Control Panels - show us yours

[jamie92208]

I was going to use Halfords lining tape, but it is too much aggro around holes for switches, indicators, etc. Its might be just as well to mask and paint the different coloured lines.

 

Thanks v ery much for that. I'd almost come to the same conclusion already. I used paint on my last layout which had an aluminium sheet panel. My new one will have 4 panels for which I bought a sheet of 3mm thick plastic from a local stockist and had the panels cut to the correct size in the factory. I've just drilled the first panel and will post a photo when i've finished it. I have decided to use LED's to indicate which way the points are set. All my points are operated by Tortoises so I intensd to just wire pairs of LED's in to the panel next to the switch in parallel with the pooint motor supply. Hopefully when the polarity is reversed to throw the point the correct LED will light up to show the route that's set.

 

Jamie

[McGomez]

A signmaker nearly always has offcuts of different coloured vinyl’s. You might be lucky and know of one nearby.

Where I worked, we always had kids asking for bits for their school projects or to pin stripe their bikes.

[Trevor H]

Nothing posh, just small, simple and to hand.

 

[daveblueozzie]

Ive made a start on the control panel, not wired yet but thats the next thing I'm going to do.

Cheap and cheerful, nothing fancy, made the box myself out of scraps of wood i already had, used a lid off an old plastic storage box cut to size, a couple of door hinges from an old door.

I used a strip of wallpaper with the track layout marked on it using highlight pens, fitted the plastic lid then drilled the holes for the switches.

The switches and the wiring are the only things ive had to buy to make the control panel.

When fitted to the layout it will be on extended draw runners so it can be closed when not in use, when extended ive also made it to tilt at an angle for ease of use.

 

Edited April 10, 2012 by daveblueozzie

[RJS1977]

Here's the exterior of the main panel of my father's loft layout:

 

And inside....

 

 

Not content with that, there is a smaller panel for train detection:

 

 

And a still smaller one for the loco depot:

 

 

I won't say which one of the three I built....

Edited April 12, 2012 by RJS1977

[bike2steam]

Hey Kenton, and ron ron ron, now mine don't look that bad then ?!?!

Edited April 13, 2012 by bike2steam

[daveblueozzie]

Here is a pic of my control panel now thats its nearly finished. It needs LED'S it does not look finished.

After all the wiring only one point didnt work ,soon sort that out.(probably just a loose wire)

fitted on the drawer runners.

pulled out and tilted.

The birds nest of wiring.

[250BOB]

Hey Kenton, and ron ron ron, now mine don't look that bad then ?!?!

 

I wonder if his Dad knows he posted these pics.

[RJS1977]

I wonder if his Dad knows he posted these pics.

 

I think the worst of the wiring's probably mine (it's a joint project) - but those wires do a lot (see my automation thread)!

 

Unfortunately a major redesign of one end of the layout, whilst improving the layout both operationally and visually, led to a high concentration of point motor studs and indicator lights within a very small area of the panel.

 

And the wires are longer than they need to be to so they don't pull loose when the front of the main panel is dropped. Owing to the reversing loops, most sections are switched on both rails, which also adds to the complexity...

 

It's also fully (?) documented and the range of colours aid maintenance (at least it's not all red wires!).

 

But the important thing is, it all works (at least most of the time!).

Edited April 13, 2012 by RJS1977

[250BOB]

I think the worst of the wiring's probably mine (it's a joint project) - but those wires do a lot (see my automation thread)!

 

Unfortunately a major redesign of one end of the layout, whilst improving the layout both operationally and visually, led to a high concentration of point motor studs and indicator lights within a very small area of the panel.

 

And the wires are longer than they need to be to so they don't pull loose when the front of the main panel is dropped. Owing to the reversing loops, most sections are switched on both rails, which also adds to the complexity...

 

It's also fully (?) documented and the range of colours aid maintenance (at least it's not all red wires!).

 

But the important thing is, it all works (at least most of the time!).

