John ks

Edward Sorry it's all a bit longwinded but my question is I thought the IP motor would automatically choose which side to make live. ?​ You have to determine which track feed goes to which terminal on the cobalt This will change depending which way the cobalt faces The 2 drawings on the LHS show the cobalts facing in different directions. The top example shows red going to term A whereas in the bottom example the red goes to Term B ( Term A & B refer to term 1 & 2 on the cobalt but I am not sure if A to 1 & B to 2 or A to 2 & B to 1) It doesn't seem to be mentioned in the manual. So is there a proper rule to say which way round the feeds should go? Short answer Maybe Longer answer, looking at the point from the blade end, left rail is A & right rail is B & the point motor mounted as shown in the top drawing then A should go to the same terminal every time(I'm not sure which) If the cobalt is mounted as in the bottom drawing then A goes to the opposite terminal To test if the cobalt is wired correctly refer to the drawings on the RHS As for the 3 way point & the NCE I don't know either well enough to help Hope this helps John

I work better with images so I have added extra feeds as recommended in previous posts You could reconnect your droppers to 3 power buses (DCC for blocks) All droppers marked 1 go to the first power bus, all droppers marked 2 to a second power bus , etc. These 3 buses are connecter to a terminal strip or 3 switches This makes fault-finding a little easier. If there are more than 1 faulty power district you may have to go through the fault finding procedure more than once hope this helps John

you asked for "or any 4 axle diesel / electric" This is a diesel-electric & at the time the photo was taken it only had 4 axles. If this doesn't for fill the requirements then this should Next Something from Canada Edit While I was scanning these I was beaten So its Now, how about a Birmingham Cross City line service since opening?

The close up is not a slip but I believe it shows the construction of the frog rails Notice the tiny gap between the 2 rails that make up the frog, they may not be touching each other & rely on a welded jumper for electrical continuity. I seem to recall someone else was having a similar problem and it turned out to be a faulty link under the frog The dropper wire should be welded to both frog rails, if one of these welds fails & the 2 frog rails are not touching then only one of the two frog rails will not get power Test with a lamp from a to b & from a to c. The lamp should light up both times If it only lights up on one of the two tests the dropper wire has a failed weld A quick & dirty fix would be to jam a small piece of wire between the frog rails were they meet( near the c & b in the close-up) A better fix would requiring soldering the 2 frog rails together, but you run the risk of melting the plastic around the frog ​If the slip is new then you should considering returning it Hope this helps John

Edit sorry I got my real mixed with my models John Had another look and found this one Next -- Another blue engine, but not a diesel or electric

I can see a couple of things that could be changed to improve this xing Note 1 :- I would liked to see the length of the unifrog increased which would increase the gap between the two frog rails I sometimes have shorts on insulfrogs when the wheel bridges the gap between the 2 frog rails (more noticeable on DCC) If this happening with the unifrog then it negates some of the advantages. A quick fix is to paint a little clear nail polish on the metal rails of the frog(the light blue area) This effectively increases the length of the insulfrog Apart from these quibbles I wouldn't hesitate to use unifrogs John

The following turns Johnb & 66c's words to pictures johnb said "If you are using DCC then switching the feeds is not essential." I agree that they are not essential but I would leave them in on DCC as they can help with fault finding John

You may be able to mount the PM13 something like this You could use double-sided tape between the seep & the PM 13 Don't over tighten the screws holding the seep to the baseboard or you could damage the seep I had a look at some prices. If you have already got the seeps them the rest of what I have to say is to late. Seep + PM13 about £7.00 Seep + Gaugemaster about £9.50 Cobalt about £18.00 Tortise about £18.00 .The first UK shop I found on the web is here My personal preference is the Tortise (the Cobalt is a smaller almost copy of the tortoise) Some advantages are The Tortise & Cobalt have 2 sets of contacts, one set can be used for Frog switching & the other set for control panel indicators or signals etc They can be controlled by a DPDT switch rather than 2 push buttons or a passing contact switch hope this helps John

Is this full enough can you spot the ring ins. Next something you consider unusual John

96701 works for me John

I hope these count A shell on temporary bogies An interior wit some wiring & piping An almost complete loco I worked at Comeng in Brisbane for 3 years wiring these QR 3'6" gauge 25KV Electric locos They are used to transport coal from mines to the port Next how about a model you own & its prototype John

Roy You weren't dreaming & you are about as mad as the rest of us who play trains model railways With a bit of luck my 71 is on a plane heading in my general direction. John

