John ks

These are engines & they are in a big shed This is in QR's Ipswich Workshop where they look after the Heritage Fleet The tender belongs to the little loco on the RHS of the bottom pic The cab in the background belongs to a Garrett John

I have never done this or know if it will work but is seems that it should, if anybody knows differently then please correct me The outputs of the microcontroller must be able to source or sink current With output 1 high & output 2 low current should flow from out1 High to out2 Low via the top half of the LED With output 2 high & output 1 low current should flow from out2 High to out1 Low via the lower half of the LED If you feed a Bi-colour LED with AC then you will get orange/yellow Tweak the values of resistors1 & 2 to get the best colour John

You maybe able to still use the original motor plate If you follow the PCB track to the brush there is what looks likes a SMD( surface mounted device) capacitor "here" that you could connect the orange wire to. Or if that looks to small then "or here" ​ may be a slightly easier place.(from the picture the "or here" place looks to be connected to the motor brush) It may also be possible to solder directly to the top of the brush retainer "or maybe here"​ . Another possibility is to scrape the green coating off the PCB track from between the damaged area & the brush "scrape here" & solder to there John

If I remember correctly it was during 1986,1987 & 1988 that I worked at Comeng Here is another pic of "my" 1043, "your" 1043 appears to have a major rebuild around the cab, destination board & there also looks to be more equipment on the roof It sometimes amazes me what turns up on here & I have learnt a little more about the trams light rail vehicles (sorry but they will always be trams to me) that I worked on at Comeng Comeng was short for Commonwealth Engineering & often called as comical engineering John

SVRlad As I write this there is still about 30minute till midday GMT so there is still time for more wilderness But as always the poster decides what is next Thanks to all who kept my wild idea going John

During the 3 years I worked at Comeng we also assembled trams(light rail if you prefer) destined for Kowloon–Canton Railway in Hong Kong These were made under subcontract to Comeng in Victoria I found it quite amazing that we in Oz made these trams that were destined for China Behind the tram is one of the buildings where the 25Kv electrics were Fitted out and tested There is a traverser behind the tram & the transformer near it fed the 25Kv OH for the test track The track the tram is on was made from about 50mm square steel with tags welded to it & bolted to the concrete The trams are standard gauge & the third rail is 3'6" John Keep the wild things coming

These are the last 6 locos(ever) to come out of Comeng Brisbane factory They are a 25 KV electric loco With a Tri-Bo Wheel arrangement on 3'6" Gauge the pics were taken on the last day I worked at Comeng & the locos are waiting to be taken to Jilalan ,South of Mackay where they went into service hauling coal from the mines to Hay point The locos at 3281 3284 3282 3283 3285 & 3286 These are a close up of the furthest three in the top pic & may help to see the numbers The Wagon between 3284 & 3282 is a ELRC(electric loco remote control) & if I remember correctly there was 2 locos at the front & 3 in the middle of the train The lead loco has locotrol equipment & communicates by radio to the ELRC which is connected to the 3 mid train locos by mu connections I have other pictures of these locos that I checked to make sure of the numbers John Next How about Wild cards until midday Thursday 31-8-17 GMT Or if you have more than 6 locos, wagons etc. with consecutive numbers then you chose what is next

I agree with Dutch_Master ​If you follow the PCB ( Printed Circuit Board) tracks on the motor you will see that the RH brush goes to the top track(this is where the orange wire should go) & the LH brush goes to the second top track where the grey wire is connected I have highlighted the 2 tracks that go to the motor brushes ​One thing I would do is clean up is the solder dag between the 3rd & 4th tracks. ​When you resolder the motor wires to the PCB make sure you don't have any solder bridges between these PCB tracks & any other PCB track. John

