Return to Model Railways

Yet more wiring has been done, and it’s nearing completion now. I’ve added in the point control units I got from Heathcote Electronics. I fitted them to the base board using some computer motherboard standoffs I had spare. I did have to very carefully enlarge the holes on the PCBs to fit the screws. I did the same with the CDU. It keeps them off the board, and it makes them a little easier to get on and off of the boards. The standoffs are just screwed into pre-drilled holes on the base board.

I’ve also added in the power droppers for the electrofrogs (the red wires on the left), which meant some VERY careful soldering top-side. ]

Some additional power droppers were added and joined up too, as well as the interconnecting cabling between the boards. Finally, all the cabling for the point motors themselves was added in, and labeled up accordingly.

I knew I needed to get connectivity to the control box I had designed. Originally I’d picked up a little pre-built unit from Maplin, but it just wasn’t big enough. I needed to fit in point control and indication, as well as eventual signal control, so there just wasn’t space on its A5-sized top. I fabricated a new control panel from some 6mm Ply, and some offcuts of the battens I had. Simply screwed together, it does the job. The top of the box was drawn up in Xara, then printed out and stuck on. I drilled out the holes for the buttons and LEDs, but the edges were a bit rough, so I purchased some small LED holders. The switches are fairly well presented anyway so they’re fine (the nut covers the rough edge). Only half of the top edge of the panel is used, the other half will be used for signal control. I probably should have fit the lot into one section, but I’m happy splitting them out.

Connectivity back to the main boards is via two female 25-pin D-sub connectors, and two straight-wired cables. The indicator and point control wires from the point control PCBs end on female 25-pin connectors, so the cables between are just standard male-male.

All told I ended up soldering 49 connections across the lot, plus all the connections within the control panel. Inside is, quite frankly, a mess. The layout didn’t lend itself to any sort of tidy wiring. I did try, but despite my best efforts, it just wasn’t going to happen.

The wiring used within the control box, and from the control PCBs is actually from a leftover section of 25-pair telephone wire. It’s single core copper, so ample to work the LEDs, and I think OK to work the point motors for short bursts.

It has taken me a couple of days working on it to finish all the wiring. First tests, it worked – ish. A few motors were firing opposite to what I wanted, a few LEDs likewise, and some were totally wrong. Fixing them was simple – I just swapped the wires on the PCB! I also found one motor seems to have either burned out, or just doesn’t work. I have spares though, so it’ll be a doddle to swap out.

There’s a few little wiring jobs left to do. The frog polarity feeds need connecting up, and checking they’re the right way round (don’t want any shorts!). I also have a dodgy joint which needs replacing. Other jobs to do include replacing the dud motor, and one seemed to be sticking, but may have freed itself. I could also do with making some sort of base for the control panel, otherwise I’ll only end up knocking out a wire. The LEDs need gluing in properly, as they tend to pop out now and then. Finally, I’ll finish the main track power feed and I might actually get some trains running round the thing!

I’ve been wiring things up today. Most of the power droppers were already in place, so it was a case of making sure they connected to something. I mulled over a few ideas of how to connect them up. I was wary of running loads of cable around as it would be horribly wasteful, and a pain to try and diagnose faults with. I wanted to use some sort of bus, a common method I’ve seen being to use a copper strip – one for positive and negative (or A and B for DCC, as it’s AC), then soldering all the droppers to it. I couldn’t find any such strip, so I went with another plan. I’ve basically joined droppers in twos and threes into a single wire. The joint is simply wound together, then soldered. Finally a heat-shrink is put on top to keep it protected.

These bigger main wires (there’s a few of them) were then soldered up into pairs, which went into screw terminal blocks, which all led up to a main point where the controller will connect. I need to add two other main power feeds which will go out to the addon boards, which will have a similar setup. It’s still slightly more cable than I’d like, but it’s fairly tidy, and it makes sense.

A few cable ties and screws held everything in place, and it’s done. I plugged up the DC controller and ran a loco up and down all the bits I expected to have power and they all work fine, even at lower speeds, so there seems to be good conductivity all through. I might check a multi-meter on it and see if there’s much voltage drop.

I’ve got one more point motor to fit, and then I’ll start running the power leads for the point motors. I’ll run them all to a central location. I have a feeling the labeller will be given plenty of use with all those wires!

I’ve been busy faffing about with a few things lately.

