Vecchio

Now this thread will slow down - as I am still laying track - now on the 3rd of 4 modules - and I am still wiring - which will take some time. But on the first module I am a bit further. While servos are installed they need to be tested and the endpoints need to be set. To do so I need the controller fixed to the board. The controller will be of course below the board - so how on earth to do the setup? But one after the other. I had an idea how to install the controller in an easy way which allows access to the connectors with only opening a few screws but otherwise keeps the controller and the connections safe and relatively dust free. I made a box with a small spruce frame and a 3mm poplar ply bottom - covered by transparent plastic. The size of the box depends on what's in it, in this case I have a 4 relay module next to the megapoints controller as I need to switch some light signals. Also it is advisable to leave enough room to stick on the switch panel for testing (as in the photo) DSC03183 The cuttings on the top are for the organisation of the flat cables which go to the servos. As there is a relay module it is necessary to pack also a voltage regulator in it as the internal voltage regulator on the megapoints controller is not powerful enough for the current peaks coming from the relay coils. The regulator is glued at the top left corner in the box. DSC03187 When you need to configure the controller to communicate with the relay card be sure you have no problems with light flashes... the channel you are on at the moment is indicated by a number of light flashed by the red led (as there are 12 channels you may count up to 12 flashes to be sure you are at the right channel) and the number of flashes of the yellow led will indicate you the mode you have selected for the particular channel. When 2 leds are flashing next to each other it is for me almost impossible to count the number of flashes. So a work around is to cover the red led with something like black insulation tape when you have to count the flashes of the yellow one... And now to the set-up. The end position of the servos has to be set by switches which are on the megapoints controller board which is now under the baseboard. Thanks god there are pins for remote switches. But such a little device is not on the webpage and Dave wrote it can be easily made by the user. OK, the user made one. It works - but as you cannot see the leds of the megapoints controller which are happily flashing under the board you have to be sure which point you are on... 20160222_215502 . .

Here you see the board with the Lenz power supply and Lenz control unit as well as the DC power unit (power for the megapoints controller) attached. A few holes show where the points are on the other side as well as a few wires for frog polarity IMGP5345 Now it is time to look at the servo control. First I made a test board to play a bit with the system. DSC03023 It does what it says on the tin. click on the picture to open the video. The noise in the background is the fan of the power supply. 20160223214706 So it is time to start industrial production... Those are the aluminium profiles to hold the servos. DSC03030 On the other side of the board track is being laid. I lay everything on 3mm cork, coming from cork floor tiles. A lot of cutting and shaping but it keeps the hobby in budget. I use the locomotive (in this case a DMU) with the longest wheelbase to understand where to cut the track. I am making a dead section next to the point, so that a train cannot produce a short circuit by going over a wrong set point. IMGP5343 .

Now it is time thinking about some basic electric connections. OK, the layout will work with DCC, so we have only 2 wires... with is of course not correct. I will need DC power on all boards (2), the DCC track signal (2), the bus cable for the Megapoints system (3) so we are already at 7 wires. After that - every signal or point which is supplied from a controller which is not on the same board needs 3 wires (ok, here we can save a bit as 2 are supply and one is signal). And from past experience I know that I always run out of cross board connections. So I invest in 37 pin D-sub connectors for all 4 boards. When I say invest - the actual investment is limited, they are cheap. As soldering wires to the connectors is a nightmare I need some solution which is more useful for old, long sighted men. DSC02940 I use a strip of PCB where I solder the connection wires which go to the actual connector. This gives me much more space to solder more wires to a certain pole later. DSC02942 For some high current connections I use 2 pins - this gives me more security. Now the jumper cables which later connect the boards are being produced. DSC02973 All jumper cables are wired exactly equal, so I do not have to think which goes where. To be sure the wiring is correct I test every cable for continuity and insulation resistance. This may take a while but I want to be sure that my precious electronic boards will not die by wrong wiring. DSC02974 Finally this is how the boards look like from below now, the DC supply and the DCC signal are already wired. . Now you have seen the first 3 month of work on the layout.

