Is there anybody living close to Aldinga Beach, South Australia that would be willing to visit my layout and give me a hand with the electrical side of things? I have all the gear, multimeters etc but not a clue on how to use them properly. I went to my local model railroading club but it is very cliquey, more like a secret society. Did not feel welcome at all. I read the manuals but I have no technical experience at all and it is not sinking in. I love the scenery side of this hobby but wiring is a complete mystery to me. I'm in desperate need of help. I'll pass on my mobile or email to any Good Samaritan out there.
You are not telling us what you want to do, or how you plan to do it.
Are you wiring for analog (direct current) or digital (DCC)?
Analog wiring can be quite the task, as you need to plan ahead for a lot of things. DCC is much simpler, but still involves some planning. If you are going with DCC check this website.
LION will make it simple for you.
You have two wires coming off of your transformer. One is (+) the other is (-).
You use wire to connect these to your rails,
From there it becomes more complicated if you want to divide your railroad into control blocks, but while you may now need a lot of wires, switches and gaps in the rails, the basics remain the same.
You can draw these out on a piece of paper if that helps you to visualize what you are doing.
After a while you will get the hang of it.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Australia is one of those places I want to go see someday, if I could I would certainly be willign to help out. In the meantime, there's a lot we can talk you through.
Lion - I think you just scared him off with that multi-color spaghetti.
First rules of wiring:
1. Wire comes in colors. Use it. In a consistent manner
2. You never remember what you did a year ago, so LABEL and DOCUMENT everything
3. Neatness counts, especially when it comes to troubleshooting later.
And the golden rule - you ALWAYS need a complete circuit, from oen side of the power supply to one rail to the loco to the other rail back to the other terminal of the power supply.
If you are truly completely clueless about electricty, there are numerous beginenr books on wiring you layout that iwll help. And also, try starting small. Build a simple loop of track and get that to work. The concepts are exactly the same on a bigger layout, you really just end up replicating the same basic circuit over and over again to wire up a huge layout. It may seem complicated but it's really just a dozen or more of those basic circuits, not a dozen unique things.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
A good book would probably help dispel the mystery quite a bit. (Here's one tip: Don't emulate LION's rat's-nest).
For DCC:
Basic DCC Wiring for Your Model Railroad
For DC:
Wiring Basics From Model Railroader
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
RATS NEST! I resemble that remark!
That wire is for SIGNALS, and the row of switches control the signals. The signals were (and presently are) just for looks. I can use those switches to change the aspects for making photographs, but beyond that they really do nothing.
OK, nice colored wires are... well nice. But LION got those wires from parallel port printer cables. Him cut off the plugs, stripped the jacket open and salvaged the wires. So him had to use the colors as they came to him. It does look like a rat's nest, but I do not have to mark or record anything. All of the wires are right there in front of me and I can SEE where they are going and what they are doing. I can trace one down in just a few seconds.
LION *has* used all black wires (Him bought a 1000' spool of the stuff). Him carefully bound them together with nice nylon ties. Him could not trace a wire back very easily.
Well, ok, it was not *that* hard. All of my wire harnesses tie into a terminal board, and 25 pair cat 3 cables connect the terminal boards together. So I only need to record the terminal number in a book to know what that wire is doing. [Wire C-22 is the power for Tortoise Switch Machine located on the local track south of Prospect Park] I can look at the control, the machine, or anywhere on the panel and know that this is (or must be) wire C-22.
But then, you are a beginner, so you can forget all about that stuff and just remember "KEEP IT SIMPLE". Terminal strips can keep things neat, but they do cost money. OK, here are some other wires from the Route of the LION, just to show that the LION *can* do more than just spaghetti!
The wires on these panels are 25 pair cat-3 telephone cables, so the colors are standard telephone colors, and a telephone installer *can* tell you what number a given pair is just by the colors, but the LION cannot do this, but he did keep the pin numbers the same on every panel. This is Cable "C" or the third such run of 25 pair cables on the layout. The notebook with the pin numbers is on the chair.
And here is my finished interlocking machine:
Now those boards, that's more like it. Neatly cabled wiring. That's how it should be done.
If I was an old-timer I'd lace it instead of using cable ties, but hey, most people probably wouldn't even have a clue what that is anymore - and I dunno if you cna even get the right kind of waxed string anymore.
BroadwayLionBut then, you are a beginner, so you can forget all about that stuff and just remember "KEEP IT SIMPLE".
So just a thought, when answering questions for a beginner, might it not be a good idea to keep the answer simple and pertinent to his or her request?
Since your layout concept and unusual wiring scheme are completely different from what 99.9% of others use (and certainly not appropriate for a beginner), how does it help to respond with a barrage of arcane information that can only confuse a newcomer?
Food for thought.
rrinker I dunno if you cna even get the right kind of waxed string anymore. --Randy
Yup, it's still available.
