Early Risers.

[skipepsi]

Morning all, rain here but only spring rain nothing drastic. I am with Gordon on crimping properly Mike the B&Q tool is too bendy and thin to do a proper job.

[Sidecar Racer]

Morning all , it's raining here so I wont be going far today , hopes for a quick recovery to those

with ailments .

 

Have a good day whatever you are doing .

[skipepsi]

I can't get edit to work so .... glad to hear Robbie is doing what he normally does and Phil if track laying or building feels like work then maybe running stock on what you have done will inspire you to do a bit more later.

[sixoh8sixoh]

Thanks Gordon! I think part of the problem is not understanding the Peco points properly as they changed the wiring of their electrofrog points and I'm not entirely sure which type I have either!

 

Will resist getting the crimping tool then. There were two, one cheaper one (£15 ish) and one ratchet one at about £23. my soldering needs a lot of practice though!

 

Will post pics later with where I am - its just a very small board with 4 points on it. I think I've got the insulated fish plates in the right places but I'm not 100% certain.

 

Thanks Mick too!

[eldavo]

... I must get on with BC tracklaying.

 

I must.......

 

I mu..

 

That 'aint gonna happen if you spend the morning swanning around the country in your motor and cadging cups of tea!

 

Morning All, 'tis raining in these parts. Shouldn't complain as it will at least keep the golf course green. Downside is the lawn will grow and I'll have to mow it.

 

Have a good one all.

 

Cheers

Dave

[trisonic]

Mike, The advantage of a small layout is that you can run the wires along the surface and once checked out bury them under crud...or just flip the whole thing over to wire up.

 

Best, Pete.

[DDolfelin]

I wish they wouldn't put two IPL matches on one after the other.

Didn't leave me any stamina for the golf.

[Tony_S]

Thanks Gordon! I think part of the problem is not understanding the Peco points properly as they changed the wiring of their electrofrog points and I'm not entirely sure which type I have either!

If you post a photo of the underside of the Peco point we can tell you if it is old or new!

Whether solder or crimp is used I still test as I go along with my cheapo multimeter, If you solder use heatshrink to cover the connections, (check solder connection before shrinking!).

Can't think of anything else at the moment apart from sometimes you do everything perfectly and it still doesn't work due to a faulty switch or other manufacturing error.

Oh and if you are soldering don't hold things in place with superglue!

[45156]

Morning All

 

Dull day here, and it's been raining, and is forecast for more later.

 

Just take a day off here, and it's pages to read - though it is pages of ER banter and drivel intelligent discussion which is well worth reading.

 

Still very stiff in my leg, but I guess that's to be expected after the amount of cutting and pulling that it's had - but it does mean that I am in need to pain killers at quite a high dose. Due to have the whole thing checked on Wednesday, and if all is well, then the staples come out - which will be a great relief as I look like a zip fastener, and the clips are now a bit loose and are causing a bit of pain. Once they're out, I can start to exercise and start to get the muscles working.

 

Great to see Robbie is back with us - love the buster collar. One of the best tricks would be if he tried the stairs, and was dragging on each step - my dog did that when she had an operation, and it made a lot of noise.

 

To those who are ailing, hope your recovery is quick and thorough. I have been through the bad back scenario, and can fully sypathise with this.

 

I'm off now for a look round some of the modelling bits (for a change).

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[PhilH]

and cadging cups of tea!

 

How d'ya think I made the first million.....??

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Nice wet morning here with some gentle rain damping the garden to perfection - the weeds will soon be going great guns - and heavier rain forecast for this evening.

 

Back is still a b*gger every time I try to do useful things like stand up or change posture in any way but the chiropractor reopens tomorrow so I'll be after an early appointment to see what he can do (which probably means elbow shoved in affected area, hard, followed by the electric massager which gives every impression of being an orbital sander in the way it works - but non abrasive).

[45156]

(which probably means elbow shoved in affected area, hard, followed by the electric massager which gives every impression of being an orbital sander in the way it works - but non abrasive).

Cruel to be kind, is it Mike? Sounds pretty horrendous - and of course, this sort of thing always happens on a Bank Holiday when a lot of the professional help that you need is not there - if I could get the District Nurse in today to get the staples out I'd have done so - like you I'll be on the phone first thing tomorrow.

