Brixington Town 2.0

[dale159]

This morning I have wired up and tested the two connectors I fitted for the Dynamis handset, all is good there.

 

I am now looking for a means of mounting the receiver at the back of the fiddle yard and two places to fit the extra Infra-red receivers from the Dynamis Pro at either end of the layout.

 

On a similar electrical note I am toying with the idea of replacing the 3 point detector boards boards under the control panel, instead working the lights on the panel with a micro switch fitted to the underside of each point, the drawback with this is it will be a lot of work and I will need to fit an extra connector or swap an existing connector for one with more wires across several board joints to give me enough wires to do this.

 

Another clear out of assorted clutter that has built up on the scenic side is required before I can hopefully get on and finish track laying.

 

Dale

Edited January 14, 2017 by dale159

[John ks]

Dale

Here is a circuit that only requires 1 wire to control the twin coil type point motor

 

The second wire is used for the indicator feed back

 

The third wire is the return that should be common to all point motors

 

This will not work with a Capacitor discharge system

 

I have not tried this circuit but i see no reason that it will not work Except!!

Because you are only getting Half wave DC to each coil there might  not be enough energy to switch the point

 

 

John

[dale159]

Time for another long overdue layout update.

 

Usual excuses I'm afraid - lack of time, mojo and unsure of direction, but I've been a busy boy today.

 

I decided in the week before Christmas that a catch point was required on the siding up by the cassette fiddle yard, so an SMP one was ordered.

 

My first go at SMP plastic kit building - not bad after i bit of advice from my friend Simon.

 

Cruel close up of my dodgy soldering - I actually managed to solder the left hand blade to the stock rail whilst trying to solder to the tie bar.

 

I also wasn't happy with the two main lines being held down with double sided carpet tape so today I took the up carefully peeled the tape off and pinned the tracks back down with drawing pins in line with the rest of this side of the layout, the plan being to ballast the track around the drawing pins before removing them and filling in any gaps left behind after removal.

 

I decided to extend the bay platform along the back wall from 3 car to 5 car the track for which was finally laid today.

 

Finally the last bit of cork to be glued down for the other engine spur siding, I had bought a second catch point to use here but I'm not going to use it as this track has tracks on both sides so in reality it should have a wide to gauge catch point or similar. The line it joins into the electric bay platforms is a low speed line as well so I'll say its not required.

 

Hopefully more progress soon.

 

Dale

 

 

[Memphis32]

This will not work with a Capacitor discharge system

 

I have not tried this circuit but i see no reason that it will not work Except!!

Because you are only getting Half wave DC to each coil there might not be enough energy to switch the point

 

reduced wiring.jpg

 

John

If you swap the left-most diodes and switches (diodes before switches) and put a reservoir cap between diodes and switches, you should be fine. Adds to the component count, but you may find suitable caps in old PC power supplies...

[dale159]

Little bit of a milestone achieved today.

 

One of those jobs I've been putting off for a while but today I was in the right mood so I got my head down and got on with it.

 

The dreaded job of soldering rails to screw heads and then cutting them across board joins. Unfortunately not all of my soldering is as pretty as these examples.

 

And this point has also finally been cut in 2, the nearest stock rail was cut quite a while ago as it also forms an isolating section.

 

At least now I am able to disassemble this side of the layout once again I will be able to bring each board in and wire them up in the comfort and warmth of the house!

 

Watch this space!

 

Dale

[dale159]

I've been ploughing into the electrics today.

 

I've kept the boards in the garage because, A. it wasn't that cold in the garage and, B. it was chucking it down outside.

 

First up an experiment from a few days ago that seems to have been a success

 

I borrowed my friend Simon's rivet gun with the idea of using rivets instead of screws on my cassettes - as I found the screw heads fouled the bogies on the MK3 coach i was using for testing.

 

And onto the electrics.

 

2 boards from nearest the door, fairly straightforward, just plain track no points to worry about at this stage. Bottom choc block in the first picture is 2 short sections of track and the 12v bus in from the liftout board.

 

And so the first point motor, positioning assisted with some out of the box thinking.

 

There was a slight problem encountered with the 3 way point, I fitted the right hand motor first (toe of the point under the red and black wires soldered to the fishplates) the motors were a bit close together so another engineering solution was required.

