Chumley End

[Andrew P]

The thinking time indoors is easier when its warm and cosy, but the wiring should be a doddle now with the colour coding. will it be controlled from the back or the front at Home?

[gismorail]

The thinking time indoors is easier when its warm and cosy, but the wiring should be a doddle now with the colour coding. will it be controlled from the back or the front at Home?

You are so correct about warm & cosy and I'm hoping the wiring will be a doddle but the most important factor will be the fault finding especially at exhibitions, though having said that I hoping tidy and careful wiring will eliminate any problems. 

Regarding the operating position, I have pondered this and although Chester Northgate Shed can be operated from front or back and does make it very flexible, I have decided it will be operated from behind as some of the controls will be set into the rear of the layout plus the access to the fiddle yards. 

[gismorail]

Just an update on progress regarding the installation of the DCC wiring loom. Today's objective has been to make up the looms and bus-wire on the first board. 

The tangle of wires has been sorted into pairs and the location of the droppers labelled so that when working beneath the base boards I know exactly which set of wires come from. This might seem a bit OTT to some but if you've ever been under neath a baseboard on your hands and knees looking upwards trying to get one's bearings you'll know what I'm on about. :scratchhead:Once the wires have been made up into pairs I have run them into looms which run to the edges of the boards and then to the back of the layout where the bus-wire is to be located. 

 

                                                           

 

             This shot shows the first part of DCC loom put together and fixed to the cross member of the base board.  

 

 

                                                           

 

 

The bus wire is made up of 1.25  house hold lighting cable which is multi-stranded . (left over from wiring the shed and although it's not exactly the right colour code some correct coloured insulating tape markers will rectify this problem)

I have used multi stranded wire so that I get a good solder grip when attaching the droppers.

 

The bus-wire has been located along the back of the base boards so that the feed wires from the DCC control system can be easily tapped into in a position that can be decided once the loom wiring has been completed and the ideal operating location can be determined. (This will become clearer later on as the wiring develops )

 

                             The following photographs show how the dropper wires are located into the bus-wire.

 

                                                             

 

                                                                  Cable strippers carefully open up wire casing 

 

                                                              

 

                                                            Soldering flux paste is applied to exposed cable strands

 

                                                               

 

                                                        Bus-wire is 'tinned' and ready for droppers wires to be connected 

 

                                                                

 

Wire droppers have been soldered into bus-wire and to add extra strength a spot of hot glue has been applied to each joint which will also insulate the connection. This shot also shows the simple two way connection plug onto board 2. 

 

                                                                 

 

The final photograph shows the completed DCC loom and bus-wire on the first base-board. I hope that this gives some ideas for people who have not wired a DCC bus-wire before and although I'm not claiming to be an expert in this subject I have found that it works well and without problems.  

 

            

 

                                                               

 

                                                              

 

                                                            

 

 

 

 

 

[gismorail]

Further progress today' and as it was Sunday I made the decision to take a break from decorating and knocking tiles of walls and shut myself away from the Wet Welsh Weather in my nice cosy shed with plenty of Planet Rock   

 

The first task was to complete the second board DCC control loom which I had been tinkering with during the week. This involved the sorting of dropper wires into groups and routing them across the board to the bus wire which runs along the back of each base board. Whilst doing this it is important to try and think ahead as to were other electrical installations might go as well as scenic features  

 

                                                                                       

 

Most of the loom can be carefully pinned to the edges of the board sides and in this shot you can see the printed location tabs identifying the origin of the wire.

 

                                                                                       

 

As on the first board the DCC bus wire bridges the base board join via a two pin flat plug. I have left plenty of slack in this cable so that it is easy to plug together when the layout is in the upright position, it's very easy to leave these short when you are wiring the layout on it's side but is very different when one pulgging them together with the base boards in the upright position.

 

                                                                                       

 

The two pin flat connector is only a lighting circuit type and can be plugged in either way so I have marked the polarity with coloured insulation  tape to avoid any electrical shorts. 

 

So with both boards now fitted with bus-wires for the DCC control I then spent some time with a metre checking for any shorts and double checking that each length of rail has a connection. The only task left to do now is to fit the Lenz controller plugins into the bus wire which I will do once they arrive by post later this week.

 

Hope this has been helpful and the next job will be to start fitting the Servo motors for the turn outs.  

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

[gismorail]

So another day draws to a close and I have been able to get the evening busy adding further wiring to the layout. 