Firstly, I’ve gotten the bulk of the track glued down now. All the code 55 trackwork is down. The Code 80 track round the back is still to be done, but that also requires the copper joiner strip fitting, so I’m in no rush to do that yet!

The bulk of the power feeds are also in. Some are a bit messy, but it’s such a pain soldering to the track that they’re staying as is, and will just be hidden somehow. In most cases they’ll be buried in ballast, so should disappear. As much as possible I’ve but them on the underside of the rails.

I’ve also converted one of my Class 168 DMUs to DCC using a guide from RMWeb. I also added some feeder wires directly from the bogies to the DCC unit, bypassing the body block entirely. I don’t think it’s made any difference to the pickup as it stands, but long-term it might help. I’ve still got a few to convert, including a Class 60 and Class 66 both from Bachman which could be fun!

I might next embark on trying to fit the point motors, and get them wired up, as well as building the control panel. The box I have is a bit too small I think, so I might need to find another one, or make one up out of wood or something.

I’ve run a Class 67 up and down all the tracks, and there’s a few iffy bits, but I think that’s just dirty track as I have managed to get dabs of PVA on the rail tops occasionally, as well as the odd bit of Sharpie ink!

My biggest issue right now is storing stuff, so I could do with picking up some sort of storage pots, rather than the random assortment of boxes I have.

All good progress though, so I’m pleased so far!

I just noticed the URL re-writing was broken, which meant other than the front page, nothing worked! Oops!!

It’s fixed now…

I was staring at the base-board the other day, and suddenly something hit me – it’s too big! When I bought the original sheet of ply it fit in the back of the car with the seats down. Since then, it’s been extended twice, so it would no longer fit. Planning? What planning?!

The obvious option was to basically cut the board in half. However, the half-way point had a batten along it, so any cut would have to be offset from there. Not only that, but there’s a load of pointwork right above. I eventually found an area between two points about two thirds of the way along the board in a simpler area of the board. The track sections are straight, and the points are back to back.

The baseboard was already built so it was a bit of a retrofit. The underside battens were screwed to the top on both sides at almost exactly the point I needed to cut through, so the screws at that point were removed. I cut the whole thing in half, and then made up two new end battens to go on the ends. Whilst I was doing this I also drilled the holes for the bolts to hold it all back together. Everything was screwed back together and the end result is actually a bit sturdier I feel, my dodgy wood-working skills aside.

After a little bit of trimming, the two halves went back together fairly well. I installed the copper circuit board joiner and soldered it down. The track on the right of the joiner is glued down too, with suitable holes cut for the point motors to be fitted later. I need to pick up some more wing nuts and washers for the joint to make it secure.

The points were placed with a gap the width of the saw I used. When I cut through everything else, it all lined up flush, when pushed together. I run a wagon back and forth across it and it seemed smooth, so I’m happy. Some more soldering will need to be done to provide power feeds. Now I’m gluing track down I’m making sure to check the track butts up nicely by filing down the ends. Previously, everything was just rough-cut to fit. Some bits will need replacing and cutting down further as they don’t quite fit the gaps properly.

I did notice the track needs a darn good clean though, as it’s getting very dusty and mucky. Most of the rest has been dry-laid, so it’s just a case of pulling up bits and checking it, then gluing everything down again.

I’m now starting to think I need to build some sort of legs for the board as the shelving unit it’s standing on right now just doesn’t support it in all the right places, so it’s a bit up and down. Once that’s rectified, and track is laid, it’ll be onto the point motors and final wiring. Then I’ll have an actual working layout.

I decided against going to the Warley show at the NEC yesterday. I considered paying £8 to park, and then a further £10 to get in a bit steep. Plus the fuel to drive there (I’d guess about £10) then it’s the best part of £30 just to get in the door. The RMWeb forums suggested it was also very busy at the event, which whilst not neccesarily a bad thing, was something I didn’t really feel like doing, so I vetoed the plan and drove over to A&H Models in Brackley.

Fate had conspired against me though. I’d phoned ahead to make sure they were open (having wasted a trip over before to find they were shut). I drove over, and found they didn’t hactually have everything I needed – they’d taken a load of stock to Warley!

DAMN!!!

I managed to buy two points, and some set track, and slinked home with my purchases. I took a scenic route, which added about a million miles to my journey, so probably spent almost as much on fuel. But never mind! I later ordered the other bits I needed online, so they should arrive in the week.