 

And here it is, prior to fitting, seems to have done the trick.

 

6 motors were installed reasonably quickly and easier than I was expecting after the first one.

 

 

More of the same tomorrow I suspect.

 

 

Dale

 

[John ks]

Dale

Here is an alternative way to mount Tortoises which I have used, you end up with a little more wiggle room

 

 

I and others have found that the actuating wire supplied with the tortoise is a little bit small, I replace mine with a slightly larger Diameter piano wire

 

I don't find it necessary to remove the over centre spring in Peco points

Advantage is when you hear the point click over you know it has changed

Disadvantage you don't get the prototypical slow movement of the point blades

 

Keep up the good work

Yours John

 

 

 

 

 

[dale159]

Dale

Here is an alternative way to mount Tortoises which I have used, you end up with a little more wiggle room

 

3way.jpg

 

I and others have found that the actuating wire supplied with the tortoise is a little bit small, I replace mine with a slightly larger Diameter piano wire

 

I don't find it necessary to remove the over centre spring in Peco points

Advantage is when you hear the point click over you know it has changed

Disadvantage you don't get the prototypical slow movement of the point blades

 

Keep up the good work

Yours John

 

John,

 

Unfortunately I couldn't turn the other motor around as those two track feed wires would be right in the middle of it!

 

Dale

[dale159]

More wiring today, just come in from the garage having been out there for 6-7 hours in total today.

 

Somehow I find myself 1 tortoise motor short so I have managed to obtain another one which will be collected tomorrow.

 

It looks like I might have to leave the overcentre springs in place on my double slip as access to them only seems to be from underneath which is a bit daft. Mine certainly isn't going anywhere with other points on 3 sides.

 

Working for the rest of the week now so unlikely to do any more before Sunday.

 

Dale

Edited February 7, 2017 by dale159

[dale159]

And so the wiring continues........

 

I have successfully managed to manipulate the double slip out and remove its over-centre springs for tortoise operation.

 

Only one (pretty rubbish) photo to show as I think there's enough of the underside of layout on here already!

 

Boards are crudely stood up on their sides and G-clamped to the legs in a similar idea to how I did the other side.

 

I have temporarily lashed up all the point wires to a row of chocolate blocks on the front of the layout so tomorrows job will be fitting switches and testing, and something similar with the track feeds after that.

 

I'll be needing to speak to my carpenter friend about another control panel soon but that could be a few weeks away.

 

Finally I think I have decided on a name for the layout but I think I'm going to keep it under wraps until I get a train running all the way around.

 

Dale

Edited February 14, 2017 by dale159

[dale159]

The Layout is starting to take shape now.

 

The day didn't get off to a brilliant start.

 

Less than half an hour in and my trusty wire strippers finally gave up, the adjustment mechanism broke several years ago but it never seemed to be a problem they just soldiered on until today.

 

I have completed the temporary wiring, I decided to screw a row of chocolate blocks on the bottom edge where the control panel will be, this means I will be able to test things with a meter or a power source of some sort easily.

 

And fully reassembled, I began testing by pushing a 101 centre car around whilst changing the points with a 12v supply.

 

Frontal view of all the chocolate blocks with orange and grey wires for changing the points.

 

Once again its back to work for the rest of the week now so no more progress until Sunday.

 

I currently have on order from various eBay sources some 9 and 15 way D-Sub breakout boards plus the appropriate ribbon cable to go with them as well as some 25 way D-Sub breakout boards for use on the control panel, the 25 way ribbon cable I still plenty of left over from the other control panel. All the breakout boards are coming from China which usually means a delivery time of about 3 weeks.

 

All that said I am hopeful of having a train moving under electric power by Sunday night, and depending on how that goes I might reveal the layouts chosen name.

 

Dale

Edited February 15, 2017 by dale159

[big T]

Hi Dale,

 

Sorry but this post is going to be one of those "how have I missed your thread" types.

 

I've loved reading the whole thread from start to today, and can't help but be impressed with your skills. Your wiring makes my head hurt just looking at it! 

 

Top job, can't wait for the next instalment!

 

Cheers

 

Trev

[dale159]

Here goes then.

 

I have cleared all the junk that was piled up on top of the fiddle yard with the anticipation of getting some trains running.