After having a plan we need a baseboard. Having done this before I have an idea what I want. Living in Italy before spoiled me with poplar ply, which was cheap as chips and the standard plywood in the DIY shops. A much friendlier ply than what you get here and probably half the specific weight. So the idea was born to use poplar ply here as well. OK, but where to find it? If you need a dozen of sheets (sheet size 1200 x 2400mm...) you can have it tomorrow. But as I am not running a sheet wood trade I had to look somewhere else. And finally found it at SLEC - who is probably well known to someone who ever tried to make a model aeroplane. Problem is they have only 6mm, 9mm would have been ideal. Means more cross braces to avoid bending. Here we go, one of the centre boards is under construction. cross bars for stability by Gerhard Novak. How to connect the boards? Here I go for my home made dowels, they fit as good as accurate I am working. Some may say it is an overkill to make these parts yourself, but as I have a lathe (since 1981...) I have to use it. producing the dowels 1 by Gerhard Novak and the holes to fix them to the baseboard sides. dowels - rear flange with fixing holes by Gerhard Novak baseboard sides drilled together to ensure the best fit. drilling baseboard sides by Gerhard Novak and finally in position. dowel male part by Gerhard Novak. My old layout used a-frames as legs - also those are as cheap as chips in Italy. One wooden A-frame 4 Euro. (Checked last June when I was in holiday - unfortunately the suitcase was too small....) This time I go for fold in legs. Look the bit, and are height adjustable. cross brace by Gerhard Novak I milled out the legs so the cross bars can fold away too. Also the middle boards have a temporary leg, so if I want to work in my shed it is not necessary to put all up. Here the temporary leg in position.the provisional leg in position by Gerhard Novak So far so good. In the meantime I made some bad experience. As elegant the legs are, once folded in they are in the way! On one of my middle modules I cannot position 2 of the point motor servos where they should be as the leg is in the way.... ok, we always learn... And then came the late idea to make some sidings on the non-scenic part and I needed to extend the boards... Now the silly legs where in the wrong position again.... But one after the other. Here we see the 2 middle baseboards in position, connected with the usual adjustable spanner from wixroyd. part assembly by Gerhard Novak. Will be continued. .

I didn't use ramps but had a functional catenary - or in this case rather contact wire in the tunnel. In the hidden part of the large module (complete circle with sidings under the baseboard) I used the Kleinbahn catenary system - I swapped some H0e stuff with a friend and got all his Kleinbahn stuff including all the catenary system. This was punched from flat copper - very stable, not nice to see but ideal for the tunnel. And in the picture below you see what was used in the return loop of my old lay-out. The black devices on top of the wooden cross bars next to the contact wire are not screws but photo cells to detect the train position. Why? You enter the tunnel - after that is a point and a hidden siding which allows you to change train in the tunnel. This works only when you know where you are. Today I would use a video camera as they went small and cheap, 10 years ago I made an array of photo cells and led's which displayed me the position of the train on the mimic board... And yes - I made also the electronics for that myself using integrated multi channel operational amplifiers.... The material for the contact wire was a brass tube of 2mm diameter, soldered to the head of metric screws which go through the wooden cross bars. Cost: almost nothing... Fotozellen im Schattenbahnhof by Gerhard Novak

Gordon, many thanks for your correction, the professor who taught me geometry is for sure long gone from this earth so he cannot tell me off for this mistake. Also the community will see that I sometimes make mistakes, as English is not my mother language. Would like to see others writing in foreign languages. About the copy rights - I am not too sure if the little videos I showed are under copyright or not as they have been made by a local television company (of course in a better quality) and have been broadcasted in the north of Italy in 2006. I wouldn't be a problem to use the wires also as a conductor for the train - as I used DCC it was not necessary to do so.