Spikey Strewth, John, thank you for taking the trouble to do that! It keeps me off the streets I can see how that will work, but would I need a regulated 12v DC supply for the relay? NO All I have is the usual unregulated "12 volt" ...​As long as it is 12V DC nominal ETA - I'm filled with foreboding. Don't Be I've just tried to find out how much tolerance there might be on the supply voltage to a 12v relay and failed,​Relays are generally robust & can tolerate a small overvoltage and in so doing realised that in any case I'm out of my depth when it comes to ordering the right part for the job ​I looked on Maplins site & found N08AW relay & N96ED base for about £9.00 which would be suitable & the relay plugs into base which has screw terminals, so no soldering. If you want to you can use spade connectors & push them directly onto the relay and save the cost of the base or N18AW which will require soldering wires to the relay There are lots of alternatives like this one ​from china for a few Quid John

This may not be exactly what you were asking for but it should do the job "s" & "c" (straight & curved) in the diagram refer to the point motor coils I have checked the diagram & it should work as drawn but If both frogs are the wrong polarity then connect the relay to the opposite set of contacts on the seep If one frog is correct the change the track feeds from that point to the relay The relay is a 12V DC 2 pole change over type(DPDT) I Don't think the Gaugemaster GM500 relay will be suitable for this solution I have wired each frog to its own point Via separate poles on the relay so that the 2 tracks can be on different blocks John Edit the points must have the point blades insulated from the frog

Erik84750 asked How do you control your DCC trains? Do you use some sort of train controller PC program? JMRI? What type of command station (DCC++, ..)? I use Digitrax with Digitrax boosters. The train controller is me. I have JMRI but rarely turn it on now . I do have 1 loop of track with detection to control signals on that loop. Detection uses the voltage drop across diodes to feed an optoisolator, the output of the optoisolator is connected to a micro controller running MM Basic (All those years sitting in front of a VIC20 finally paid off) The microcontroller takes car of interlocking signals to points & train movement John

Erik84750 asked I think I do not fully understand: 1. why would an anti-clockwise loco stop over the detector? Indeed in doing so the phase will be wrong for an incoming train entering over the non-detected isolation gap. 2. If you need a detector to indicate whether a train is present I would introduce a sparate detector. The first train into the loop goes to far & stops over the a detector because the driver is not paying attention or doesn't know where to stop (driver error) Like I said it is a trivial point but mistakes can happen John

Don't forget that CV 29 has to be set to indicate that you are using a long address In my first MTH HO diesels I couldn't change the part of CV29 that allows the loco would go backwards when given a forward instruction John

For classic loops & Y's where the third leg connects to no other part of the layout I would use a point operated switch to control the polarity/phase This may be a trivial point but if a short train going anti clockwise in the loop stops over the detector, waiting for a second train to clear the point then the phase will be wrong for the next train entering the loop. The easy fix would be to have a sign or signal to indicate where to stop Other wise this seems to be a very elegant solution It should also be possible to use these detectors to switch the polarity of frogs in electro frog crossings John

Are the motor brushes isolated from the track wires if for example the right rail (red wire) is bridged to the motor + (orange wire NMRA standard) the loco will work on DC but when the DC plug is removed & a DCC chip is fitted there is a short between the rail & the output of the decoder & the magic smoke escapes Ask me how I know There may be solder bridging tracks on the circuit board or the uninsulated end of a wire touching somewhere it shouldn't John

I see no point to this turnout debate Paster John Church of the bull-headed frogs

Yes If you want to know more goto here Permanent Way, Signalling & Infrastructure Unusual PW configurations thread both real and model. Post 259 John ​edit to add link

Does it have to be a railway tunnel Off topic, can you ID the car the photo was taken from? There are 2 Tunnels in the background Next A picture you took outside your home country, should have something train related

Have you considered running a larger cable to supply 12V to the far end of your layout A 1mm or 1.2mm cable will have a lot less resistance than the wires in the ribbon cable & should overcome any voltage drop problems without the hassles of batteries The resistance of a cable is determined by the cross sectional area, the length & the type of conductor. A long small cable will have more resistance than a larger cable & the more resistance in the cable the more voltage lost in the cable hope this helps John

Looking at Peco's turnout templates it looks like both point blades are joined electrically to the frog When the point is straight both point blades are the same polarity, as shown below I suspect that the point blades are slightly out of sinc with the switch in the cobalt Because the movement required to move a N Scale point blades is very small it is possible for the blade to move to from straight to curved before the switch in the cobalt has changed If this is the case then some very fine adjustment of the position of the cobalt will be required Hope this helps John

I have 2 71's on order 0071-101 from DJM & 0071-002HAT from Hatton's & I have been tossing up weather to get sound for them This offer make sound more attractive for me Does this offer apply to the Hatton's model as well As I am half a world away from most 71 buyers I don't expect to see my 71's for at least 4 weeks Do I have to wait until I get the models to send the first page copy or is there another way around this John