 

First up a few niggling faults to sort out

 

I found there was no continuity on the black wire of track 1, I found that a wire had come out of one of the molex connector blocks under one of the fiddle yard board joints so this was easily pushed back into position, I was also pleased that it wasn't in the most inaccessible place in the middle of the back wall.

 

I replaced a piece of Peco flexitrack on one of the fiddle yard road which had been damaged.

 

There are still a few issues with the points detection boards such as getting the status of the scissor crossings to display correctly, however this is not a pressing issue right now.  One board seems to be losing power intermittently.

 

I also found one rail end had come detached from its screw, this will be rectified in due course.

 

And now to the big reveal.

 

The name I have chosen for the layout is Brixington Town.

 

I chose the name simply because Brixington is the area to the north of Exmouth in which I live, for the purpose of the layout I have imagined Brixington to be a larger town in its own right possibly slightly further north than reality and as such the station provides in interchange with services between the Great Western main line and the Southern region with the 3rd rail extending considerably further west than reality into East Devon where the two different services to London depart in opposite directions in an arrangement similar to Exeter St Davids.

 

And with that the first test run on the outer track fell to 37025 -

 

After filming this I set a Network SouthEast 47/7 going the other way where I encountered a problem with the frog on one of the points.

So a small wire was bodged in, some further Investigation of the cause until a more aesthetically pleasing fix is made.

 

Then there was another problem

Anyone got a number for the RAIB?

With the 47 hauling some NSE Mk2s which weren't too keen on the scissor crossing, I found the back to backs on one coach to be a bit tight but correcting this didn't make a huge difference as the bogies were also quite tight to turn. The rake of 9 is a mix of very old Hornby Mk2a's and Lima Mk2b's.

 

The down main platform was found to be the perfect length for a 2+8 HST set with the rear of the train clear of the scissor crossing and allowing a train movement to use it if necessary.

 

Then I moved a few wires around on my temporary chocolate block control panel and filmed the first train to leave from the bay platform - 

Apologies for the slightly dodgy angle of this video!

 

And that was that, I didn't get anything running over the southern side of the layout as I ran out of time so that'll a job for next time.

 

Dale

 

Edited March 20, 2017 by dale159

[d winpenny]

Nice work. Good to get something running

 

David

[dale159]

I have spent several hours working on the layout yesterday and today trying to figure out some of the electrical issues that have been bugging me for a while now but unfortunately I haven't managed to crack any of them.

 

I decided to replace the 10 way ribbon cables I used across the narrow joints at either end of the layout and on the expansion boards as I thought they were a bit fragile just being held in with by the wires on chocolate blocks at each end.

 

The replacements are some 15 way breakout boards and just hiding at the bottom of shot going through the wiring hole are some 4 way automotive type connectors, these deal with the 4 track feeds, a further matching set has been installed in the expansion board, The breakout boards carry the point wires and 12v supply and leave me a few spare wires, I then use the short ribbon cable at home and the long one at exhibitions as only track feeds are needed on the expansion board, so far I've only done the door end as I ran out of the ribbon cable D connectors having broken one of the cable clips making it up, more are on order and so the back wall end will be similarly modified in due course.

 

Taking a bit of a break from electrical work this afternoon some Pway work was in order.

 

This has probably been like this for about 18 months now but I've never got round to doing anything about it until today

 

I was thinking I was going to have to take about 6 feet of track up just to repair but I realised I could unpin from the join and separate the tracks then sliding the broken sleepers out and sliding an equal number of replacements back on from a handy off-cut I found.

 

Good as new!

 

Then it was back to electrics.

There are two problems which may be interconnected but I don't know. The main one I've been scratching my head over today was the reset on the door end scissor crossing which as I'm sure I've spoken of before doesn't have the guts to return the points to the straight ahead positions, I've tried using a jump lead to take a feed from the points common wire under the control panel and jumping to just about every join in the wire between the panel and the points, I thought I had identified the problem as a bad connection in one of the ATX connectors having had it working with just a single jump lead bypassing that connection so I moved the wire to another spare terminal in another block but no still the same.

