Hi Mark,
As requested:
Layout plan:
Service area panel for the south side of the layout. There be a matching panel for the north side. Blue squares are DPDT mini toggle switches. Orange squares are Rapido uncouplers. Gray squares are power shutoffs. The squares are the size of the body of the switches. Red circles are LEDs:
Industrial area panel For the south side. There will be a matching panel on the north side:
Yard panel for the south side. There will be a matching panel for the north side:
I'm going to mount terminal strips on separate panels behind the control panels so all the soldering can be done at the workbench. The control panels and connector panels will pivot forward at the bottom to make the wiring easier. All the panels are 11 3/16" x 6" as they are drawn.
I printed the panels actual size so I could see if the switches are too close together for my fingers, but the clearances are fine. The initial panels will be made of masonite. Down the road, once I am happy that the layout works as intended, I will make plexy panels.
There will be other items added to the panels like lighting controls and switches to control the trolley.
Cheers!!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
There's a lot in those panels! Wiring them will be lots of fun.
Be sure to post pics of the finish products, okay? Maybe next week?
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
PruittThere's a lot in those panels! Wiring them will be lots of fun. Be sure to post pics of the finish products, okay? Maybe next week?
There will be a lot of wires for sure, but I have a good idea of how to prevent them from looking like a rat's nest.
Here is the back of a panel that I made for my old club. I used bigger wire than was necessary but it was what I had on hand. It was my first attempt and I learned a lot. For one thing, I'm going to use smaller solid wire so I can make the bends cleaner. The terminal strips will be on a separate strip of wood so that should reduce some of the congestion:
Here is the front of the same panel:
I will post pictures once the boards are finished. That won't be in a week!
You're not using the control panels you previously ordered?
hon30critterHi Mark, There will be a lot of wires for sure, but I have a good idea of how to prevent them from looking like a rat's nest. ... I'm going to use smaller solid wire so I can make the bends cleaner. ... Cheers!! Dave
...
I'm going to use smaller solid wire so I can make the bends cleaner.
One suggetion - use stranded wire. I used solid wire and the conductor on smaller wire has a real tendancy to break as you're wiring the switches. Stranded is much less likely to do that.
Hi AEP528,
Unfortunately I was being rather premature when I ordered those panels. There are two major flaws with them. One is that they are far too big and the second, somewhat more fatal issue, is that thay don't match the track plan anymore!
In order to avoid making mistake #2 again, I am going to work with the masonite boards for several months. Once I am happy with the plan I will order the fancy panels.
We are going to use stranded wire for everything except the control panels. I want to use solid 20 ga. wire in the panels so that I can control its positioning more accurately. That will have the additional advantage of not stressing the wires when the control panels are folded forward to gain access to the terminal strips. The strips will be mounted on a small frame which will be attached to the layout behind the control panels.
I will post some drawings once I get them done.
Here are the drawings for the control panel frames. The side view shows the pivot point where the front face will pivot downward at the bottom. The terminal strips will be attached to the folding frame so the stranded wires coming from the layout can do all the flexing.
Double click for a larger view.
I decided that I wanted to buy an NCE 5 amp radio command system. I spent three hours last night trying to find one. Nobody in Canada has one in stock, and NCE doesn't even have any because of parts availability issues. I finally found one at Trainworld so I snapped it up (they only had two).
I think I'm happy. It was a bit of an investment but at least I have one. I just hope it works properly because NCE has suspended their repairs, again because of a lack of chips.
I've had a 5 amp NCE Power Pro radio system since around 2001 and have been very happy with it. It's never failed, and NCE support is always outstanding.
I did have a bit of a problem with radio dead spots on my basement-sized layout, so I added a Wifitrax WFD-31 wi-fi adapter. It allows you to use any smart phone as a throttle (with either Engine Driver or Withrottle, depending on whether you phone is an Android or Apple), and coverage is rock solid everywhere. It connects to the system throttle buss in place of one of NCE's UTP throttle ports. It took a lot longer to read the half page of basic set-up instructions than it did to get the unit working.
For my money, both NCE and Wifitrax produce excellent products.
Thank you for that suggestion. We had a similar setup at my old club and everyone was very happy with it. It certainly makes a non-issue out of the number of throttles that are available.
I am on my second NCE Power Cab. A broken water pipe killed the first one. Having it repaired was almost the same price as buying a new one, so now I have some spare parts should the second one wear out. I doubt that will ever happen because the Power Cab will only be used on the workbench test track.
I'm not sure if you have been following my thread in the Electronics and DCC forum, but Sheldon has just helped me to simplify my control panels significantly.
https://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/744/t/296196.aspx
I was trying to figure out how to wire two toggle switches to turn the power off to one stub end spur. Things were getting complicated until Sheldon suggested that I simply route power to the spur through one set of contacts in the Tortoise.
Using the built in Tortoise switch instead of having a separate toggle switch and an LED indicator reduces the number of components in the control panels by 72 pieces in total even though there are only 18 spurs that need to have the power controlled. That's amazing!
I have decided that if I am in for a penny then I am in for a pound. The garage is going to get some upgrades!