The transformers​ DC power supplies must be wired in series as shown in the top part of the drawing the positive(+) of one transformer ​ DC​ power supplies must be connected to the negative (-) of the other transformer​ DC​ power supplies & that becomes common wire to all of your tortoises If you have connected as per the bottom drawing then the tortoise wont work (it might work the first time you turn on the power but only the one time) I have always used the equivalent of 2 by 12V transformers ​ DC​ power supplies & am not sure how well the tortoises work on 6V John Edited to appease the pedantic

The dotted lines indicate the mechanical connection between the point blades and the switch.(IE when the blades move so does the switch) The diagram only indicates the switching for the frog The point motor or its wiring is not shown in Miss Prism's diagrams John Edit If you look here you will find images of PL10 & PL13 that may be of help, here is an image of a PL10 &PL13 mounted under a layout black & yellow wires are for the point motor & The green blue & red wires are for the accessory Switch

The Batman wouldn't make these mistakes, I thought that Superman would see right through them John

Your picture looks right to me (One last thing!! I’ve see things labelled like “FROG POLARITY SWITCH”, is that just a fancy name for a point motor?) NO, the PL13 Acccessory switch is used as the as the “FROG POLARITY SWITCH”,& it clips onto the bottom of the point motor The PL10 is the point motor & it does the hard work of moving the point blades & acccessory switch if fitted If you were cliping thre point motor directly to the point then you wont need the PL9 But as you are remotely mounting the points then you will need the PL9 However, several places where I’ve been reading have involved the power feed for the point Motors coming from the main bus for the track. Is this right? The power feed for the point motors may come from the DCC bus if you are using Stationary decoders to drive your point motors Because you will be using switches & a CDU to control the point motors you will need 16V AC power for them(or whatever the CDU manual specifies ) I assumed that the motors and other accessories (signals, lighting etc) would have their own feed / bus? YES ​​John

I Have Digitrax which has 2 control throttles on each handset I have done what you suggest but by my self & it works fine I see no problem with 2 (skilled) drivers (each with their own throttle) I have read elsewhere on this forum of at least one other doing the same, if I remember correctly he was using 2 NCE throttles John

With regard to the Cab & Control Busses I am not sure I have Digitrax and there is one bus for control/ cabs ( called LocoNet by Digitrax ) You start at the command station & radiate out from there to UTP's, Boosters , Computer interfaces Etc If you look Here there are pdf's that may be of help I just looked there myself & believe that this is how NCE wire their Control & cab busses The previous post was drawn with my knowledge of Digitrax The tees to the boosters & UTP were to show the concept rather than the actual connections EG the tees to the UTP's & boosters should be a loop in loop out arrangement Hope this clarifies things a bit John

I arrive in London August October 7,plan to be on a train to Coventry first thing Sunday Might see you or some fellow APT-E owners there John Edit must have had a seniors moment

If my memory serves me then there is 1 decoder in one of the power units(might be PC1) & that is all that is needed to be put on the programing track(a factory fitter sound APT-E may have to be programed on the main, depending on the DCC system) It can be programed on the main if the DCC system supports it John

If your layout is basically an oval the there is little need to run Power, control or cab busses across the lift bridge You could supply the boosters from individual Mains transformers but this means there could be several power points,scattered around the room that have to be switched on every time you power up the layout If you put all your mains transformers for the layout in one location then I would use at least 2.5mm cable from the mains transformers to the Command Station/ boosters I haven't shown the power in wiring for the Command Station/ boosters The drawing shows a basic way to run the busses John

These are fairly harmless But to have one of these roaming your home John

Looks like while i was wrighting the last post you got it sorted Although the buzzing sound is a bit disconcerting The R LED- & I LED- are control lines from the decoder, the decoder effectively connects its function output to (-) Looks like what you have done is connect that control line to the DCC which could be very bad Provided that you haven't cooked any components on the main PCB then reconnecting as shown in the previous post should make the buzzing go away John