 

 

Loom 2.    This is going to carry the wiring for the points and signals and at this moment in time I'm not exactly sure as to which form it's going to take as I am utilising the Meggapoints Point control system and I have't  totally worked out as where the 'gismo' boards are going to be located. They can be either inside the control panel which is going to be a separate item that will fix to the rear of the layout or sited beneath one of the base boards, if this is the case it will be board one as there are more points etc on that on so it makes sense for ease of wiring. 

 

In the mean time I'm pushing on with mounting the servo units beneath the turnouts and sorting out the wiring for the polarity change over micro switches.

 

 

                                                                                                       

 

The servo's that I am using are the Hobby King HK151178 as recommended by Meggapoints as unlike some of the servos on the market they don't 'twitch' during operation. They are purchased directly from Hobby King in the USA and I bought a dozen to start off with and they worked out at £1.75 each which is a lot cheaper than even the most basic point motor on the market. 

 

 

                                                                                                         

 

Mounting the servo beneath the turnout is a very simple and effective set up and involves the servo motor being held in place by some aluminium channel     measuring 15mm x 15mm x 15mm which can be purchased for B&Q. Before mounting onto the board three holes are drilled in the top of the channel Two for fixing screws and one for a length of piano wire to operate the tie bar within the turnout.

 

                                                                                                         

 

The channel is then lined up below the turn out and screwed into the base board having drilled a hole in the board prior to laying the track for the wire to contact the tie bar. I have added a piece of 3mm ply between the channel and the board so that the screws don't penetrate into the turnout, this also leaves a gap beneath the tie bar for the movement of the wire which operates in a rocking motion to activate the point blades which is very similar to how a tortoise motor operates. 

 

                                                                                                           

 

                                                                               Prior to fitting the servo motor the piano wire is bent to form a operating link into activation arm 

 

 

                                                                                                             

 

The wire is then threaded into the central hole of the tie bar and the servo motor is then a simply  push fit between the channel and is ready for testing once the motor has been wired up to the main Meggapoint control board 

 

 

I have also started to prepare for the wiring up of the polarity switches on the turnouts and this involves the setting up a colour coding for the wires involved .

 

Frog = Blue    /     Back rail = purple   /      Front rail = yellow.  I could have used red and black as per the DCC control loom but I wanted to make the wires stand out when viewed from underneath the baseboards when fault finding at exhibitions or at home. 

 

 

                                                                                                         

 

The above photograph shows the wires below the turnout wired into a tag strip ready for wiring onto the micro switch, this is to be operated by the movement of the servo arm. The  two yellow and blue wires are there because I live wire the point blades to make sure that there are no poor electrical connections. 

 

                                                                                                           

 

                                                           This shows the layout of the wiring and servo motors below two of the turnouts at the station end of the run round loop.

 

                                Well that's the progress to date and I need to get my thinking cap on to work out exactly where the main 'gismo' meggopoints board id going to be sited. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shedman]

Excellent progress, Martin. Useful to know about the channel from B&Q, I might meddle with servos myself. What's the circuit board on the left of photo 2 of post 79? Trev

[Donw]

Time spent on doing a proper job on the wiring is well worth while. I bet you have a much clearer idea now of what you have actually done.

 

Don

[Andrew P]

Hi Martin, Sorry mate, I cant believe I missed the previous 2 Posts on the Wiring Loom etc. As don say's; doing a proper job will pay dividends, and it's so neat AND labelled up as well. Very nice Martin.

 

And don't keep talking DB in the PM's, hhahhaha.

[gismorail]

Excellent progress, Martin. Useful to know about the channel from B&Q, I might meddle with servos myself. What's the circuit board on the left of photo 2 of post 79? Trev

Hi Trev , 

That's the main Meggapoints control board or as I call the 'Gismo Board'   ....I've still got a long way to go until I totally understand what I'm dealing with here at present and I'm sure that I'm over complicating the whole process in my mind but I keep watching the video's on Dave's website. 

Happy Days     

[gismorail]

Time spent on doing a proper job on the wiring is well worth while. I bet you have a much clearer idea now of what you have actually done.

 

Don

Your right there Don . It's a long process and I know that in the past, like others I have tended to rush the wiring . On the Chester Northgate Shed layout I tried to keep the wiring tidy but I didn't have a proper plan laid out in my mind and I kept'd adding scenic effects during the latter part of the build which seemed to complicate the final wiring and made fault finding difficult. With this layout I have a much clearer idea as to what is going where and this as enabled me to break down the wiring into different looms.

[gismorail]

Hi Martin, Sorry mate, I cant believe I missed the previous 2 Posts on the Wiring Loom etc. As don say's; doing a proper job will pay dividends, and it's so neat AND labelled up as well. Very nice Martin.