After showing some old stuff it is time to introduce my current project. Donnersbachkogel. Donnersbachkogel is an Austrian layout, located somewhere in the pre-alpine area. The old station building of Donnersbachkogel is also the terminus of a narrow gauge line which was in the past used to get minerals from a remote mine to the mainline. Today the mine is only running as a showmine and instead of minerals mainly tourists are transported up the line. At the station is also the connection to a single track electrified main-line. Not many trains stop there today, main traffic is on weekends to bring tourists to this attraction. We are somewhere in the early 90th of the last century. Besides OBB stock also independent rail companies are starting to be visible in the business and some multi system engines are in use as it is not far to the neighbour countries Italy and Switzerland, which have either a completely different power system (Italy) or a different allowed profile (Switzerland) so that multisystem engines are convinient as one engine can cover it all. The name Donnersbachkogel was chosen as it sounds pretty Austrian but it isn't an existing location. Donnersbach comes from a stream which thunders down a gorge and creates a thunder like noise, kogel means hill, which in Austria can also look like a proper mountain. The idea is to use 4 modules for this layout, about 15' long and with a possibility to loop around at both ends to allow continuous operation. There will be a scenic break so that the return path which goes through some sidings will stay invisible. Track for H0 is Peco finescale code 75, for H0e Peco 009. Small update : DCC from Lenz is used on both lines, controllers are LH100. Changed to Z21 - a much more up to date system. The Lenz went into the box and was not taken out any more since I have the Z21. Decoders in the locomotives are mainly from Zimo. I plan the use of megapoints controllers, it will be probably 4 boards (or even 5 - depending what gadgets I will build in...). ​The control will be done by a homemade mimic board using the mega points multipanel. This should reduce the wiring between layout and mimic board to a great total of 5 wires.... We will see if this works... I started working on the modules in January 2016 - and I am not as far as I wanted to be. Find below the track plan for the layout which has been created with the free software SCARM. I can recommend this software, even I can handle it... It contains libraries for all common European and some overseas track systems, Peco is completely covered and also flextrack can be used. .projekt12 by Gerhard Novak Will be continued.

After mastering the standard stuff it was time to go a little further... And of course you can do more. Have a look at the lines and copy what you need. For instance in some situations there is no space for a pole – you need two brackets supported by one mast c11 by Gerhard Novak Or a wire tensioning system. ​First the idea c12 by Gerhard Novak Then the production c13 by Gerhard Novak A partial assembly c14 by Gerhard Novak And finally the whole thing. c15 by Gerhard Novak Or even more. A station switchgear. Lets have a look at the real thing first. Station Klamm am Semmering, probably 2004 c16 by Gerhard Novak And now on my model. c17 by Gerhard Novak As I modelled also the border to Italy - we find also their system. Now 3kV DC. Different masts, different insulators. cIT1 by Gerhard Novak cIT2 by Gerhard Novak At the border station - changeover from one system to the other one. On the road the old custom building, now, with Schengen no longer in use. cIT3 by Gerhard Novak cIT4 by Gerhard Novak. ​Hope you enjoyed that. If anybody is interested on a copy of the drawings just let me know.

Agreed, making it myself makes more fun... For me it is fun in the making not only in having it.

Just to show the catenary is operational - a short clip from trenini in mostra 2006 - Carnate - Italy. Dring during the show with pantographs up. Just click on the picture to open the link. carnate_austriaco_02 by Gerhard Novak and another one.. carnate_austriaco_01 by Gerhard Novak

Thanks Joseph. I learned soldering and welding during my education, that helps. But everybody can learn it. Just needs a bit of practice and the right materials. There are a few more photos coming... If you look at the dates of the drawing it is more than 10 years that I did this work. The layout is part sold - part given at a present to the local club. I had a 6 years break - but I have just recently purchased some brass profiles to repeat the exercise.... And by the way - this catenary was good enough to go with pantograph up during shows. Probably I find somewhere an old video...