Hey RJS.......no offence meant mate.

Some of my previous efforts are something to behold.........and I dont have a control panel yet, so I have no room to talk.

Thanks for posting your panel.

Bob.

[daveblueozzie]

I think the worst of the wiring's probably mine (it's a joint project) - but those wires do a lot (see my automation thread)!

 

Unfortunately a major redesign of one end of the layout, whilst improving the layout both operationally and visually, led to a high concentration of point motor studs and indicator lights within a very small area of the panel.

 

And the wires are longer than they need to be to so they don't pull loose when the front of the main panel is dropped. Owing to the reversing loops, most sections are switched on both rails, which also adds to the complexity...

 

It's also fully (?) documented and the range of colours aid maintenance (at least it's not all red wires!).

 

But the important thing is, it all works (at least most of the time!).

Dunno if your referring to my wiring, two reasons for the same colour, one its all i had, and second I'm colour blind

Everything is labeled and numbered from start to finish, i know where every wire goes to, and what it does. I have a blueprint/plan (not coloured) of every detail of the wiring.

Edited April 14, 2012 by daveblueozzie

[RJS1977]

Hey RJS.......no offence meant mate.

Some of my previous efforts are something to behold.........and I dont have a control panel yet, so I have no room to talk.

Thanks for posting your panel.

Bob.

Dunno if your referring to my wiring, two reasons for the same colour, one its all i had, and second I'm colour blind

Everything is labeled and numbered from start to finish, i know where every wire goes to, and what it does. I have a blueprint/plan (not coloured) of every detail of the wiring.

 

Bob - my apologies if I over-reacted & Dave - sorry to have brought you into this! That was intended as a tongue -in-cheek comment and sorry if that caused you any offence.

 

Richard

[daveblueozzie]

Richard, deffo no offence taken, i didn't know if it was meant for me or not , so thats why i replied,( it was funny.)

I'm only just getting started on the model rail set up, I'm bound to make glaringly obvious mistakes and i know all red wires might seem dumb to some, but i cant see different colours when they are all together.

Again no offence taken.

[Brian]

Not dumb at all.

All red wires, all black or all any one colour you choose, it matters not a jot.

What does matter is that each wire is recorded somehow of where it runs from and too and the wires are tracer marked if at all possible by the use of tags or proper wire markers.

After all the UK (BR) railways use mainly all one coloured wire insulation, so we can follow, its prototypical!!

[250BOB]

Bob - my apologies if I over-reacted & Dave - sorry to have brought you into this! That was intended as a tongue -in-cheek comment and sorry if that caused you any offence.

 

Richard

No....dont apolgise......this is all good fun.....good that we can all enjoy a bit of banter.

Bob.

[jamie92208]

My colour coding was very simple. The first two reels of wire I picked up when I started to wire Long Preston were orange and green, so orange went to the Outer rail as we stood inside the layout and green to the inner one. This worked fine till a friend came to help me and announced that he was orange/green colour blind. We did manage somewhow and various other colours were added to the basic plan. Black for point motor wiring, yellow/red for the 12v DC auxilliary feed and paired red for signal motor feeds. Blue was used for all switched feeds such as from a microswitch/relay to a point frog. Things went on well until I needed more wire urgently at a show and could only buy purple so that was used for all sorts of repairs/alterations over the next two years. However I woud reiterate what Brian said above. I used what became known as pin charts to record the wires crossing each baseboard joint. These recorded, the colour/origin/destination and purpose of each wire. These were kept together in a folder with the wiring diagrams for each point complex. This became known as the book of words and also included all the train formation sheets showing loco/vehicles and vehicle owner. This way operators could take a sheet when seting up and asemble the trains in their correct formations.

 

Jamie

Edited April 16, 2012 by jamie92208

[RJS1977]

That's funny - our book(s) are known as the "book(s) of words" too! (One listing all the wires at the terminal blocks, with the colours on each side and their purposes, the other containing the veroboard component layouts of the signalling circuits, of which this is the most recent addition:

 

 

 

In case anyone's wondering, it controls an isolating section associated with a colour light signal approximately where the extreme left hand section switch is on the main panel.