 

And don't keep talking DB in the PM's, hhahhaha

 

 

Thanks Andy and I'll try and keep my fantasies to myself   ......I know how easy it is to lead you astray 

[paulj]

Hi. Have only stumbled across this thread today and it has brought back a lot of memories as I grew up in Helsby. I lived off Freshmeadow Lane close to the BICC factory and could see the line from my bedroom window. As has been said it's a shame the line is disused and sadly the parish council have recently begun efforts to turn it into a cycleway/bridlepath/walkway.

[gismorail]

Hi. Have only stumbled across this thread today and it has brought back a lot of memories as I grew up in Helsby. I lived off Freshmeadow Lane close to the BICC factory and could see the line from my bedroom window. As has been said it's a shame the line is disused and sadly the parish council have recently begun efforts to turn it into a cycleway/bridlepath/walkway.

hi Paulj 

Glad you have found my Chumley End thread welcome.  .... Like a lot of places Helsby has changed a great deal more so with the closure of the BICC factory who would have believed that it's gone, it was the life blood of the place. 

Sad to hear that the parish council are trying turn the old line into a cycle way although it would make a nice walk up to Mouldsworth I have to admit. 

[gismorail]

Further progress tonight although I can't believe how long it has taken me to fit two tortoise point motors and wire in the polarity switches. No that's not a typo error I did write 'tortoise'.....  For a while now I have been pondering a situation that had to be addressed at some stage of the wiring project, and it was the fact that a Meggapoint control board will operate 12 servos and with signals and points etc I required 14 ...... seemed a lot of expense on a small layout to buy a second board to use just two functions. So I have installed two tortoise motors to operate the three way turnout that serves the goods shed and coal siding and it will be operated from a ground frame rather from the main box which in turn means that the levels to control it will not have to be in the main frame on the control panel. I had a couple of spare tortoise motors so it seemed sensible to put them them to good use, plus I think it will  should give some added operational interest. 

 

                                                                                              attachment=797317:Chumley threeway 001 (700x543).jpg]

 

 

 

 

[Ray H]

Thanks for the detailed explanation of your progress.

 

I am assuming that you will have servos on both baseboards. How will you link the servo to the Meggapoint control board on the adjacent baseboard?

[KTM]

This is a great thread to follow and I'm picking up a lot of tips for my own build. Thanks!

 

Jon

[gismorail]

This is a great thread to follow and I'm picking up a lot of tips for my own build. Thanks!

 

Jon

Thanks Jon glad your finding my ramblings useful.  

As I mentioned earlier on a lot of layout threads seem to disappear whilst the wiring is being carried out and I know that a lot of what I'm doing here is 'old hat' to many on here but I know their are many who struggle in this area of our hobby .

It actually does me good to do a update after a session in the 'man cave'  as it helps me to think ahead to the next stage. 

[gismorail]

Thanks for the detailed explanation of your progress.

 

I am assuming that you will have servos on both baseboards. How will you link the servo to the Meggapoint control board on the adjacent baseboard?

 

Hi Ray glad your enjoying the progress on Chumley End 

 

With regard to the linking of the servo's to the control board. You will more than likely seen Dave Fenton's Website with all the video's etc which is such a valuable resource and back up for those who have purchased this excellent product. In the video's all the servo's etc are connected with the servo wires which have three pin plugs both male and female as extension wires etc. The plan I have is to pick up each servo on a tag strips and bridge the board joint with a multi computer socket and then on to the control board which will be sited on board 1.

I have just completed the first polarity switch on a servo operated turnout and you will see the first tag strip in place when I post tonight's progress. 

[Andrew P]

Most sensible move using the TORTOISE Martin, and on a separate frame will keep the Brain working as well.

 

I cant get over how neat it all is, just super mate, really jealous.

[gismorail]

Hi Ray glad your enjoying the progress on Chumley End 

 

With regard to the linking of the servo's to the control board. You will more than likely seen Dave Fenton's Website with all the video's etc which is such a valuable resource and back up for those who have purchased this excellent product. In the video's all the servo's etc are connected with the servo wires which have three pin plugs both male and female as extension wires etc. The plan I have is to pick up each servo on a tag strips and bridge the board joint with a multi computer socket and then on to the control board which will be sited on board 1.

I have just completed the first polarity switch on a servo operated turnout and you will see the first tag strip in place when I post tonight's progress. 