The first thing I need to do is get the floor refinished. There are no major cracks but there are a few pot holes that are a couple of inches deep. Those obviously need to be repaired and then I will have the whole thing resurfaced. I'm not sure I want to go to the expense of having it epoxied. I may just opt to have the concrete polished and sealed.
I am going to install a ductless split AC/heat pump system. They are not that expensive. I only need a 12,000 btu unit. That will make the garage comfortable all year round and it will provide some temperature and humidity stability for the layout.
All the walls and the ceiling are drywalled already so that will just require some cleaning up and painting.
The next question is how far do I want to go with fancy cabinetry. Right now I have a bunch of rather crude and messy wooden shelves. I do have two tall cabinets which I intend to use for train stuff once I get them assembled, but it would be nice to hide the rest of the junk like power tools and gardening supplies too.
Sounds great, Dave.
The heating/AC is going to make a great difference for you.
York1 John
I asked my doctor if I gave up delicious food and all alcohol, would I live longer? He said, "No, but it will seem longer."
Exciting stuff Dave! I admit I'm a little jealous of the mini-split system you are putting in. That will make it really nice!
Mike
Water Level Route I'm a little jealous of the mini-split system you are putting in. That will make it really nice!
Hi Mike,
I was surprized at the price. The system is way cheaper than a home air conditioning unit. I'm getting it from a company in Quebec by the name of Senville. I checked out several split system reviews and they were at the top every time. The nice thing is that they offer 110v systems so I shouldn't have to add a sub panel.
I'm not quite so happy with the cost of doing proper cabinets. Right now all I have are messy and crude wooden shelves that will not look good in the background of any layout photos.
I finally have the control panel schematics worked out. I have been playing with the number and locations of the Rapido uncouplers and I think I have them down to a reasonable number. I'll post the diagrams tonight so you can offer any advice you might have.
I have enlarged the panels slightly to make them a bit less crowded. What colour would you choose? I'm leaning towards a black panel with white track and turnout numbers. If I really had my druthers I'd like to have the track lines illuminated with red/green indications. That would be doable by having the panels printed on white plexy with the non track areas painted black. I believe that there are now LED strips available that can be cut to length. That would create another interesting wiring discussion!
Lots of fun options!
For now, I will stay with masonite until I'm happy with the track plan.
For those of you who might be interested, here are three of the control panel schematics. There are actually six panels in total but the other three are mirror images of the drawings below so I don't see a need to post them. All of these panels go on the south side of the layout:
Here (again) is the whole layout:
Green and orange circles are uncouplers.
Service area:
Orange squares are uncouplers on the panel diagrams. The squares show the size of the switch bodies for clearance purposes. Blue squares are turnout toggle switch bodies. Red circles are bi-colour LEDs.
South industrial:
South yard:
The panels will be about 12" x 6 1/2" (5 1/2" for the yard panels).
I just refined the yard benchwork design to make it easier to install the Tortoises and the uncouplers. I only had to move two crossmembers a bit and It looks like I will require two remote Tortoise mounts. No big deal.
I questioned why I would need Tortoise machines and uncouplers in the yard since it is only 24" wide, but I have decided to go with them. With my lack of dexterity I can see myself knocking cars off the rails left, right and center trying to uncouple them manually.
I sent a note to Peter Lloyd-Lee who will be doing the track and wiring to ask him if he saw any glaring mistakes in my track plan. He pointed out one potential serious problem and that was that the tracks crossing from the main layout to the yard were at very steep angles to the benchwork joints where the yard and the main layout will be connected. He suggested that they should be as close to 90 degrees as possible. The more I looked at the problem, the harder the solution appeared to be. To add to the complexity, I had located two turnouts directly over the benchwork joints.
After a couple of hours I came up with a very simple solution. I decided to cut the yard in half from north to south just to the west of where yard turnout 'K' is located. The joint will cross all seven yard tracks at exactly 90 degrees. The cut off section will be about 6' x 26" and it will be on its own set of casters.
The east section of the yard will eventually be bolted directly to the main benchwork so there will be no potential movement between the two pieces of benchwork. We shouldn't even have to cut the rails.
The east section of the yard won't be attached to the main benchwork until all the wiring and under layout details have been installed on the main section. That will allow us to take advantage of the benchwork's rotating mechanism to gain access to the underside to do the work. Once all the wiring etc. is done there should be no further need to tilt the table. If at some point in the future there is a need to tilt the main table, the rails can be cut and the section unbolted.
I am going to add Casters to the east portion of the yard both for stability, and so that that part of the yard can be free standing should it ever be separated from the main benchwork. Probably unneccesary but you know full well that I like to build things like the proverbial masonary outdoor convenience.
Here is the track plan showing where the cut will be:
The main layout with the east side of the yard attached will still be relatively easy to move to get it out of the way when needed.
It's Christmas in Bradford!
My NCE PH Pro - r wireless DCC command station set just arrived. Everything was in good condition. I haven't tried it out yet. I need to get the device that will allow folks to use their cell phones as throttles but there is no urgency for that.