[sixoh8sixoh]

Firstly... Here's the board (I can't count, only 3 points. Forgot I'd simplified it). I've marked where I've put insulated rail joiners in red.

 

 

Next - the underside of the point. Do I need to snip/solder anything?

 

 

And third - the underside of the board. I'm using standard Peco point motors (though I do have one ZTC DCC ready point motor but I'm just testing things out with these first, really) and a Bachmann accessory decoder (ESU switchpilot). I've got droppers soldered to the two tracks at the left hand end of the board (as you look at it in the first picture), and I've prepared to put droppers in on all three tracks at the right hand end (out of the shot).

 

 

I'll probably not use the copper tape bus that I put in there ages ago. I think using proper wiring will probably be more reliable.

Edited April 9, 2012 by sixoh8sixoh

[Tony_S]

Robbie doesn't go upstairs in the house but the Buster collar did cause him some confusion at first leaving and entering the house as there are a couple of steps. His biggest problem seems to be where to pee. The collar seems to confuse his positioning when precision aiming is required. He seems to have settled on the rotary line pole as it doesn't move like the plant stems do. I think the main problem with Robbie is trying to stop him leaping about and damaging the stitches. He is very keen to go out, I'm just waiting for the rain to stop or at least ease a bit.

[sixoh8sixoh]

I remember when our dogs had those collars on after operations, Oscar in particular was quite amusing when trying to jump on a sofa while wearing one...

 

 

Edited April 9, 2012 by sixoh8sixoh

[The Stationmaster]

Cruel to be kind, is it Mike? Sounds pretty horrendous - and of course, this sort of thing always happens on a Bank Holiday when a lot of the professional help that you need is not there - if I could get the District Nurse in today to get the staples out I'd have done so - like you I'll be on the phone first thing tomorrow.

Cruelty it is - the last time I attended after back trouble (which was nowhere near as bad as this) Mrs Stationmaster accompanied me and said afterwards - 'did you realise he was using his elbow?' 'No love, it just hurt like *ell!'

Hope you have some luck with getting the District Nurse in tomorrow, always a nuisance when you need attention and everyone who can give it seems to be closed. Our local 'casualty unit' is next to useless for anything beyond an injection or bandaging - when our Bell Tower Captain took the top off her thumb on a bell rope some time back they told her to go to Oxford (30 miles) but fortunately another ringer is a retired surgeon and he sorted them out and got her straight to a more specialised hospital (near Slough) instead; our nearest major hospital is only 9 in Reading miles away but it is 'the wrong sort of hospital' for severed thumbs .

 

I reckon Robbie and his kind do better than humans and it's good to hear he's making some progress even if he's having a problem finding the right kind of tree

[45156]

I reckon Robbie and his kind do better than humans and it's good to hear he's making some progress even if he's having a problem finding the right kind of tree

 

I think you're right there Mike, though the other side if it is that animal medcine is a lot dearer than the human variety. Luckily, we have a large A&E nearby which can handle most emegencies up to and including major road accidents (the A683 is notorious for biking accidents and the local trauma ward is used to having at least a couple of broken bikers at any one time). However, it is the more mundane, routine things where healthcare falls down (like wanting my stapes out earlier than planned over a Bank Holiday).

[sixoh8sixoh]

Mike, The advantage of a small layout is that you can run the wires along the surface and once checked out bury them under crud...or just flip the whole thing over to wire up.

 

Best, Pete.

 

Yep... being careful not to puncture legs with the point motor pins...

[Tony_S]

A friend of mine does have rather extensive private healthcare but when he power-planed his finger and thumb it was the specialist A&E plastic surgery unit at a fairly local hospital that dealt with it. He has been banned from any further DIY!

[Tony_S]

Mike.

 

On your layout as long as you put power supply feeds to all the tracks after the insulated joiners you don't HAVE to do anything. However it isn't really wise to rely on the electrical connection being made by the point blades. Your Peco points don't seem to be the latest type like the code 83 and code 75 that I have. I'll put a photo up and suggest what I would do. But please don't do anything (especially cutting) until my suggestion has been critiqued by those more sensible etc.