Today I got into some more track laying, and cabling up. The extension board had no power, so I soldered wires onto the copper strips that form the join. I then joined them up to some Molex connectors, to allow for easy removal. I did a similar thing at the back in the fiddle-yard area. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking, and wired these back to front. I’d been using Black wire for the furthest rails, and Red for the closest. I did the same in the fiddle yard forgetting that it flips seeing as the track forms a circle. Rather than re-soldering, I just swapped them round in the terminal blocks, and all was well.

I finished off with laying out the other sections of track as much as I could, and pinning things into place.

I ran a few tests with my two class 67 locos. I ran the full W&S train around the end curve, with the EWS 67 going the other way with a couple of wagons. Thankfully, neither struck eachother. One issue cropped up with the join between Code 80 and Code 55 track causing the W&S train to occasionally de-rail. I beleive that can be filed down to make up the difference. Also, the fiddle-yard track seems to be dirty as it has gained a few dead spots.

One thing I have decided on, is that the rear fiddle yards will be partially obscured by a low-profile multi-storey car-park, modelled on the one in town. Along with the depot building, that’s two buildings I now need to scratch build. I just need to learn how to scratch build now!

Earlier today I saw a picture of a small roadsign somebody had made for their layout. A quick bit of research, and I found a remake of the font Transport, as used on the real UK roadsigns.

I played around a bit with Inkscape, Xara, and Microsoft Expression Designer. I had some issues with the colour palettes in Inkscape, so tried Xara, which I just don’t like. Expression Designer crashed out changing a colour. The latter two I got free; Xara from a magazine cover CD, and Expression Designer I got under one of our licensing schemes at work.

I tried Inkscape again, and finally managed to convince it to do what I wanted. I made up a custom colour palette, using a Department for Transport guide to road signs as a reference.

I dug around and found a good picture of a roadsign, which I used as a reference, and got to work drawing up my sign:

It looks pretty good! The original is here on  the Mid Beds website.

Inkscape is a very good piece of software, and great for drawing things like this. It has a few bugs, but a new release it just round the corner and should address them.

I’ve made a few subtle changes to the track layout (surprise).

Yeah, it’s changed a bit. But the explain. The bluey/purpley shaded sections are ‘non-scenic’. I could turn part of them into scenery, but the right hand side disappears under a shelf, and the left hand side is removable, so it’s a bit pointless I feel. So basically just the front is the scenic area.

As you can see, there’s a station area down front, plus the depot up the back. There’s a small headshunt for the depot. It’s simple, but I feel it’s not necessarily making the best of the space available. I can’t really think how else to do it. The thing is, Code 55 track has very shallow curves on the points; the rear storage sidings are quite tight, but they are Code 80. I want Code 55 in the scenic areas as it looks nicer.

I do have a large expanse of nothingness on the right, which would make for some nice scenery, so I’m not too worried about it being empty. Not sure what will go there mind!

I’ll need a couple more points, which I’ll probably pick up at Warley this weekend. Hopefully this’ll be the last change, and I’ll start gluing things down properly!

So, comments and suggestions?

I managed to actually accomplish quite a bit today!

Over the last week I’d added some bolts and wingnuts to the end of the board where the return extension bit goes. The solution works – sort of. The extension bit tends to hang down a bit. Not a bit surprise I suppose. I need to figure out how to make it sit level with the main board.

That didn’t put me off starting to lay the track down properly. In the process of layout out the track again, I decided to forgo a few bits of track. Firstly, the double-slip crossover is out. As this is Code 55 track, it has a lower profile. I’d read that in some cases re-wheeling rolling stock would be required to avoid derailments. Having run various locos around and other stock, I’d not encountered any such problems – except on the double slip. It added additional headaches with wiring, in terms of getting it to switch polarities about. This all seemed like too much effort, so it had to go.

Additionally, the storage sidings at the back have turned around. This is mainly so all the points are situated at the more accessible end of the board. Not only that, the sidings will go into what is otherwise dead space at the back. As it was, the end of the rear, hidden storage was almost right next to the end of the ‘live’ sidings where I intend to put a depot. Again, I didn’t like this as it reduced the amount of space for scenery. Now I have plenty of room.