Working catenary home made - possible? This article describes a catenary system following the Austrian design, but I am sure with a bit of fantasy it can be also transferred to every other country as long as there are simple pole designs in use (For example Netherlands – I shaped steel girder or round concrete poles, Italy – round steel poles, Norway-I shaped steel girder poles, Rumania – round concrete poles) or of course the UK. Just go out and see how the real thing looks and have a go at it! I made the experience that it is not too difficult to make a catenary system yourself, and besides the financial savings it was a lot of fun for me to do it. First I would like to present you the manufacturing of catenary wires and concrete poles – latter in 2 different versions. Catenary wire. The material used by me is zinc coated mild steel wire, a material you can find in the garden department of several DIY markets. It is important that the wire has a smooth surface and allows some elongation. Now about the diameter. The Industrial standard is now between 0,5 and 0,7mm. As my catenary wire will be soft soldered I decided to use 0,7mm. About the necessary tools: A set of side cutting pliers of good quality (has to be hard enough to cut the steel wire but sharp enough to allow clean cuts) A pair of tweezers – if possible from metal but non magnetic A soldering iron with a fine tip but not too weak, for instance 25 Watt. A device to hold the wire pieces in position – not a must but it helps a lot. Flux – without flux it is not easy to solder the zinc coated wires. I use a zinc-chloride based type. Soldering tin– good quality for electronics – diameter 0,5mm if possible. For the catenary wire we need to make a soldering stencil first. If you want to make only a few meters this can be made with a piece of ply wood, minimal thickness 10mm (because we have to nail in some nails) If you want to start production in a more “industrial” style it could be a scrap piece of furniture board or kitchen top. They are normally coated with FRP which is more resistant against the flux and the high temperatures of the soldering iron. Draw the shape of the catenary wire on to the surface of the board you have chosen before. Nail steel nails without heads into the board in a way that they will fix the position of the steel wire. Leave enough space for the wire diameter to avoid bending it (See picture). It makes sense to prepare a piece of steel wire before this task to check the position of the nails. The suspension wire (the upper wire of the catenary system) follows approximately the shape of a parabolic curve. Therefore the wire has to change its direction a little at every cross wire. Put a nail into every crossing point. When you put the suspension wire into the stencil you have to bend it in a way that it follows the shape of the stencil without any remaining tension. (if there is remaining tension the whole thing will warp when you take it out of the stencil. c1 by Gerhard Novak To straighten the steel wire put one end into a stable and well fixed vice and pull on the other end with strong flat pliers. Close the pliers firm so that the wire does not slip out while you are pulling. Try it with a length of approximately 60 cm first. Attention – the steel wire will start with some plastic elongation (for a soft wire approximately 15 to 20% ) and if you increase the force it will break. Try to elongate but not to break the steel wire. Keep in mind that the wire may break at any time during this procedure. A little scratch or impurity can be enough to start this. There is the danger that you can hurt yourself, especially if there are some objects or even a wall behind you …. After this procedure you will see that every bend that was in the wire before has disappeared and it is totally straight. Also it is a little harder now as it was before. Try to open the vice or cut the wire from there without bending it. We need straight wire pieces for the following steps of production. After the wires are in position in the stencil we have to make the cross wires. Use a scrap piece of straightened wire and cut off the required length with the side cutting pliers. May be you have to try it several times until you get the right length. The cross wire has to be moved into the right position and held in place during the soldering. Moisten the connection area with a very small quantity of flux and solder the connection by using only very little tin. Try not to solder the wires onto the nails of the stencil. If flux comes onto the nails this could easily happen. . by Gerhard Novak Proceed in the same way with all connections. If everything worked you can lift the first piece of catenary wire out of the stencil. . by Gerhard Novak If the tin did flow properly at the connections they are quite rigid. It is very important at this point to remove the residues of the flux. To do this wash the finished catenary wire carefully with a little bit of washing up liquid. You can treat the connections also with a soft brush (old tooth brush) during washing. If you do not remove the flux the connection area will be black within a few days. The first part of the work is finished now. You have produced a stable but on the other hand also a fragile catenary wire. Length and shape you can change to your needs by creating the necessary stencils. Concrete pole The catenary wire alone does not help us – now we need poles. In Austria most of the poles are made from concrete. The standard poles of OeBB have at the base a profile of approximately 200 x 325 mm and at the top 200 x 200 mm. If we translate that into our model world these are 2,3 x 3,7 mm. The height depends on the standard for H0 models and on the track height (brand dependent) you are using. (see drawing) Simple Version: For the simple version I use square shaped hard wood profiles of 5x5mm. These are ground to a slightly conic shape with abrasive paper. For this work an electric grinder for wood is of great help. At the foot of the mast a hole of 3mm diameter has to be drilled. This