 

Another problem as I think I mentioned the other day is on my left hand point detection board flicking any one point switch, including the scissor reset which isn't even connected to the board, causes multiple point indications to move, I did discover that it doesn't do this when the lift out piece isn't connected (all bar 1 point controlled by this CDU and detection board are on the liftout piece). Again having consulted the detector board's instruction sheet I can't see anything amiss and the other 2 behave perfectly. I may end up stripping all the wires out for this detector board

and replacing them one by one to see if that can narrow it down a bit!

 

And one final thought,

It occurred to me it might be useful putting some casters on the bottoms of the chests of draws the number of times I keep having to drag them out to work underneath, and they don't ever seem to get any lighter!

 

Dale

 

[dale159]

Just a quick update, no photos.

 

I have been testing the remaining tracks on the 'Southern' side of the layout so a Southern region loco was used for the testing in the form of NSE 33114.

 

And for once I am very happy, there are just a couple of minor issues.

First up I had a short on the inside loop when the facing crossover was set, I found it was an error on my part because a feed from the control panel end to the corner board was feeding the back end of the point where I had put a dropper for the board join so when the point was thrown it caused the short, solution - cut the dropper wire

 

Then I found I have a point with a dead frog, I think this may be a manufacturing defect but the point is in such a position that I can't lift it out, only one of three parts of the frog gives a continuity.

 

On the two carriage sidings I have one dead section right up the end and I've managed to wire up the first section of each of the two carriage sidings back to front, not a problem as it only effects my temporary wiring lash up, I must have confused myself when I had the boards tipped up on their backs, again easy fix just swap 2 wires over.

 

And finally on the double slip I can't currently go straight across, I think I've got the two frog wires on the 2 motors the wrong way around so again a reasonably easy job to swap them over.

 

Hopefully a full days work on the layout on Thursday.

 

Dale

[dale159]

Another busy day working on the layout today.

 

First up some news of my scissor crossing panel lights - they now work!

 

And heres how it works.

 

I dealt with all electrical issues raised the other day.

 

My dead point frog has now been repaired and has a wire from each of the 3 parts of the frog which all join up underneath the board.

The dead section at the end of one of the carriage sidings appeared to be caused by dirty track as I worked today after being cleaned.

 

Then I cut some wood for the second control panel, for this on I am going to use 4 inch timber at the back and 3 inch for the front and sides, the second piece of 4 inch timber in this photo will be used to similarly modify the original panel, this is to protect the breakout boards I will be using which are deeper than the wood on the original panel.

 

I then set about modifying the electrical connections on the back expansion board similar to what I did with the lift out piece last week, again with a long and short ribbon cable for exhibition and home use.

 

Don't tell health and safety but this was the only way I could put these 2 boards together to make the short ribbon cable.

 

Having nailed some ply along the back of the right hand board it caused a slight problem lining up the 2 boards, might have to cut that shelving upright out somehow.

 

I had a very quick test run with the 33 again and I discovered that something I have done which setting up the scissor crossing lights I have upset something else on the detection board so none of it's other points are currently working - to be investigated.

 

Dale

Edited March 2, 2017 by dale159

[dale159]

Quick update from this morning just one picture.

 

Good news I found the cause of my points not working from Thursday.

 

D'oh! Now rectified and all points working again.

 

I then set about making up the scissor crossing light circuit for the other crossing, However it isn't up and running yet due to existing problems with some sort of back-feed on that detection board.

I thought I had solved it when I put my multi meter on the push to make switch, I feared that when making the connections to it I had damaged its internals with the heat from the soldering iron so I swapped for a spare switch but it turned out not to be that, so tomorrow I will upend the fiddle yard side and see if I can solve it, I believe that this problem is interlinked with the weak scissor crossing reset somewhere.

 

Dale

[Anthony566]

Well done with the fault finding

[dale159]

Well done with the fault finding

I had the fiddle yard turned up onto its back on Sunday but I wasn't able to cure any of the issues on there. I think one of the problems is the 24 way ATX connectors I have used, while the 20 way ones seem to be OK on the 24 way ones the wire inside is very thin despite the deceptively think insulation also what hasn't helped is that when wiring that side of the layout I didn't tin very many wires when striping them to be screwed into terminal blocks.

 

Hopeful of a cure without a major rewire I have ordered on eBay another pair of 24 way ATX connectors from a different supplier which I hope will have much thicker gauge wire and give a better connection, if so then I will buy another 2 pairs to replace the the other 24 way connectors currently on the layout although touch wood they haven't given me any trouble.