Having decided on that, I started track laying. I’d bought some pins from Wilko (the notice board type – long with a little bobble on the end) which I used to contain the flex-track on curves. Basically, I’d flex it round, using the pins to retain it. Then I’d draw an outline with a Sharpie so I knew where it belonged. I also used my Peco 6ft-way gauge to make sure the spacing was good. Radii are the same as, or less than some Code 80 Settrack I have, so that’s good. I think the Class 66s bind a little on tight curves, being CO-CO chassis, but it should be OK.

Once I’d got the track down, I added in the copper-clad PCB. I’d picked it up in Maplin. I cut a rectangle to fit over the join, which covered both tracks. I screwed it down to the board with two screws either site. Next, I pulled the webbing off the flexitrack so the rail bottoms sat flush on the PCB. Next out came the soldering iron and I put down a few tacks first to hold it in place, then ran a bead along the outside edges, plus a bit on the inside edges to retain it. It’s not exactly pretty, BUT the wheels all seem to roll over it. Finally, I used one of those funny hacksaws with the extended blade for hard to reach areas to slice along the PCB, track and all. I’d made sure to insert a spacer between to two baseboards the same thickness as the hacksaw blade, so that when the cuts were done, everything would be flush. The spacer in this case was my steel rule!

In my zeal to cut through, I twisted the saw, and snapped the blade. I replaced it with a better quality one, which whilst being longer, and thus at a higher risk of breaking, it sliced through with ease. I repeated all this for the second one, removed the spacer, and it all went together beautifully!

At this point I hadn’t glued down the tracks on the extension board yet, so I simply lifted them a bit, and used some Evostick wood glue to stick it down. I sat some weight on it for a while, and it all stuck very firmly. That Evostick is some good glue! I’ve also got some bog-standard PVA I got in Hobbycraft, but this stuff is pure awesome in a bottle!

With that done I laid out the other track, and glued down the curves at the other end. One nice thing I found using the pins to hold the track is that the track can be lifted in position; it’ll slide upwards, but retain it’s shape, and leave enough space underneath to squirt a bead of glue along, then use a spatula to spread it. Then it’s a case of lowering the track back down, and applying a weight to make it stay put. No fiddling around re-aligning it, as the pins keep it aligned. A real time-saver, and it means I could fiddle about using the pins without getting glue all over the place, or making silly mistakes. A good reason for using the cork!

Having done all that, I decided to wire up the original droppers I’d put in some time ago just to sanity-check the layout. It works as much as it can; the return curves and back section need power, but the front bit still works, save for a small dead section on one of the point frogs. Nothing I can’t fix though.

The new revised layout mean only a few of the original holes I’d drilled for point motors will now fit. Not a bit issue, as I’ll do new ones, and the old ones were mostly badly aligned. I’m still looking for a fool-proof method to align the Seep motors though. I’ve still got some track laying to do before that’s a worry though.

Quite a lot of progress!

I went to Wycrail today which is held (oddly enough) in High Wycombe. They’re outgrowing the venue a bit (which is great, as it shows lots of visitors) but it’s a bit of a pain in places because the halls can get a bit busy. But it’s a nice show, with some really nice layouts.

A few really stood out for me. First up was Dairy Lane.

It’s an N-Gauge layout, and it crams SO much in to such a small space. It got me thinking of rejigging mine, but I really want to run long trains, so I need the longer track sections.

Another favourite was Cement Quay.

Some wonderful detail on this layout. There was a lot of texture to things. The grass and general background muck (piles of waste cement presumably) were so well produced.

The above closeup of the sidings shows some of that detail. It’s a OO (or thereabouts, I forget exactly) layout, so it’s relatively easier to produce such detail. I intend getting close in N though. I liked the fact most people viewing this layout just stood silently looking.

By far my favourite layout was Wells Green TMD. For a OO layout it’s remarkably small (just about two metres I’d reckon), and packs in an amazing amount of detail.

The loco stock is all super-detailed, some including drivers hanging out the doors. There was so much to look at, I have to be honest I can’t recall a lot of what I saw! The crime scene down the front was great. The police paddy wagon even having working lights which flashed a very convincing cycle. The disused tracks down the front were also very good. I stood and stared for a while at this one!

I also invested in a Digitrax Zephyr starter kit, and a couple of DCC modules. I’ve already loaded them into my two Dapol 67s, and they work like a charm. I did find I’ve broken a wire on the headlights on one though, so that’ll need fixing. But I’m otherwise pleased. Need to play more first though!

Tomorrow I plan on re-laying the track, and sorting the point motors out properly.