work is a bit delicate because only 1mm of wall thickness will remain. Who owns a lathe with a four-jaw chuck should use it for this work. Into this bore a 3mm threaded stud will be glued. The length has to be calculated – it is the thickness of your baseboard + 15mm. As glue use a slow setting araldite resin type (for instance UHU plus endfest 300). At this point we need high mechanical strength. For the installation of the bracket two holes of 0,8mm diameter have to be drilled into the pole according to the drawing. The height of the pole depends on the top level of your track and on the standardised „Normal level for H0 catenary wires” according to NEM 201. NEM 201 asks for 69mm above top level of the track. It is useful to get a copy of the NEM standard because also other important information like the biggest side deviation of the catenary from the track centre and more can be found there. The standards are available in the internet – look at http://www.morop.org/en/idf/index.html. (The website is available also in English but the standards only in German and French) c4 by Gerhard Novak The basic pole is now ready – what we need now is a catenary arm. The target was to find a robust design which looks neat. After a few negative trials I found the following form: As material I use spring steel wire of 0,8mm diameter – this for sure to thick for a scale version, but the catenary should also be operational. On one point of the bracket a connection of 2 wire pieces is necessary – this is the biggest problem of the design. I use an “insulator” made from brass which has also a function as a splicing sleeve for the 2 steel wires. Both steel wires are flattened at the zone of the connection by the use of a fine grinder. The insulator is holding both wires in position and the connection is fixed with soft solder. c5 by Gerhard Novak For all who cannot make their own brass „insulators“: If the 2 steel wires are wrapped in the connection area with a fine copper wire and this connection is also soft soldered with the help of some flux it will also give a good mechanical connection. To improve the look dummy insulators made from plastic which are available in good model shops can be applied. The ends of the bracket which will hold later the catenary wire have to be tin coated to make the soldering of the catenary wires easier when the pole is in its final position. The bracket has to be washed (as before the catenary wire) to remove the remaining flux. After that the bracket has to be glued into the 0,8mm holes of the pole by using cyano acrylate glue. Finally pole and bracket have to be painted and can be used now. Who wants to improve the look of the pole can also make the fittings which hold the bracket. I used small plastic profiles for this job. I have approximately 50 pieces of this pole type in use on my layout and I am satisfied with the look and the functionality. But do not put any scale people to close to the masts – because then everybody will notice that the poles are oversized. Concrete pole – improved version We should never be satisfied with our results – therefore an improved version. Also this pole is not to scale, but already much closer. If we want to go to the scale size of the poles the use of wood will be difficult fort two reasons. 1) the wood gets very elastic at this thickness 2) there is no possibility to fix a threaded stud to the wood – not even if we use M2. Therefore we need to change or design to brass. I use a profile of 2,5 x 3,5 mm. The design is similar as before, new is the additional base of the pole which makes the use of an M3 stud possible. A lathe helps during the production but it is also possible to make it without. The pole will be connected with the base by the help of an M3 thread (this works only with a lathe) or it will be connected by soldering, to get a stable connection it is necessary to file a gap which corresponds to the width of the pole into the base. I tried both, the method with the thread is more stable and easier to handle. c6 by Gerhard Novak At the moment I use the same bracket for this pole. For sure also this is a field for improvements For problematic situations, where it is not possible to access the threaded stud from below (for instance at hidden underground sidings) a base plate can be added which allows to fix the pole with two screws from the top. On the rather slim pole the fittings we I have used on the wooden version look a bit too big. If possible we should use smaller brass profiles instead. Installation Try to find the right position of the poles – which can be tricky sometimes because of point motors, construction wood or in my case because of the catenary system in the area of the hidden sidings below the baseboard. You can position the poles by following the rules of the standard mentioned before (biggest distance of wire from the track centre) or using the “empiric” method using an engine to find the right position. For my experience the best is to use a short engine with a central trolley (I use a Roco 1161, here even the contact piece is rather narrow in comparison with modern Austrian engines). If this engine has a secure contact to the wire every other engine will pass. The poles are fixed by threaded studs with a nut from below the baseboard. Then a matching piece of catenary wire has to be soldered to it. I bend the ends of the contact wire with some small round pliers into a small u so that they fit to the bracket. The top wire I just solder without bending to the bracket and cut away the end of the wire. This method almost guarantees that there is no tension on the top wire – which would lead in a bended section of catenary. Only at section breaks between modules where I have to remove the catenary before storing the modules away I make the u bend also at the top wire. At this point I do not solder so the u-shaped eye has to hold the catenary. Have a look at a few pictures of the catenary system. c7 by Gerhard Novak c8 by Gerhard Novak c10 by Gerhard Novak ​Enough for now, a little bit more later...

