Northski

I really appreciate the advice you’ve provided here Nigel, I’ll give that a go, thank you. On the other issue, I think you’re right, I do use on of the Power cabs as a command station and the other as a throttle. Off in search of an Arduino. Thanks for your help, much appreciated.

I’m currently building a DCC layout with seep point motors linked to Yamorc 8044 decoders. I’ve been advised/told/sold a NCE Mini panel to operate the points with momentary switches which I’m getting close to bringing together in a control panel. One of the things I wanted to include in the control panel design was LEDs to indicate the way the points were set, and was told that the NCE Mini pan would allow for this. I would be grateful if those in the know in the RM Web community would be able to advise whether the NCE Mini panel will actually send the commands to Yamorc decoders, and secondly, can my wish to have the LEDs on the control panel be accomplished? The layout is powered by a couple of NCE Powercabs with an 5amp booster and is split into three separate power districts, primarily to narrow down the finding of shorts. But I’m not anticipating an huge leap into all that DCC can offer, as I’m pretty desperate to get the trains running. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Bit of an update probably needed on what we've been up to. Firstly in the return loop area which is situated directly below the Helix, we've installed an extra storage line which travels right around the helix access area. The two existing lines are 3rd and 4th radius set track. Set track was used because it's much easier to install as it keeps a constant radius, and working in a confined area, you need as much help as you can get. Clearly installing this prior to the rest of the helix would've made a lot more sense, but I didn't and I should have. I've tried to install as many droppers as possible and, like most people, I'm bored of soldering droppers onto fishplates; hopefully it will pay dividends with fewer connection problems in the future. This picture shows both the start and the end of the storage line. I am intending to relay the 4th radius outside track, pictured below, taking it down the other side of the helix support column, thus removing the S bend and allowing the middle line of the 3 (the Up Main) to run a lot straighter, as it climbs the gradient towards the removable section. View from inside the helix access well, looking up the gradient towards the removable section and the fiddle yard beyond. Due to the return loop being a level lower than the rest of the layout, half the return loop has a downward gradient and the other half upwards, which the pictures don't convey that well. A view again from inside the helix access well, showing the 3 tracks of the return loop at the bottom, the 3 tracks going through the station area approaching the helix, and the first layer of the helix itself. Plus a little bit of wiring spaghetti showing the track droppers splicing into the track bus. Close up of the main helix bus with the return loop bus feed spliced into it. The next piece of work that I'd been putting off was connecting the return loop tracks to the rest of the layout. The two sections are either side of the door into the room and so a removable section crosses the gap. The first problem was how to secure the track either side of the joining gaps, with the added difficulty that there's a pretty steep gradient that leads to the return loop that starts immediately after the removable section. Not knowing how to bridge these gaps, I made a pretty horrible attempt using 2 part epoxy that you'll see below, before abandoning this idea and using copper clad sheet which is fantastic to work with. It's pretty evident I wasn't sure how much copper clad to use, and even more evident that I didn't know how much solder to use. Fingers crossed that I've used enough. I'll clearly need to hide the copper clad at some stage but I'll do that only when I'm sure that it works properly first A close up view of the 3 tracks, the final cut to separate the rails was done with a razor saw View from the removable section towards the fiddle yard A view towards the return loop from the removable section showing the gradient on both the down and up lines. Health warning: This how not to do it! Dreadful attempt at securing the track at either side of the removable section. Somewhat fortuitously, Buddy the dog knocked the removable section over, bending the tracks and finally signalling an end to this ridiculous way of securing tracks and a new, more successful way to bridge the gap was found. N.B. No pets or animals were injured in the pursuit of getting the track across the doorway ...yet. The next issue was how could we get track bus power from the main part of the layout across the removable section, and then beyond to the return loop. Picture showing the removable section taken out. The two locating pin holes with two magnetic connectors between them. The big ugly holes beneath are access holes allowing me to connect the bus cables to the the magnet feeds. N.B. You will note that we have also wired the return loop area in from the main track bus. This is a belt and braces approach that should give us the best chance of getting a live feed to the removable section. The magnetic connectors themselves. Capable of transmitting up to 8 amps, so well within our maximum loading. Close up of the underside of the removable section showing the locating pins and bus magnets. Another view of the underside of the removable section showing the Tam Valley Depot Reverse Loop module DFJ003U powers the Up Main, taking its feed from the Down Main and is isolated at either end. Many thanks to Digitrains for their assistance with how this is done. A couple of general pictures of how the return loop sits beneath the main helix above it, mimicking the 2nd, 3rd and 4th radius tracks. The removable section across the doorway in the foreground. The removable section with an added section (still to be painted) We have also done some work on wiring in the fiddle yard points, The photo shows the underside of the fiddle yard showing the Gaugemaster DCC80 Autofrog polarity switches that we've just installed.

