Oh yeah, left out a dimension - the verticals were cut to 16" long. Fromt he floor to the bottom of the tabletop, the legs on my layout are 44 1/2" long (I started out with 48" legs, plus the 2 layers of foam and a layoer of plywood, gave a nice height, about 53" off the floor with the leg levelers, however when I moved the new room has a sloped ceiling and by dropping the whole thing a few inches I gained nearly a foot of width). SO with the verticals of 16", there's enough room over the equipment for air to circulate, and I can reach in to attach the bus wires to the terminal strip without taking it all down, and it's far enough off the floor that I can put stuff under it if I need to - the bookshelf behwind it will be moved over so it remains accessible, plus I need a few more - still don't have enough shelves for all my books and magazines.
It all went together quickly - I just measured the width of the shelf (13"), cut the horizontal pieces to 13 1/8", cut the verticlas to 16", squared them up, put some wood glue on, and two screws in each one. Verticals attach to the layout with two screws in each, no glue - I can unscrew them and remove them if I need to move the layout.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
sounds like with a little forethought on the leg braces, these will be just the ticket!
-Dan
Builder of Bowser steam! Railimages Site
It's 13"x24" - the widths are usually odd compared to regualr lumber - I have a 9"x31 or 32" one that I built my test/programmign track on. Being a manufactured product is actually IS 13x24, compared to a 1x2 that is actually 3/4"x1 1/2". Worked out perfectly since my layout sections are 2x4' with a crosspiece in the middle - so each 'bay' underneath is 2x2'. With the brackets on the inside, the horizontal supports under the shelf are closer together than 24", so there is overhang on either side of the shelf, but not so much that I can't slide it to one ide and tilt it out to set on the floor to work on things. I don;t expect it to get bumped but if I was, I would attach a couple of short pieces of 1x2 to the outside edge of the shelf unit so it can't just slide back and forth. The verticals attach to the horizontals exactly 13 1/8" apart, so there is veyr little fore/aft play on the shelf.
well, guess you've nothing to worry about then Bob.
Randy -- What size is that shelf? I'm thinking that will be a much better solution for making the shelving on the bottom of the layout that you guys mentioned in my thread rather than cutting plywood...
I do have a lot of light under my layout. I use a photo flood reflector clamped to the benchwork.
Bob
Life is what happens while you are making other plans!
That's why I used red and white
Nice and organized. I like .
Only thing I noticed was you used red and black for your bus wires. Unless you have some light under the layout with you, I think you're going to notice that the two wires look *awfully* close to the same colour...
Sorry I move the photo files on PhotoBucket after they were posted. I moved them back.
bob
I just started to label my wiring for the sake of keeping my concentration focused on what i am attempting to do and not to figure out which wire I am about to cut,solder or ?? I don't have all the wires in but started with labels and terminal strips to set up things. I may change a few of the labels before all is done but at least I know which direction I need to go.
NeO6874 nice . might consider some form of cable management on the board too, just to keep everything where it belongs for when you have to trace something out.
nice .
might consider some form of cable management on the board too, just to keep everything where it belongs for when you have to trace something out.
It pretty much is - I have number tags for all the wires since I wasn;t about to try and get enough colors of wire to amke a different color set for each of the 5 busses (4 sections of PM42 plus one from the Zephyr to drive the stationary decoders) plus a smaller bus of 14VDC to power the UP5 panels (space on the shelf next to the MF615 will get a terminal block and a small circuit board with pilot LED and fuse to feed that bus from an inexpensive 14V power supply I got on eBay). There's very little overlap of the various busses, other than on the part of the layout where the shelf is (staging at rear, main int he middle, yard at the front) so just tagging each set with numbers should be fine. They won't cross over or around each other so it's easy to tell which run is which by position. Under the layout all the wires are held in place with those mounts that you feed wire ties through. And never combined. Where the wires pass through they layout structure, there is a seperate hole for each bus run. Simple, clean, and straightforward. Even for frog power - the Tam Valley controllers I am using have a remote relay option, which means the frog relay will be mounted near each turnout, so feeders to the relay and the frog wire will be kept short and not snake all over other adjacent bus runs.
Nice job Randy, and very clean and simple. I am working on a shelf/platform for my Zypher and will have to look into the Rubbermaid shelf. Lumber cost is getting out of sight and quality is going downhill. Any alternative will help.
Very simple, each bracket is 3 pieces of 1x2, the shelf is a Rubbermaid shelf available in the section of Home Depot where they have shelf brackets - being some sort of composite wood product they are cheaper than the all wood shelves found in the lumber area, but they take screws for holding down terminal strips just fine.
Overall view here:
Some more views on my web site.