 

I will report back when I have fitted them either Friday or Sunday.

 

Dale

Edited March 13, 2017 by dale159

[dale159]

Another quick update.

 

The pair of 24 way ATX connectors have arrived and I have established that this type has much thicker gauge wire than those currently on the layout, I have ordered a further 2 pairs and when these are delivered I will set about fitting them all to the layout.

 

Today I have been working on the cassettes in the EMU fiddle yard.

 

Using 30mm lengths of flat Aluminium I have created a system that makes the cassettes essentially plug and play.

Whilst I have fitted both of the interfaces with the layout so far only one of my two 5 foot cassettes, top of picture, has been fitted. All cassettes will be fitted at both ends so in theory I should be able to tag some of the shorter cassettes together if needs be for example to run a loco around a train.

 

I am also changing the screws I'm using on the cassettes as the mk3 coach I was testing with fouled each screw head and jumped over the top of each one, the new screws are a bit longer which is a pain because they stick out the bottom of the wood so I will have to grind the point off each one.

 

I'm on annual leave this week so hopefully I might get a bit more done and maybe have some time to play trains!

 

 

Dale

[dale159]

Quick update from today.

 

I've been looking at the underside of the fiddle yard again so I'm afraid there's nothing really worth photographing.

 

I swapped all of the 24 way ATX connectors over and hey presto the Scissor crossing resets fantastically just like the other one.

 

I have to make a choice with the staight ahead indicator lights for the scissors crossings on the control panel as the 12v LEDs at one end don't light even though I'm getting 12 volts out of the transistor and the 3v LEDs used on the other end are noticeably dimmer than all the other LEDs, but if that's the only issue I've got to complain about then I'm not doing too badly!

 

I have also started running extra wires from the transformer which will eventually allow me to plug in a hand held controller to either panel with a DIN socket.

 

One other thing to moan about is that I broke a rail end off one of the screw whlist wrestling everything back together this evening, again an easy 5 minute job to fix (4&1/2 of which is waiting for the soldering iron to warm up!)

 

Maybe some testing and playing trains tomorrow.

 

Dale

Edited March 13, 2017 by dale159

[dale159]

Quick summary of things I've been up to since the last update,

 

I haven't been playing trains as I suspected I might do, instead I have carried on wiring.

 

I have knocked up this temporary control panel with some off cuts of wood and ply I had lurking behind the layout, Its nearly finished just 44 more wires to install (22 red and 22 black from each of the 11 double pole double throw section switches to 2 controllers, same principal used when I built the fiddle yard.

 

View of the underside, whilst I originally thought this was a lot of work for something temporary but then I figured that hopefully most of it I will be able to transfer straight into its permanent replacement with the height of any work being to extend a couple of wires with the permanent panel being another 18 inches or so longer.

 

The two DIN sockets bottom left of the panel should enable me to plug a handheld controller in on either the fiddle yard side or station side, but I am yet to test this.

 

I am hopeful of the next train running tomorrow afternoon!

 

Dale

[dale159]

I've been playing trains!

 

All filmed on my phone on a selfie stick G-clamped to the side of the layout!

 

 

I am still getting used to the control panels and I still find myself running trains into dead sections or against wrong points due to not double checking the route before driving off! Early testing has highlighted a few further issues as said before some track/board alignment and general track filth which is fairly easily sorted but I do need to go out and buy myself a new track rubber of two.

 

I thought I had major problems when I tried to drive from one off the two din sockets under the temporary panel as when I selected the controller direction the Loco took off at speed despite me having the having the dial at zero, turns out when fitting one of the ATX connectors I had transposed two wires which meant one wire from the transformer was getting into the track feed via the wrong side of the hand held controller.

 

There are further issues with the dome headed screws on my cassettes as I first found out with 37410 which has snowploughs and of course these caught on the screw heads then I tried my Blue

Grey Hornby VEP and even worse its third rail pick up shoes catch on the screw heads, its also the same situation with Hornby/Lima 73s so I looks like I'm going to have to go over to countersunk screws.

 

Other than that all is well and I'm very pleased with what I have achieved in this last week or so.

 

Dale

[d winpenny]

Coming along well great video

 

David