Rodney, what you need on the servo is a limit switch. These are small, non expensive but precise switches which have normally a long lever. Limit switches cost less than a pound and normally have 3 contacts - common - position on - position off. See below the use of a limit switch attached to a servo. DSC03027 by Gerhard Novak

Hi Gary, I understand you are using the Megapoint controller without their mimic panel. This means you have a large number of wires coming out of your panel and the need of several connectors - I can see 2 D-sub and also several others. For me one of the advantages of the Megapoint system is the bus - means I have only 3 data and 2 power connections - means with one 5-pole cable I can go out of the mimic panel - and I leave the controllers under the board - close to the servos. This also allows me to connect direct - without extension - in case of a station where you have many points in the same area. This is how I fix the controller below the board.20160625_204012[1] by Gerhard Novak In this case the controller shares the box with a relay card as I have some switch applications on the module like lights and light signals. There is a transparent lid on it, which holds the cables in the little cut slots. And - not to forget - there is also an external voltage regulator - glued to the wall close to the relay card - as the relay board draws too much current for the built in voltage regulator (Dave describes this in his documentation) The devices using the relay card are not yet wired. On the left corner you see the power supply for the whole system (everything except the DCC which has its own transformer) - it is an RC power supply from fusion delivering 100W - or approximately 7A (but with some fan noise).

I was visiting the Warley exhibition in 2015 - wasn't planning to spend much - but went home with a megapoints controller start set.... What Dave showed here was exactly what I wanted. As this was the time I decided to build a new layout it was the right time to buy the controller. In the meantime I have purchased a few more components, I am now a 4 megapoint controller boards, I had to purchase the switch and led extension for the mimic board (Led extension x 3 as I like to see 2 leds for the point position on my mimic board). Also I purchased relay boards as I want to stay lean with the cable connections between mimic board and layout. About servo buzzing: There will be always some servo buzzing, it depends mainly on the servo itself. And we will not be able to avoid a slight force on our servos when we want to be sure that the point blades are properly set. I don't know how the others are doing it, I personally remove the spring from Peco points and use a very thin steel wire (0.4mm) from the servo to control the point. This way it is possible to use the wire itself as a spring force. I run the servo very slightly over the necessary position so that the wire acts like a spring. It is not as strong as the peco spring but it works. Of course I do not rely on electric connections done by the blades but wire them all. And after that we have a second constant force to our servo - most of you will use miniature limit switches to wire the frogs or also to switch off a section of track before the point to avoid short circuits. These are rather nasty - especially when you use DCC... As these limit switches have a spring you have another load to the servo. And these forces together with the limited precision of the servo are for me the main sources for the servo buzz. And be careful - don't use digital servos. They cost more and the servo buzz is normally worse than with analog ones. So far to my experiences - one of 4 modules is now wired, all works fine and I enjoy a 5 wire connection between layout and mimic board. Now some questions for the community: How to wire properly the leds on the mimic board for 3-way points?? In good old analogue days I just made an and logic with relays and the thing works. And now? the second point in the 3 way point should only light the led when the first point shows straight. How to do that? Dave answered me to buy the route processor - no way. I spent already a lot of money and I think it is not the solution for the problem. Any ideas? Second problem: Light signals. I spent a lot of money for authentic OBB signals which can show you 2 different speeds, but also the departure signal. I am not to sure how to do it. It will need a lot of channels. By the way - the relay board sold by Dave is an Arduino board - the megapoint controller works also wit 6 or 8 relay channel arduino boards. How do I know? just purchased an arduino board on the net.... All in all I am still happy with the system and I am still learning stuff about it. See below the mimic board built for Donnersbachkogel IMGP5432 by Gerhard Novak Standard way how I install the servos. here with 2 auxiliary contacts. On the top of the picture is the Lenz connector board for my DCC controllers. Old fashioned - as it uses cables... 20160625_203950[1] by Gerhard Novak

Just fell over your thread - I like the woodworking you have showed. I know - not the right time of the year for model railways - but any further progress made? Vecchio