Aston On Clun. A forgotten Great Western outpost.

[chuffinghell]

@Alister_G is quite right, I only have two wires.......

 

.....on every individual piece of track

[MrWolf]

IT'S ALIVE!!! 

 

All right, calm down Viktor Frankenstein, the point motors all work, first time.

 

There has to be a catch.....?

 

Not so far, plus the rats nest isn't exactly cosy. Apparently, the CDU isn't essential, but I didn't want to put too much strain on the little Combi controller's 16v AC supply.

 

It might not be state of the art but it works.

 

 

 

 

[Regularity]

24 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

There has to be a catch.....?

Depends on the track layout: sometimes a headshunt is more useful...

 

I’ll get me coat.

[MrWolf]

Pay attention Private, there's both! 

 

 

 

 

 

[MrWolf]

That's as much wire as it's getting!

 

[NHY 581]

Looks good, Rob.

 

What triggered the  'making safe' of the point motors ? 

Pre-emptive or grievous injury to scalp/ ear/eye/neck/throat/hand?

 

 

Rob. 

[MrWolf]

A near miss!

[Bluemonkey presents....]

1 hour ago, MrWolf said:

That's as much wire as it's getting!

 

Great idea on the switching mechanism. 

[MrWolf]

Not even officially run a train yet and already a point has gone down. When the blades are in the position below, the blade fails to make contact so no power to the siding. If you hold the blade closed or jump it with a wire, you get full power. 

 

 

I'll drop the solenoid off in the morning and see if it is fouling the slot in the baseboard. The point seems to be bouncing back.

 

Everything works fine in this direction.

 

[Rowsley17D]

Hope you get sorted

[Regularity]

Reliance on pressure contact like that is the weak point (sorry!) of Peco and many other brands of turnout, and why it is better to bond the switch rails to the stock rails, and isolate the crossing vee from the crossing rails and power it via a separate switch.

Back in the day, I had to resort to all sorts of dodges to get reliable contact, which was one of many reasons why I moved on to building my own track (which does have its own set of problems!)

[Mick Bonwick]

9 hours ago, MrWolf said:

 

I'll drop the solenoid off in the morning and see if it is fouling the slot in the baseboard. The point seems to be bouncing back.

 

 

 

From your description and the photographs you provided, it certainly looks as if your diagnosis will prove to be correct. I went throught this phase with Easton - everything appeared to work well enough when operating the points by hand, but once the fiddly job of motor installation was finished that was no longer the case. It was only then that the idea of including an element of precision in my measuring was considered.

 

I hope that you find alignment to be the cause and not something that demands re-installation.

[Alister_G]

10 hours ago, Regularity said:

Reliance on pressure contact like that is the weak point (sorry!) of Peco and many other brands of turnout, and why it is better to bond the switch rails to the stock rails, and isolate the crossing vee from the crossing rails and power it via a separate switch.

Back in the day, I had to resort to all sorts of dodges to get reliable contact, which was one of many reasons why I moved on to building my own track (which does have its own set of problems!)

 

Blimey Simon, where've you been, we did all this two pages ago...

 

Al.

[MrWolf]

Further perusal, poking and profanity has got to the bottom of the point problem.

Below is a picture of one of the points which works. Note the clearance on both sides of the tiebar and the fact that it is central between the adjoining sleepers.

 

 

On the faulty point however, the tie bar is hard up against the sleeper at the facing end of the point.

 

 

Considering that the sleeper spacing here is fixed as is the tiebar, the opinion of the engineering department is that the point is billhooksed. This is actually my spare point, fitted in place of one that got accidentally damaged. It was bought as a "used but as new" item still in the package. That I suspect was my mistake. Trying to save a fiver. When you think of the amount of worn out, bodged or broken points for sale at exhibitions and particularly now from dealers on eBay  (funny because dealers always suck their teeth when offered job lots containing old track - can't give you anything for that....) It really isn't worth the potential aggro of buying used track. 

I have ordered a brand new point.

It's Insulfrog, in case I can't modify it without modifying the rest of the track.

But I would like to know how to get a more reliable connection and how to install "switching" whatever that is?