Time to start reading the manual.
I have been playing with how to attach the yard to the main layout. My first plan required a rather cumbersome triangular addition to the yard benchwork that was larger enough that it would have required additional casters to keep the whole assembly ballanced. It was simply too big.
I have managed to reduce the size and complexity of the triangular extention to where it can be cantilevered off of the yard benchwork without creating any balance issues. As a bonus, it uses about 1/4 of the wood required for the original plan, and it actually provides a small space for some elevated scenery for the train to run through.
I spent a couple of hours looking at how the layout with the yard attached will fit into the garage. I decided that there was not enough aisle space at the ends of the layout for me to comfortably be able to get through while sitting in a rolling chair. To cure that I decided to shorten the yard by about 16". The yard tracks will still be long enough to store the trains that I anticipate running, and if worse comes to worst, I will have to use two yard tracks to make up one train.
I should mention that my rather naive initial vision for the yard was to be able to store as many cars as possible on it. After doing some reading I realized that doing that would make the yard pretty much unusable.
I also played with the arrangement of the rest of the garage space. We have a freezer that has to stay in the garage, but I can do what I want with the rest of the space. My initial planning suggests that I can accommodate five storage cabinets 36" wide x 18" deep x 66" high, plus a small workbench. I can also add some 12" wide shelving closer to the ceiling. I will be able to park a lot of kits etc. on that. There is also a narrow shelf about 42" off the floor which sits on top of the cinder block foundation. It is just wide enough to fit some display cases on, but I will leave that for down the road. My problem is that we will have less storage space because we won't be able to pile boxes of toilet paper etc. in the middle of the floor as is our current practise. We will just not be able to buy in bulk any more.
I have a gentleman coming on Sunday to give me a quote on installing my split AC/Heat Pump system. The next step construction wize will be to find someone to refinish the garage floor.
Cheers everyone!!
Thanks for the update Dave. Sounds like some good things happening!
Water Level RouteThanks for the update Dave. Sounds like some good things happening!
Good things are indeed happening! I just ordered a proper rolling tool chest with a wood top. I have wanted one for 50+ years! Now I can take all of the clutter off of my ancient and crude 2x4 wood workbench and get it organized in the tool chest. That will be one thing off of my bucket list.
The wood top will provide a nice working surface for doing the layout. I hope it will be sturdy enough for me to mount my bench vice on it.
I finally did something that I should have done long ago. I measured the layout with the yard attached and compared it to the actual garage space. Everything fit in but I realized that the aisles at either end of the layout/yard assembly were rather narrow. To make the end aisles more comfortable, I cut 18" off of the end of the yard. The yard is still long enough to accommodate most of the trains that I will be running.
Then I asked myself why the end of the yard needed to be a separate module since the tracks on the module were now only 54". I decided that I will keep the yard as one single assembly but I am building it so that I can make that part of the yard into a seperate unit with only a couple of saw cuts and adding two casters. The entire unit will be on casters so that it can be rolled to one side if more space is needed for other projects.
Here is the garage with the layout in place:
The first question that many will ask (including Peter Lloyd-Lee) is why didn't I do an 'around the walls' design. The answer is that I don't want to have to get out of my chair every time I need to reach into the layout because my back just can't take it. I have to be able to operate the layout from a seated position. The reach-in distances for this layout are less than 24" with a couple of exceptions. My around the wall design had reach-ins of 30"+ and narrow aisles. Yes, an around the walls layout can be done with shorter reach-in distances but there were too many other compromises in terms of what scenes I wanted on the layout.
hon30critterThe first question that many will ask (including Peter Lloyd-Lee) is why didn't I do an 'around the walls' design.
I arranged for my AC/Heat Pump unit to be installed next Tuesday. The installation is a bit more expensive than I had hoped, but I have great confidance in the installer. I refuse to try to save a few bucks by going with people who don't impress me. The first person who quoted on the installation gleefully anounced that he was a close friend of my ex-neighbour. That neighbour was a drug dealer! We had SWAT teams visit his house on more than one occassion!
Dave: Looks like a great plan! Even better that it can fit your needs.
I am struggling with the design of my basement layout. I would love to have an around the walls track plan, but that would require at least one, and probably two duckunders/swing bridges. Doable, but not preferred. I also want visitors (many non-hobbyists) to be able to walk into the room and immediately be impressed (I hope) with a view of the railroad. I want a portion of the layout to have continuous running, for these visitors, but I also will build a branch with numerous switching opportunities.
I think I can get a folded dogbone with a long exterior branch line into a 19 x 40 space. The dogbone is going to have to fit in a central 12 x 30 space, as the wife has claimed some prime real estate along one wall for storage.
Hi Tin Can ll,
I had a folded dogbone planned at one point but I just didn't have enough space. All the curves were too tight and the reach in distances were excessive. I only had 10 ft x 20 ft. It sounds like you have a fair bit of space to work with.
The curves on this layout are tight too but I can reach everything.
I saw an HO layout a few years ago where the modeler had turned his lift out into a powered operating bascule bridge. It was quite impressive!