 

i.e. about where the 59 is here - you can just see the head and top of the ladder if you look really closely:

 

 

(In actual fact, the signal itself isn't connected to the circuit board as it's positioned where you can only see the back of it anyway! So we've just used a Merit dummy one. )

 

[The top chip is a 74LS54 which contains 2 2-input and 2 3-input AND gates, each feeding into a 4-input NOR gate. This is a very useful chip where you have diverging routes, provided you only need a 2-aspect output, as we do here (no need for a "yellow" as we can't see it anyway).

 

In this case the AND gates are use as follows:

 

1) Point set to harbour and harbour branch clear.

2) Points set to Platform 0 (bay) and Platform 0 clear.

3) Points set for Platform 1 AND Platform 1 crossover set for entry AND Platform 1 clear.

4) All 3 inputs permanently held low (0V).]

[RJS1977]

PS - to give you some indication of the major alterations to the panel I alluded to earlier - none of the points in the photo of the 59 were on the layout when the panel was first built!

[Jellicoe]

Wow! There's some hi-tech stuff here, mostly of the mimic diagram variety. By way of balance, I offer my creation; an old-fashioned lever frame! The levers were soldered up from brass stock and glued to miniature DPDT toggle switches. The DIN socket on the right accepts 2 x 16Vac supplies from a Gaugemaster M1 transformer. The middle socket takes a Gaugemaster Combi controller and the one of the left is a 0 - 12Vdc output used for testing track and powering up a rolling road.

[daveblueozzie]

Wow! There's some hi-tech stuff here, mostly of the mimic diagram variety. By way of balance, I offer my creation; an old-fashioned lever frame! The levers were soldered up from brass stock and glued to miniature DPDT toggle switches. The DIN socket on the right accepts 2 x 16Vac supplies from a Gaugemaster M1 transformer. The middle socket takes a Gaugemaster Combi controller and the one of the left is a 0 - 12Vdc output used for testing track and powering up a rolling road.

Wow that's a proper job for changing points, love it.

[RJS1977]

Presumably then you're not using solenoid point motors...

[Donw]

I worked as a Cable jointer for some time. The largest cable was was a mere 4800 pair cable you tend to run out of colours. Colours were used to identify wires within a cable becuase if you had an intermediate joint you didn't know what connections had been made there. So end to end you would 'tap out' (prove the pairs). All the terminal blocks were labelled and the tags numbered. So as long as you knew that the right connections had been made it worked. The trouble with colourcoding is that you only need the wrong colour used in one place and the system falls down. You can use colour coding but you cannot trust it.

Don

[jamie92208]

As mentioned in one of my posts above here is what i called the 'Pin Chart ' that tacked wires across each board joint and from panel to board.

 

I hope it displays OK as It;s from an old programme and I;ve had to scan it as a jpeg.

 

Just for information. I used the term frog for any part of a set of pointwork that needed a switched feed, eg the K crossing in a crossover or a slip as well as what is usually referred to as a frog.

I certainly found it a very useful format that saved hours of problems.

 

 

Jamie

Edited April 19, 2012 by jamie92208

[andyfarmer]

Now in temporary storage due to potential house move....

All hand made by me, although had some on-line help and tips from fellow modellers. Left panel for 2 main track control and all 15 points, right panel for all 12v lighting plus a small shunting yard.

Not bad for my first attempt even if I say so myself

Edited April 25, 2012 by andyfarmer

[nickwood]

Much Murkle's panel is made out of an old biscuit tin. The track plan was drawn up using the MS Paint programme that comes with Windows and printed on glossy photo paper. Points are changed using a homemade stud and probe system. Power to the track circuits and point solenoids are taken via 25 pin D connectors. The red push buttons are elctromagnetic uncouplers.