 

 

The cyan ellipse contains the frog wires.

 

The two magenta ellipses are in the region where the latest points have a couple of easy to snip links. This is the area in which you would need to cut the tracks with a slitting disc on the older version. The thick blue lines indicate where you need to make a link. The frog is now switched by the built in switch on your point motor (two wires in from DCC bus, output wire to frog). Now if the switches on your point motors turn out to be unreliable there is another solution in your case. The ESU switchpilot can have a Switchpilot extension which is designed for frog or accessory switching.

 

Hope this helps. (Anyone else please don't hesitate to tell me I'm confusing!)

Edited April 9, 2012 by Tony_S

[sixoh8sixoh]

Thanks Tony - will wait before touching anything! I have to admit to being a complete novice when it comes to electrics... I can wire a plug and socket, but give me a wiring diagram and I'm at a complete loss.

 

I'm a bit confused with the point motors and the bus... I'd assumed I wired the point motors to the accessory decoder (rather than the bus), and then the accessory decoder was wired to the main bus. Is that right, or am I getting myself totally muddled?

[Tony_S]

Yes the point motors are connected to the Switchpilot outputs which is controlled from the DCC bus**. This will provide the pulse that physically moves the point. However there are also some switch connections on the point motor PCB. These are used to switch the frog polarity appropriately. There is no electrical connection between the coils on the point motor and the polarity switching terminals . Now I have been assuming your point motors (Do you have the packet or part number?) do have switching! If not don't worry there are plans B(Switchpilot extension), C (Gordon's nifty microswitch method) and many more available!

 

** The Switchpilot may need an auxiliary power supply depending on how reluctant your point motors are. We will deal with that later if necessary!

The layout I got from Andrew fills up much of my garage and has less points than yours! That has a tiny Digitrax accessory decoder and Tortoise motors.

As I mentioned you don't HAVE to modify anything.

If you want to change the default point motor settings on the Switchpilot, download the latest English version of the manual. The version 1 that came with my one I bought a few years ago confused me. Of course with 4 points you don't really need to change the defaults. What DCC system have you got? My ON30 layout has Dynamis controller but I don't use DCC for point motors on that. On other layouts I use my Lenz (along with Multimaus) to control trains and point motors.

Edited April 9, 2012 by Tony_S

[sixoh8sixoh]

Thanks Tony. Given the size of this, I could happily change the points by hand, but thought I'd use this as a learning exercise for later if I did go down the route of a larger layout with more points on it.

 

Correction on the point motors - they're not Peco, they're Gaugemaster SEEP PM1 point motors with auxiliary switch (so they seem to have a built in polarity switch from the description on the website). The diagram that comes with them is fine if you're using a centre off point control switch but doesn't help for DCC! There are 6 connections on the point motor - A to F. According to the diagram, A and B go to the point control switch, C to the CDU, along with a wire from the third contact on the control switch, D and E are contacts for auxiliary switch things like signals, and F is the auxiliary switch common.

 

I'm using a Dynamis too, and have no idea how you program an accessory decoder either when it comes to that stage, but I've managed to program loco numbers, so that's a start!

 

It doesn't help much that the Peco points I have are the old ones, but the instructions with them appear to be for the new ones as they suggest cutting wires that aren't there!

Edited April 9, 2012 by sixoh8sixoh

[Tony_S]

OK, I'll have a go at this!

The connections from the SEEP to one of the (set of 4) connectors on the Switchpilot! Repeat for all the points, using another block of ESU connectors for each one.

From the SEEP connect C to C on the ESU. A to OUT A and B to OUT B.

 

That should enable you to fire the point motors.

If you do modify the points

F goes to the frog and D and E go to the DCC bus. I'm not sure which way round D and E go on the SEEP. I'd check it with a meter but otherwise if it is wrong (50% chance!) the Dynamis will indicate a short!

[BoD]

I had an enjoyable day at York today. Some excellent layouts.

 

I treat myself to a new 'toy' and here is one of the assembly instructions:

 

7. Ratherish lift the front work bedplate, open the frond left and right side cover board, uniform left and right side plank from outside to inside, put the front worktable flatewise.