I'm running DCC and initially I just want to set up two parallel tracks connected by two Peco RH insulfrog turnouts:
I think my problem is I'm using suitcase connectors on my main bus. I initially was going to use electrofrogs but my local model shop convinced me to us insulfrogs. How do I test if I have effective connections? I might just solder my wires and eliminate doubt.
If you are using Peco Insulfrog turnouts, you don;t need those insualted joiners you have there. You just have to make sure both mains have the conenction to the bus in the same order.
Let's say your bus wires are red and white. If the rail nearest the front (bottom in the picture) edge is connected to the white bus wire, then the next rain in (second rail of the first track) needs to be connected o the red bus wire. The outer rail of the second track gets white, and the second rail of the second track gets red. These happen to be the wire colors I use, and since my layout goes round the walls such that one rail is always the "rear" toawrds the wall, I use "red rail rear".
Since they are Insulfog turnouts, they are pemanently jumpered through to have the corect polarity on each of the diverging routes, making the insualted joiners unecessary. If you have the front and rear tracks connected to the bus properly, as it stands right now, your train probably dies trying to cross over, but if you stay straight on either line it probbaly works. Remove the insualted joienrs and all should be fine.
Electrofrogs would actually be more difficult, and do require insulated joiners where you have them, plus additional feeder wires.
Nifty. I should redo all my cable management and remove the wire ties and lace it all up. As if I don;t have enough projects to work on.
Stevert rrinker: I dunno if you cna even get the right kind of waxed string anymore. --Randy Yup, it's still available.
rrinker: I dunno if you cna even get the right kind of waxed string anymore. --Randy
Shows you how much I know, I've got electrofrogs not insulfrogs. The model shop owner said one of the problems with insulfrogs and DCC sound is you get a momentary break in the sound as the loco goes through the turnout. Do I still need the 2 insulating joiners with electrofrogs on each turnout?
Insulfrogs MIGHT have a sound break but really only if you have some short locos with a very limited footprint as far as pickups are concerned. My Atlas turnouts are all effectivele insulated frogs, and while I have run a wire to power them, it hasn't been hokked up yet because none of my locos has a problem. The Insulfrog has a somewhat larger insulated area than an Atlas, so they might have a few more issues without doing some extra wiring.
Electrofrogs absolutely need the insulated joiners since the polarity of the rails changes based on the point position. The will work as-is but you can make them more reliable with a few changes, shown here. BTW this is the Wiring for DCC site which has tons of useful information. Just don't be overwhelmed, a lot of the things are suggestions and not absolutes: http://www.wiringfordcc.com/switches_peco.htm
With the modification suggested there, the wire fromt he frog would have to go to conacts on your switch motors - I see you have a Cobalt there, which has contacts to wire up such things. The center 'wiper' contact goes to the frog, the two outer contacts go to your bus wires. If it shortsout, reverse the bus wire connection to the Cobalt.
The only other thing you need is another pair of feeders in the diagonal track, between the insulated joiners. The need to be in the same order as the feeds to the outer and inner straight lines, so back to the red and white colors, in the center of the crossover you have 6 total rails. From the front edge the oder of wires would be something like white, red, white, red, white, red..
If you are going to use the Cobalt machines, you must remove the point springs in the Peco turnouts.
Jay
C-415 Build: https://imageshack.com/a/tShC/1
Other builds: https://imageshack.com/my/albums
Gidday Maxx02, was wondering how the layout was progressing.
Keep having FUN !!!
Cheers, The Bear.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Bear - thank you, thank you, thank you. That's what I wanted (ANZAC spirit alive & well). Your diagram is exactly what I wanted, clear, unambiguous without a lot of technical jargon.
Now can you throw in a couple of Cobalt turnout motors and my confusion should be resolved?
Please feel free to drop in if you are in the area.
Thanks Jay, makes sense if you are running slow turnout motors as opposed to Peco snap turnout switches.
Gidday, Glad to have been of help.
Sorry cannot help you regarding point motors however, have only ever actually seen the Peco ones. I, and the guys, (and gal) that I loosely model with, when it comes to purchasing turnout motors have short arms and long pockets, we either use various under the layout mechanical means, ie choke type cables, or even more frugally and more often than not "the hand of God".
Kid sister lives in Mawson Lakes, but with the young fellow already at uni and a daughter that wants to go as well next year visits to Oz are not currently on the books at this point of time.
Cheers, the Bear.
Thanks Bear, I'll try the 'hand of God' technology first until I build up my electrical skills. Baby steps.
I agree with frugal means, although they require more ingenuity and construction time...and patience in tweaking until they work well. My last layout was all manual, including some long reaches with straightened wire coat-hanger wires threaded through small brass eyelets. At the far end, a bell-crank set-up with a long reach up to the roadbed and a sharpened nail inserted into a hole in the throwbar. Not by any means elegant, but it worked, was reliable, and cost me nothing more than time.
This time around, I intend to investigate choke cables, lawnmower cables, etc. Thankfully, there is only one difficult turnout on this layout, a far cry from six on the last. One flexible actuator cable should do it.
Crandell