Has anybody ever hooked up an audible alarm that goes off when a sort occurs? I going to be using a CP6 from NEC and it struck me that it would be easier to pin point where an intermittent short was happening if it could be heard rather than trying to watch a train and a bulb or breaker
I would find the bulb, if it is located centrally in a protected district, to be a much better indicator of which district the short is in. An audible one requires moving toward the sound to better locate the source if you have more than three or four of them. I guess it really would depend on spacing between them. If you have two, one at each end of a layout, then there's no difficulty.
FlattenedQuarterit struck me that it would be easier to pin point where an intermittent short was happening if it could be heard rather than trying to watch a train and a bulb or breaker
I don't know that I agree with the theory. We've had numerous threads were an engine stops over a frog and the question is was that a loss of power or was it a short? Where it happens is obvious.
All my shorts have been derailments or running into switch set the wrong way. Can there be an "intermittant" short that is so brief you don't even see it and need an alarm to know it happened?
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
At our club, we have installed the piezo buzzers on all our circuit breakers. We also plan to install flashing blue LED's on the fascia next to each circuit breaker location. We've already done this in one of our freight yards where the blue LED's are on the switch indicator boards, and it works well.
This way there's an audible tone to guide you near the short, and the flashing blue LED tells you which breaker it is without bending over to look under the layout.
Edit: We are using the PSX-series of circuit breakers.
There is no easy way to hook up any sort of buzzer to the CP6. It's just light bulbs to limit the current during a short, it is not a circuit breaker. Actual circuit breakers like the EB-1 and PSX have the option to connect external indicators. The current EB-1 (so don't cheap out with unknowns on eBay) supports a setting low enough to work with the PowerCab. Older ones did not. The current PSX also can work with a PowerCab. Older ones do not.
I see no need fo buzzers. An indicator - yes. A light near the protected area. That's how I am leaning at the moment, putting a remote LED in the fascia somewhere in the middle of each protectect section, with a label. And probably a manual reset, too - much safer that way. The main cause of a short is derailing or running against a turnout, so WHERE the short is is usually very obvious. Those occasional tools left on the track are pretty easy to find as well. Once wired, up and running, it's pretty rare for somethign to just 'short out' for no other reason. It's why you fill gaps or use insulated rail joiners, instead of just cutting through the rail and calling it good enough - things (Mainly the benchwork) move, and can close uninsulated gaps. Best practices will keep the silly things from happening - what's harder to prevent is the operator error type of thing like running against a switch.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
an audible indicator could be very helpful if you need to focus closely on the track or wiring and be able to hear if there is a short w/o turning your head
one approach requires some circuitry.
with a bulb connected to the + supply and a bus wire for one rail, the connection between the bulb and bus should always have voltage except when there is a short, then the voltage drops to zero.
so you need a circuit that turns something on when there is no voltage, or another way of saying this, is to turn something off when there is.
a relay could be wired between the bulb connection to the bus and the opposite bus. power to the buzzer can be wired thru the normally closed contacts, the ones that are open when the relay is not energized. when when a short occurs, the relay de-energizes and and turns the buzzer on.
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Personally, if I were going to do this I'd use a bell, and have it 'ding' only for the time it takes the overload protection to trip, and then use lights to show what and where is 'off the line'. That way you can test for shorts 'head down' concentrating on the track work or details, but just turn your head to see what was interrupted if you need to know where it is or what to reset, and won't have some annoying noise squalling until turned off or auto reset...
If you could rig it back so the throttle would give the user a shock when they did something wrong like run a red signal or run against a turnout......
Would require a lanyard on every throttle so they don't get dropped. If more effect is desired, link it to dog shock collars. Each incident is gets turned up a bit, each period with no demerits, it gets turnd down a little bit, so the more careful you are, the lesser the penalty the next time you mess up.
i've had a short caused by pressure on the rail. i needed to know the instant a short occured and cleared.
sound would be good if you're working under the bench
One of the first things I built before starting my first DCC layout was a bepper box - battery, buzzer, clip leads. Every DCC site said make one of these. Clip it on to the bus in place of the booster and you'll know instantlky if you wire a feeder backwards. I even made it kind of fancy, mounting it in a small project box, instead of just having a bunch of wired taped around a buzzer and battery.
I never used it.
I don't use the same color wire for both feeders, and certainly not the same color wire for both bus wires. In fact, I match them. So I'm always hooking the white wire to the white wire, and the red wire to the red wire. Green is for frogs, because frogs are green.
i don't understand the discouragement?
it's great that someone doesn't need a specific tool. but that's not to say others wouldn't find it useful and appreciate discussing how to build one
I'm not saying don't use one. I'm saying *I* built one - and never needed to use it.
I'm not even sure why I bothered, considering I already had a multimeter with a continuity beep option which does the same thing. And considering I believe Alton Brown's kitchen philosophy of "no single taskers" carries over to other areas as well - though to be honest my beeper wasn't a single task device, it had a switch and a bicolor LED as well (with resistor), so in one position it was a continuity beeper and in the other it would show track power (or DC polarity). Even labeled the switch positions.
Kind of like the decoder tester I built and also never used....
But just because it didn't serve any purpose for *me* doesn't mean it won't work for someone else.