 

Having fitted the tortoise motors on the threeway point yesterday and sorted out the polarity switches my attention turned today as to how to switch the polarity on the servo operated turnouts. Being a none railway modelling product they don't have any recognised way of doing this so another method had to be developed. I have seen these 'frog juicers' mentioned which seem to have appeared in recent times but at this moment in time I don't really understand the full implications of their application and feel that I'm taking on enough tech stuff as it is    

So my attention turned to the very simple and cheap micro switch. On the Meggapoints website Dave suggests their use for polarity change over and on the video they are mounted on a piece of timber and they seemed to work ok but I wanted to mount them in a neater way as I wasn't sure as to how the wooden fitting would cope with the rough and tumble of exhibition conditions. I had thoughts about making a brass bracket but was mindful of the possible shorting out of the connections against metal so I started looking through the 'useful draw' , we've all got one it's the place where all the bits that we might need one day .....are kept.    I found some old MDF corner angles which are made of plastic and had an idea....  

 

 

And this is what I came up with  

I have just glued and bolted a piece of 3mm plastic card to the corner angle to which I can place alongside the servo motor with a micro switch bolted to the top end and it will be activated by the arm of the servo.

 

 

           

 

The micro switch is a simple common / on / on and had a roller fitted to the end of the metal plate which I have removed so the the servo activation arm locates in like a guide. You can also see in these photos the control wire from the servo has had the connection plug removed and been connected to a tag strip in readiness for the loom to be started to Meggapoint control board where all the magic happens. 

 

                                                                   

 

The final shot shows the whole of the wiring assembly beneath the turnout ....Well that the first one sorted ....how many more are there too do !!!!!!!!

[gismorail]

Most sensible move using the TORTOISE Martin, and on a separate frame will keep the Brain working as well.

 

I cant get over how neat it all is, just super mate, really jealous.

Thanks Andy very kind of you ..tell you one thing it's a lot tidier than the railway room at the moment the floor looks like a spaghetti bowl has exploded all over the place needs a bl--dy good tidy up tomorrow...

[shedman]

Hi Martin. Are you adjusting the movement of the servos as you go, or will you be doing them all together? Will you have the servo board on top of the board somewhere so you can see to adjust the point blades? I've been watching the videos and am trying to get my head round this.Trev

Edited January 19, 2017 by shedman

[Ray H]

Thanks for the update Martin.

 

I like the way you've fitted the micro switches. We've used much smaller ones on our club layout and hot glued them in place. The problem with that (as we've since learnt) is that their position has to be correct initially and there's no scope for adjustment subsequently to allow movement of the micro switch closer or further from the servo if you find that the servo's travel needs adjustment.

 

Your method of using a tag strip to cross the baseboard has gotten me thinking too. All the servos on my home layout are mounted on the front edge of the baseboards as is all the wiring other than the rail ends of the dropper wires. That way I should never need to worry about access to the wiring as I get (even) older.

 

The signals will be added in due course and will be mounted on a "plate" which will be fixed to the baseboard top surface and have the servo(s) fixed to its underneath. I will then run the servo control leads through holes in the front edge of the baseboard and connect them to their controller. I had expected to have to drill large holes in the baseboard edge - which is already quite full! - so that the plug on the end of the servo lead could pass through. I hadn't thought of splitting the lead and effectively re-joining it under the baseboard so that the hole in the front edge of the baseboard only needs to be big enough to take the lead and not the plug. Thanks for that.

[Andrew P]

You are so correct about warm & cosy and I'm hoping the wiring will be a doddle but the most important factor will be the fault finding especially at exhibitions, though having said that I hoping tidy and careful wiring will eliminate any problems. 

Regarding the operating position, I have pondered this and although Chester Northgate Shed can be operated from front or back and does make it very flexible, I have decided it will be operated from behind as some of the controls will be set into the rear of the layout plus the access to the fiddle yards. 

Missed this the other day, sorry Martin. I think dual operation is better if you can, otherwise the Layout will never get good use at home if you have to stand behind it, and not enjoy seeing the operation from the Public side.

 

 

The Bracket looks a splendid idea mate.

[gismorail]

Hi Martin. Are you adjusting the movement of the servos as you go, or will you be doing them all together? Will you have the servo board on top of the board somewhere so you can see to adjust the point blades? I've been watching the videos and am trying to get my head round this.Trev

Good morning Trev,

That's a question I have been asking myself to be honest. It would be logical to do the adjustment as they are fitted which is my plan and further adjustments  can be done with the board on its side.The final position of the boards has not exactly been determined as yet and I have thought about mounting them sideways with an access hatch on the back of the baseboard but am still thinking on that one. My original thoughts were that both boards would be mounted in the base of the control panel but now that I have got my head around the system it would defeat the object as by mounting them on the base board only the single switch wires need to go to the control panel. There's a lot of logic to this system but my head is taking its time to understand it The PDF's on Dave's site have much more detail information and I'm tending to use them now I've found them.