Turns out I have a 4 CEP So I did an exploratory operation It looks like with this coach one wire (R LED-) goes straight through and is for the Headboard The other wire for the interior lights has a branch on the PCB(printed circuit board) to control the lights in the coach If my boards are the same as yours then:- To link the top and bottom boards you only need 2 wires one from either VCC2 on the bottom to any VDD2 on the top board Same with the GND 2 wire If you want the coach lights on all the time then connect as per the top drawing The orange wire is soldered to a GND connection which could be CND2 or if you feel confident to scrape the green off the circuit board and solder to there( see enlarged drawing) Most of the circuit board is at GND potential, only the tracks aren't If you would like the interior lights to work the same as the rest of the set then the bottom diagram should work You will need an extra diode wired to diode D19 on the PCB as shown As the components on this PCB are mostly SMDs(Surface Mounted Devices) soldering to them can be very fiddley Hope this makes all makes sense ​John

As a rule I put insulated joiners on both Frog rails of all electrofrog points Not sure about the slip but insulated joiners on all 4 frog rails should work You will also need feeds on both tracks of the passing loop above the slip If all the blue feeds are to both rails then except for the passing loops you should be OK John

There may be a flaw in your plan If the frog is completely isolated from the rest of the point then the indications will only change when a loco enters the frog & trips the DCC80 If the frog is still connected to the point rails then the DCC80 should change the Phase (AC for polarity) of the frog as soon as the point blade touches its running rail & the indicator will change, except if the contact between the point blade its running rail is bad then the indicator will not change until a loco enters the point I don't think you would be able to use the separate DC supply to power the indicators, but I see no problem getting the LED from any where on the DCC bus If you use a bright LED & experiment with the value of the resistor till you get your LED Just bright enough to suit you Then the value of the resistor may be any where from 1K ohm to 5K ohm or higher With a 1K2 (1.2K ohm) the max current draw at 12V is 10mA so 32 Leds would draw 320mA If you use 5K resistors then the current drops to less than 100mA With a DCC voltage of 18 then the current draw will be about 50% higher If you have a basic DCC system(only good for 1 or 2 amps) then current will be a considerable portion of its output, if the DCC system has Multiple 5A boosters the there should be no problem powering the LEDs If you have multiple DCC boosters then the LEDs should be on the same DCC bus as the point It may not be necessary but I would consider putting a diode in series with each LED You have effectively got AC across the LED & the LED may fail prematurely, the diode should help prevent this Hope this helps John

This link might give you some insight & the pit falls of installing The Express Model Lights Hope this helps a little John Edit Read the whole thread, its only about 10 posts

Do the wires from the couplings only go from one coupling to the other, IE there is no connection to any circuit board in the centre unit If this is the case then I am also at a loss why the trailing coach misbehaves, unless one of the coupling bars is not making correct contact. From your description of the headboard/interior lights operation I now think the trailing unit may be wired like the new drawing(I have included this as a reference, the circuit board in this unit May be more complicate than shown. you should not have to alter the wiring in the trailing unit) If the Lights are LEDs (which I think they are) then there will be resistors in series with the LEDs For the centre unit interior lights to work the same as the trailing unit the wiring would have to be configured as shown Remembering that LEDs will need resistors in series ​You may be able to reconfigure the circuit board in the centre unit to work But without knowing this board I cant be sure how John

Does the lead unit work properly by itself Does the trailing unit still work correctly when connected to the lead unit? Do these units use the coupling bar that has 2 conductors in it? Does the trailing lighting consist of interior lights & a directional light for either a headlight or route indicator panel head code When you say you wired the centre unit straight through is the interior light wiring completely separate from the straight through wiring. I.E. Have you wired the centre unit like the bottom drawing (#2), If it is wired like this then the lights in the centre unit would always be on(depending on the track voltage) I think the wiring in Bachmann is done like I have indicated in drawing #1 The 2 diodes give you the decoder common so that the 2 functions have a path to complete the circuit The actual circuit may be more complicated so that the lights work on DC & DCC I am not sure if this may be any help but with out being able to see them in person this is the best I can do. Pictures of the circuit boards in the centre & trailing units may help John