Kensington Olympia in n scale

[acg5324]

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

ACG - makes sense to me. You could claim that board C is a separate section for the District Line...

Very true John......

 

I’ve just ordered some small D connectors for the DCC bus and points common jumpers. The jumpers recovered from Minty Colorado will be used on Olympia. There are just enough of the right number of wires to complete Olympia, pleased I removed them whole, still attached to the connecting blocks.

[grahame]

I just assumed that labelling one board 'BC' was reference to some sort of new fangled control system it was going to be installed with  or simply how old it was . . . . 

;-)

 

 

[PETER WISDOM]

ACG, re pubs you will be pleased to learn that one you built when Moses was still a lad, has been used in the urban bit of H3. Still looking good. Hope you and Debbie are well and isolated.

PJW(Brighton)

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, PETER WISDOM said:

ACG, re pubs you will be pleased to learn that one you built when Moses was still a lad, has been used in the urban bit of H3. Still looking good. Hope you and Debbie are well and isolated.

PJW(Brighton)

Good to see a post from you Mr Wiz. Is my turntable still in action? Is it still as noisy?

[acg5324]

10 hours ago, grahame said:

I just assumed that labelling one board 'BC' was reference to some sort of new fangled control system it was going to be installed with  or simply how old it was . . . . 

;-)

 

 

Definitely BC...before covid.......2014 I think I had the timber cut.

[acg5324]

9 hours ago, PETER WISDOM said:

ACG, re pubs you will be pleased to learn that one you built when Moses was still a lad, has been used in the urban bit of H3. Still looking good. Hope you and Debbie are well and isolated.

PJW(Brighton)

Hi Peter, the resin one? Nice to know it’s still going strong.

 

We are good, Debbie is still at work at the Village Post office, never been busier. ......... I’m furloughed.

 

Hope you and Dulcie are sitting this out OK too.

[acg5324]

Busy day today, two boards completely wired up including jumpers.....apart from the DCC bus and points common jumper. 

Managed to avoid the bird strike I had yesterday... big pile of birdsh** hit my back while wiring up on the patio table.

 

I have enough point motors to wire up a third board then I’m out. 

 

Back to buildings then.......

 

My trusty and some what rusty gaugemaster controller has been used to power test the motors and make sure the wiring is correct. Even managed to wire both sets of crossovers correctly first time.

Edited May 9, 2020 by acg5324

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, acg5324 said:

big pile of birdsh** hit my back

Did you buy a lottery ticket?

[acg5324]

5 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Did you buy a lottery ticket?

No...my only luck was another inch and it would have landed on my head!

[acg5324]

As I’ve started wiring the points with red and white wires, whilst there was plenty of white, the red was rapidly running out. I had 100m reel in my basket from an Internet supplier last night, but thought  I’d just check that I didn’t have any more. Just as well as I found an almost full 100m reel of red. 

 

Was having a look at custom made control panels last night......don’t think we will be going down that line on price alone.

 

Might have to make a trip to the boomerang shop (B and Q) soon for a sheet of coated ply, batten and a piano hinge.

[acg5324]

Diode Matrixes.....never made one before, is it best to fit them to the baseboard they will control or remote at the Control panel? Or is it just personal choice?

Edited May 10, 2020 by acg5324

[acg5324]

Whilst wiring up the third board today....and bar far the most complex,  11 point motors, I had one of those Oh Boll** moments. I was marking the point numbers next to each point to duplicate what was underneath the baseboard next to the motor.  One more point than I had fitted motors!  The error was that one point hadn’t had a hole drilled through for the motor. Fortunately it was one of what is a effectively a crossover pair which are quite a long way from each other. After removing some track the point was removed and the hole drilled.....which went through a point motor connecting block!

 

Anyway after a lot of grumbling it’s all sorted.

[acg5324]

Most of my PECO point motors are mounted on these aluminium plates which are much wide and longer than the PECO alternatives....and better in my view. Big shame they are no longer made.

https://anticsonline.uk/N425/N592/N767_point-motor-mercontrol-layout-wiring/1936664_Detail-Matters-SR1m-Underboard-Mounting-Plates.html

Edited May 11, 2020 by acg5324
Picture added

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, acg5324 said:

Diode Matrixes.....never made one before, is it best to fit them to the baseboard they will control or remote at the Control panel? Or is it just personal choice?

Personal choice really. I used to fit them to the baseboard as it was easier to find space.

[Steven B]

Unless you've got more points than routes, you'll have less wires coming from your control panel if the diode matrix is on the baseboard. Diodes are also inexpensive so you could have one matrix per board. Have a look at the point motors and diode matrix under the NGS YAG's DC fiddle yard next time we meet (if you can wait that long!)

 

Steven B.

[acg5324]

1 hour ago, Steven B said:

Unless you've got more points than routes, you'll have less wires coming from your control panel if the diode matrix is on the baseboard. Diodes are also inexpensive so you could have one matrix per board. Have a look at the point motors and diode matrix under the NGS YAG's DC fiddle yard next time we meet (if you can wait that long!)

 

Steven B.

I’ve got four kits, will probably only need three maybe only two! Off the top of my head I’ll have more points than routes available...and you guess correctly I probably can’t wait for the next NGS meeting. 

[St Enodoc]

9 hours ago, Steven B said:

Unless you've got more points than routes, you'll have less wires coming from your control panel if the diode matrix is on the baseboard. Diodes are also inexpensive so you could have one matrix per board. Have a look at the point motors and diode matrix under the NGS YAG's DC fiddle yard next time we meet (if you can wait that long!)

 

Steven B.

One point I didn't mention is if there are some routes which involve points on more than one board. That will affect the wire count and might tip the balance the other way if you're getting close to the capacity of a connector.

[St Enodoc]

7 hours ago, acg5324 said:

I’ll have more points than routes

If it's the other way round you probably don't need a diode matrix!

[acg5324]

This is the track plan for one board, road numbers and point numbers shown.

 

[grahame]

You've missed labelling the one between G and H.

;-)

 

 

[Ian Morgan]

It is probably too late to mention that if you installed a Layout Control Bus (LCB) such as Merg CBUS or OpenLCB, you would only require 6 wire connectors between your boards (DCC, 12VDC and CAN) and you would teach the LCB modules your route selection logic instead of setting up diode matrices. Modifying and adjusting your route logic would then be easier than adding and removing diodes. May be worth looking at for a future layout.

 

 

[acg5324]

2 hours ago, grahame said:

You've missed labelling the one between G and H.

;-)

 

 

So I have.......I will have to split this end of the fiddle yard with two matrixes. They only take 11 routes and I have 12. One for the Up Main and one for the Down Main.

[acg5324]

1 hour ago, Ian Morgan said:

It is probably too late to mention that if you installed a Layout Control Bus (LCB) such as Merg CBUS or OpenLCB, you would only require 6 wire connectors between your boards (DCC, 12VDC and CAN) and you would teach the LCB modules your route selection logic instead of setting up diode matrices. Modifying and adjusting your route logic would then be easier than adding and removing diodes. May be worth looking at for a future layout.

 

 

Thanks Ian, I almost know what you are talking about.......bit......well a lot of a DCC novice here.

[Ian Morgan]

Yes, it takes a bit of getting your head around, but no more so than figuring out diode matrices. The flexibility and reliability of an LCB is worth the effort though.

[acg5324]

Truth tables done......I’ve done it so that the points on the UM into siding E remain straight when a route is taken from the DM and vice versa. Not sure if that’s overkill.