[Rowsley17D]

Before you remove defective point, try getting some graphite powder between the tie bar and sleeper. I'm sure the paint has not helped. You must have some soft pencils you can scrape, then give everything a good riddle to work it in.

Riddle technical term rapid to and fro movement of adjacent surfaces.

Edited April 16, 2021 by Rowsley17D

[jcm@gwr]

18 minutes ago, Rowsley17D said:

Before you remove defective point, try getting some graphite powder between the tie bar and sleeper. I'm sure the paint has not helped. You must have some soft pencils you can scrape, then give everything a good riddle to work it in.

Riddle technical term rapid to and fro movement of adjacent surfaces.

 

Also, check that the switch blade hasn't just moved slightly, and can be pushed back into the

'rail joiner' near the frog/common crossing vee.

[Alister_G]

10 hours ago, MrWolf said:

But I would like to know how to get a more reliable connection and how to install "switching" whatever that is?

 

To be honest I'm not that familiar with modern insulfrogs so I would be hesitant to suggest any modifications without seeing one.

 

If you can give us a photo of the new one's underside when you get it, we can perhaps make some more informed suggestions.

 

Al.

[Regularity]

13 hours ago, Alister_G said:

 

Blimey Simon, where've you been, we did all this two pages ago...

 

Al.

Well, you know how it is: if it was a good idea to begin with, it’s worth repeating...

(Or maybe just the consequence of a rather stressful fortnight related to selling a house!)

[MrWolf]

Everything checked. None of the rails have ( or will ) move. Some dry lubrication (6B pencil) and minor abuse of the switch rails has got it working and making contact.

From an engineering point of view, it's not good. The position of the tie bar is compressing the over centre spring and preventing it from operating fully, which is why the blade keeps bouncing back towards the centre.

I suspect that although it works for now, it isn't going to last very long!

[Simond]

If you take it out & replace it, the aim of the game is to ensure that the track is supplied all the way through with the correct polarity.  So, bond stock rails and adjacent closure rails & blades.  You will need insulation between the closure rails and the frog if it’s live, and similarly between the frog and the rails on the exit tracks.  Not needed if the frog is not live, of course.  You will need to supply the inner rails of the exit tracks, the outer rails are continuous with the stock rails, which are fed of course.  Some points are supplied with an x of wires under the frog, which does this for you.
 

With these arrangements your loco will traverse the point in both settings and both directions, but there will be no switching of the tracks on the two-track end of the point.  If you need this, I recommend you make an insulated break on the feed side (ideally not the return side, and definitely don’t have breaks and switches on both feed and return as that way madness lies).  On one track, the feed side will be the frog side, so same insulator will do.  On the other track, you’ll have to put a break at the end of the stock rail, or further on of course, if you need it.

 

Your frog is, at this point, not powered.  If it’s dead, it doesn’t need to be, end of work.  If it’s live, you can leave it unpowered, or fit a switch.  The switch needs to be either part of, or operated in conjunction with, your point operation, and it needs to be a “Single Pole Change Over” type.  Most 3-tag microswitches will do if you don’t have a switch included in your point motor.  There will be one terminal that is common, maybe marked “C” which you connect to the frog.  The other two should be connected one to each stock rail.  You have a 50-50 chance of getting it right, but it’s only a minute’s work to swap them if they’re wrong, so don’t sweat about it.

 

hope that all makes sense

good luck

Simon

 

 

 

 

Edited April 16, 2021 by Simond

[NHY 581]

1 hour ago, Simond said:

If you take it out & replace it, the aim of the game is to ensure that the track is supplied all the way through with the correct polarity.  So, bond stock rails and adjacent closure rails & blades.  You will need insulation between the closure rails and the frog if it’s live, and similarly between the frog and the rails on the exit tracks.  Not needed if the frog is not live, of course.  You will need to supply the inner rails of the exit tracks, the outer rails are continuous with the stock rails, which are fed of course.  Some points are supplied with an x of wires under the frog, which does this for you.
 

With these arrangements your loco will traverse the point in both settings and both directions, but there will be no switching of the tracks on the two-track end of the point.  If you need this, I recommend you make an insulated break on the feed side (ideally not the return side, and definitely don’t have breaks and switches on both feed and return as that way madness lies).  On one track, the feed side will be the frog side, so same insulator will do.  On the other track, you’ll have to put a break at the end of the stock rail, or further on of course, if you need it.