Have laid the track underneath the helix that forms the bottom end of the return loop. Like the helix, the curves are predominantly set track (3rd & 4th radius) as it’s much easier then lay than flexi track in places that have accessibility issues and clearly laying these tracks before we’d built the rest of the helix would’ve made a lot more sense, but at the time we hadn’t quite worked out how we would deal with the drop in gradient between the fiddle yard and the return loop. On the approach to the helix we’ve used 2nd radius for the left hand track which we know has the potential to cause derailment issues for some locos. However, as we’d known the room size from day one, we knew that we couldn’t quite fit in a 3rd and 4th radius S shape as we’d need to accommodate the dog bone return loop. With this in mind we’d always intended that this line wouldn’t be used as a main through line and just as large through storage siding and that we’ll have to be careful which locos are sent this way. As with the fiddle yard we’ve wired droppers to each piece of track in an attempt to keep things running around the curves which is especially needed around the helix due to it’s inaccessibility. The connections to the main bus have yet to be completed, and I’m hoping to group the wires together to enable us to fit block detection sensors to the layout at some future date. Next stages: Laying track on the top level of the helix and then laying track across the removable section across the doorway and somehow wiring it in.

Trying to glue strips of cork that have been rolled up are like wrestling a octopus in a telephone box. Situations like this require desperate measures.

Further to Corbs posts from a couple of days ago, I’ve attached a few photos of the latest ring or circuit to be added to the top of the helix which admittedly is a couple of circuits more than we had anticipated, due to the unexpectedly poor performance on the helix of some of the older locomotives when hauling a number of carriages up the gradient which is due to a combination of both the gradient itself and the drag factor of the curves themselves. As such, we’ve dropped the gradient angle to allow for this. This is a pretty easy thing to do as the levels are held in place by a couple of bolts and washers on one of eight continual screw threads, and takes a relatively short amount of time to adjust. This reduced increase in height gained in-turn increased the number of circuits needed to reach the height required. The final height we’ve reached should allow the mainline to which these helix lines join to be circa 80mm above the height of the top level base boards frame (scale approx 6m or 20 feet) so enabling us to allow the foreground to drop away from the track, and bridges to be constructed. Next steps: laying cork underlay on the new helix layer before painting and laying down the circuits of 2nd, 3rd and 4th radius track.

Have started to add the baseboards, and rather overly engineered support piers, to the return loop that lies beneath the bottom level of the helix. The track is not laid yet but just checking that our calculations are correct and that we're able to accommodate a 3rd radius curve with a 4th radius siding. The picture also shows a 2nd radius siding leading back towards the removable section, which I've allowed for, but haven't decided whether to include this or not as yet. Plus a cup of tea, we drink a lot of tea. Sometimes that's all we do, guessing we're not alone in that. View beneath the helix showing the down line to the dog-bone return loop. Again the track shown isn't in its final place, but the shot shows how the gradients of the dog-bone return loop run the opposite way to those on the helix. This is the reason for the rapid change in height. To the top left you can see the main lines approaching the helix, which meant that the return loop/ dog bone needed to run beneath this. The inner track of this is the running line (3rd radius) and the outer line (4th radius) is intended to be for train storage. General view from above, providing a pretty good idea of what's supposed to happen. The 5 storeys of the helix are independent of the return loop below it, but as a return loop was needed for continual running, placing it beneath the helix meant that no extra space was lost. I filled in the gaps once the support piers had been added. Probably should've done this before. This photo was taken under the new lights that I've just added. The original light was provided by a single pendant light fitting, and wasn't really up for the job especially in the helix area. The new lights are 2 x 40W 600 x 600 LED light panels which retail about £25 each, with the support housing around £10 each. The light provided is astonishing, if not a tad overkill, but if we start videoing any of the stuff we do, the light will be sufficient, albeit with liberal applications of Factor 50. The old lighting The new lighting panels during installation The completed lighting job.