regme

Hi

I created a timesaver layout and I'm trying to figure out start and end positions, from John Allen's Timesaver there are start and end positions shown, but I want to be able to change the start and end positions randomly. 

I was thinking of taking pictures of the wagons and making cards out of them.  Then I would shuffle the deck and place the cards on the start positions, then use a dice to determine the end positions or something along that idea.

I was wondering if anyone else has come up with a way of having different start and end positions.

Cheers

Hi AndyID

I'm running peco flexi track and Hornby track from a left over set and some old points (I'm not sure of the make).  I'm using rail joiners and droppers.

The layout is a time saver layout, it's about 1.8m long, it's not fixed so it lives against the wall when not in use.  At the moment it's just the tracks with no modelling on it (still thinking aout what industries to have on it).  I'm using the standard Hornby controller at the moment, but I was thinking of incorporating the controller as part of the layout and just pluging in the laptop power supply when it's in use.

There is some much to consider, you could almost have a university course on it

Those diagrams come from "Complete Book of Model Railway Electronics" - Roger Amos, I'll have a look for "Practical Electronics for Railway Modellers" as well.

Thanks for the advice, as they say you have to learn something new every day.

Also what was meant by "Unless a loco is sprung or compensated" does that involve some sort of modification to the locos to allow them to pick up the current better?

Cheers

I have found this

I was going to use a laptop power suppy 18.5V 3.5A to run it.

The other one was this

However the power supply required is a full wave rectified AC supply at 16 V DC.  I'm not sure on what I actual need as searching on this gave alot of different results.  I do have an old controller that has an 16V AC output but I don't know if it's a full wave rectified AC supply, or how to tell.

Thanks for that, the locos I have are the Atlas C424 phase 1,  I'll get onto more cleaning.

As for building my own controller, that sounds like a plan, hopefully I can find some step by step instructions, rather than just a circuit diagram.  I'm not electrical engineer.

Cheers

Hi

Every now and then I have to give my locos a nudge to get them going on my time saver layout.  There is no specific spot that this happens, the track has been cleaned.

I have been using the standard Hornby Controller R8250, I'm have thinking this might the issue, but I didn't want to right it off just yet.  I thought about putting in extra power feeds.

So if there are any ideas.

Cheers

Thanks so much, just what I was after.

Cheers

So this is how it would work (not my sketch)

In regard to the wiring, using the 10 pin reply, how would this go?  I have had a look at the data sheet for the 10 pin reply but I don'y really understand what I'm looking at.

Cheers

Thanks for all, I'll let you know how I get on

Cheers

Thanks for that.

My aim was to use a CDU (the advanced one built from Brian's site) with momentary switch(on-off-on) that also allows me to turn LED's on the control panel. 

So my understanding was that, I was going to wire the latching relay in parallel with the solenoid point motor the CDU would power the relay while the other side of the relay was power by a 12V supply to light up the LED's to indicate which way th point motor (either Hornby or peco) was thrown.

Sorry for the repeat, I just want to make sure I'm understanding this before I do something stupid.

More learning is required.

Hi

Due to my limited knowledge of electrical components can anyone tell me if these two relays are the same

https://www.rapidonline.com/zettler-electronics-az850p2-12-pcb-mount-relay-2-co-dpdt-59-5296?utm_source=AffWin&utm_medium=Affiliate&awc=1799_1497914314_22da667374dbcd3c0f89f866c89345db

http://au.rs-online.com/web/p/latching-relays/6995904/?origin=PSF_428012|alt

So from my understanding, this particular relay (rapidonline) I can use the CDU to power the coil side of the relay and the other side I can use to switch the colours of the LED's (with their own power supply)

Which leeads me to how to wire them up.

Cheers

thanks

It's a Hornby Trainmaster 12v 0.75amp DC, I have another transformer that is 1.5amp.

My DCC system in a NCE PowerCab.

Hi

I have this Hornby Inter-City 125 (DC) that I want to chip to DCC, however it's not running that well on DC is there anything I can do to make it run better? 

I runs ok by itself but when I put another loco on the track with the same power supply it slows right down to the point of stopping even if the controller is set to full.

Cheers