Painted myself into a corner?

[Philou]

@Chimer Hi, no, there's no problem having two tracks live facing the exit roads - one in/one out or two in/out - I wanted to avoid ALL tracks being live at any one time - especially as there is the possibility of having multiple locos on the go under DCC. I get confused at the best of times !

 

Edit: I can see now where the confusion arose regarding one or two tracks 'live' - my bad - poorly expressed in a post earlier.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by Philou
See earlier

[John ks]

5 hours ago, Philou said:

especially as there is the possibility of having multiple locos on the go under DCC. I get confused at the best of times

If these locos have sound then the racket would become annoying 

I have from 3 to 10 sound locos idling in the background & when I switch off the layout the silence is bliss

 

A couple of thoughts regarding the sector plate & ball catches

When you move the sector plate the force required to overcome the catches could result in a bit of a jerk & there will be a jerk when the catches engage 

I don't know If this will be enough to topple trains 

 

If you are going to use ball catches or barrel bolts to provide the electrical connection, then because the approach tracks are from a triangle,

 you could get away  with  3 connections on the fixed side

The 2 legs of the triangle to the sector plate should be from the same Booster or power district or sub-district

 

The drawing shows the electrical connections & i have colour coded the rails 

the top track has no power 

the second top track has power to one rail 

The 3rd top track has power to both rails & the phasing is correct The 3 bottom tracks are a mirror image of the top 3 tracks

The RH drawing shows the sector plate all the way across 

 

 

John

 

 

 

[Philou]

@John ks What a good idea! Thanks for that - noted. The only difference was that I was going to have four ball catches exit road side and each rail opposite the exit road rails fed separately - your proposal simplifies it, and it means making best use of the track spacings - I like that!

 

Edit: To avoid too much jerkiness in moving the sector plate, I suppose it would better to separate the distance as far as possible between the catch and the striker plate, without introducing slop.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited January 17, 2021 by Philou
See edit

[Harlequin]

Think about the inertia of the sector plate...

 

You might find that it takes significant force to start the thing moving out of the current catch position and then difficult to stop at the next one. If so that could be very frustrating.

 

I don't know what the best solution is here - it's tricky.

 

[Chimer]

Barrel bolts looking better now, the jerk effect having been identified, especially as using John KS's method you'd only need 3 bolts, and one barrel between each pair of tracks.

[ISW]

On 17/01/2021 at 10:38, Harlequin said:

I don't know what the best solution is here - it's tricky.

I think I'd go for a toothed rail on the sector plate and a toothed gear on the layout. That gives 'positive' lateral action of the sector plate, and a motor aught to be capable of overcoming the ball / socket indents if suitable gearing was applied.

 

Ian

[Joseph_Pestell]

I may have missed it in the thread, but I don't understand what is the benefit of a sector plate in this context.

 

Two traversers would seem a better option.