 

Your frog is, at this point, not powered.  If it’s dead, it doesn’t need to be, end of work.  If it’s live, you can leave it unpowered, or fit a switch.  The switch needs to be either part of, or operated in conjunction with, your point operation, and it needs to be a “Single Pole Change Over” type.  Most 3-tag microswitches will do if you don’t have a switch included in your point motor.  There will be one terminal that is common, maybe marked “C” which you connect to the frog.  The other two should be connected one to each stock rail.  You have a 50-50 chance of getting it right, but it’s only a minute’s work to swap them if they’re wrong, so don’t sweat about it.

 

hope that all makes sense

good luck

Simon

 

 

 

 

 

To be fair Simon, that seems terribly complicated. It probably isn't but I'm just not one who understands electrics. 

 

Rob. 

[Simond]

Rob,

 

it really isn’t difficult, though it would certainly be easier to explain if I had a point and could do a video to demonstrate!

 

Atb

Simon

[Mick Bonwick]

1 hour ago, NHY 581 said:

 

To be fair Simon, that seems terribly complicated. It probably isn't but I'm just not one who understands electrics. 

 

Rob. 

 

To put it into context, Rob, it is no more difficult than applying layers of pigment onto a perfectly good looking building and then scrubbing half of it off again just to improve on what was there before. You have come to understand colour and texture and how they can be used to improve how your models look by, dare I say it, trial and error and a bit of thought. No different really to finding out that with a little bit of work a piece of track can have its electrical reliability improved by some simple alterations.

 

The small amount of work that can be done to a Peco point to improve its reliability might look complicated, but is no more difficult than the positioning and repositioning of a couple of wires. Peco have finally changed the design of their points to include these very same principles.

[Simond]

Nicely put, Mick.

 

I’m sure putting weathering powders on stuff is really easy.  When I do it it tends to look like an accident in a pigment factory....

 

there are some photos of the wiring in Alister’s post a page or two back.  
 

the simplest advice I can offer is to draw the trackplan more or less to scale, and colour all the frogs GREEN. Frogs are obviously green.  Then choose one rail, I always use the one farthest from the front of the layout to be the return, BLACK to the BACK as it’s easy to remember, and to work out when you’re on your back under the layout.  Colour every return rail black.  You’ll end up with one or more lengths of rails (which may include stock rails of turnouts) which are disconnected from one another by point frogs.  Each section of rail needs a wire to a Common Return terminal, which is connected to one output terminal of your controller.

all the uncoloured rails will be feeds.  You can colour them red and connect them together to a Common Feed terminal (the other one on the back of the controller) and run a single loco.  Job done.  Job also done for a power district of a DCC layout.

 

Most people want to have more than one loco on their layout, in which case (assuming non-DCC) you need to have sections which can be isolated, connected by an on-off switch to the common feed.  I suggest colouring the up main line section red, orange for the down main, and any colour you like for each of the other sections.
 

Or you may decide to have “cabs” where the the wire from the section goes to the common terminal of a change-over or rotary switch, and the other terminals are fed from various controllers (or isolated, of course).  In this case, one output from each controller must be connected to the common return terminal.  If you have cab control, your mains power supplies must be suitable for it.  Don’t assume any old transformer will do.
 

You can have hours of fun designing & building a control panel, with switches located on a mimic diagram, and fancy lights, or just put them all in a row on a simple panel, and label them.  

Frogs may be dead, in which case no further efforts required, or live, use a change over switch as I described above, or if DCC a “juicer” which automatically (and very quickly) sets the frog polarity when it detects a loco on the frog.  In any case, frogs are green.

 

Once you’ve drawn you wiring diagram, check it.  Every bit of rail should either be black and red, but never both.  Then copy your diagram with wire, solder & switches onto your layout.  Don’t use wire of all one colour.

and that’s pretty much everything you need to do to wire any layout in DC or DCC.  Bells & whistles not included.

HTH

Simon

 

 

 

Edited April 17, 2021 by Simond

[MrWolf]

Actually, that does make sense. When the new point arrives I will take some pictures of it so that we can all see what we're dealing with. I have noticed that points design has changed incrementally over the years.