extra care was needed so that you didn't roll the rail out of the chairs Over all I like the concept of the unifrog but some of the fail due to the length of the unifrog V being too short John

I can see 2 ways to control a relay from the cobalt 1---- Use a set of contacts in the cobalt to control the relay 2----- Provided that that the 12V relay will work with 9V then control the relay from the point switch ( relay coil is in parallel with the cobalt motor) If you decide to go for the 2nd method it would be wise to test the 12V relays on 9V to see if they work reliably A disadvantage of method 2 is that the relay is controlled by the point switch If the point fails to change the relay still operates & your signals will give a false indication On a real railway i wouldn't consider this circuit to be fail safe but for a toy train model railway it should be OK The advantage is you still got the 2 sets of C/O contacts on the cobalt The diode D2 (flyback diode)supresses back EMF from the relay coil Diode D1 only allows the relay to energise when Orange is positive & Grey is negative With the point switch in the drawn position the relay will be off Any 1A 100V or higher diode would be suitable eg !N40041, 1N4004 or similar John

I thought i might add my 2 cents worth regarding NO & NC contacts NO = Normally Open & NC = Normally Closed You are correct when saying " NO/NC refers to the state of the contacts" but only when the micro sw is at rest (not pushed) The same terminology applies to relays & push button switches(PBSw) Example If you wanted a light to go off while you press a PBSw then you would need a NC PBSw Most people would want a light to go on while you press a PBSw then you would need a NO PBSw Hope this helps John

Mike I followed Gilberts link & clicked on Warranty & watched "Watch the video below as Dan walks you through submitting a warranty" Scroll to the botton of the page for a warranty button John