2016_12_28 Warm Weather but thats ok I got my wall :D

2016_12_28  Replaced the crossover, and fixed the problem.


Ok shopping day and domestic problems took me away for the day.

However with another ALDAY fast approaching, I thought I might stock up on some stores.
Bunnings cut up some sheets of background material for me, and more boxes for storage :D

These sheets are to be used to hide the right angled corners around the place!
Cheers
Rod

2016_12_25 A Happy and Holy Christmas to all my friends

2016_12_25 Christmas day.

First a good Australian Company with Good Australian Values does it right despite the invasion of foreign ideas that devalue our Society. I looked through their inventory and ordered The Cement Works as a  way to support these fine people. Its not right for Wodonga, however that's where it will go.
"Quote
AND SO TO CHRISMAS

We would like to take this opportunity to say to friends and customers, a big thank you for your support & business during 2016. We wish you and your families a most happy and enjoyable Christmas and wonderful peaceful New Year.

 

end quote"

The layout 

I am having a lot of trouble with the Apex points. I cannot get the diamond crossing to work electrically.

I have spent 4 days on it. Ripping it out 4 times!

The diamond crossing is a new code 75 electrofrog.  It has two wires from each end. One at each end, connects the DCC bus to power bus. The other connects to frog juicers to ensure the frogs match the polarity for the locomotive approaching. I could have used a double pole double throw switch for this, as per Peco's instructions. As point motors control both sides, I could have used the extra switch to do the job as well. As the frogs are on opposite sides of the rail, I used two mono juicers for the job.

I have tested the crossover on the bench. I know which wire does what.  I have noted the point is electrically working on the bench. No shorts.

However as soon as I reconnect it to the layout, the whole thing shorts out at one end. The insulators (on all four ends (8 of them) have been replaced just in case.

Even though I was very careful fitting it in place, I wonder if the bare wires Peco used could be the problem. I have looked all over, and cannot see a place where a short could be....

I am about stumped!!  Any ideas gratefully sought to this problem??

Cheers

Rod

2016_12_23 Last work day before Christmas.

2016_12_23 Well Tony is on his way home.

I am about to head back out and finish off this section of wiring.

I guess all of you know what I did wrong 😟

Well at the risk of stating the obvious, eight years ago I started running trains using temporary wiring. And I just continued to recently. Although it still looks like spaghetti, it is now functional, and with track moved into proper position, I can tie it all up, out of sight as I go.

Temporary wiring is what you use on a Christmas train set on the carpet. Their is no place for it on a construction like this. The wiring in the new territories is permanent as is the track. Lesson learned? 🙈
Ok back into shed . Will finish this tonight.
Cheers
Rod
Continues:

2016_12_22 Al and his boys made a visit

2016_12_22 Returned home Sunday after leaving Tony at Bendigo. Went to Kilmore East then Narre Warren to visit Mum and Dad at my brothers home. Returned home Sunday night.

Very busy and tiring week. Tony decided to come over and install my signals. However we tripped over a few things and only mounted two signals failing to power them. To be continued.

In the meantime, Al wanted his interstate grand kids to visit the railway. Unfortunately nothing was running.
Whilst Tony built new signals, I tried to sort out the Quarry. The shorts were just not easy to find.
After three days of disconnecting power leads and reconnecting them, I isolated the problem to the three way point at the Junction.
At first I thought the problem was insulation joiners, and I pulled the point up and relaid it, and fixed the main short. Trains could finally run on a small section. However I needed to install another 30 droppers to expand out of that district to the next ones either side. Whilst running a train, I found the diamond crossover was working on the SG side, but not the BG side which became a full short when broad gauge locos entered that side.
The code 75 latest version diamond crossover has two wires fixed to each side. The outermost wires go to RED and Black bus lines. The inner wires (frog) go to the frog juicer to match correct polarity for all trains. Found I had mixed these up, and created the short.

Finally after AL took his kids home, I got trains running :(  You never win when you have to hurry, I guess.

Some pictures?

its spaghetti :(  I pulled it out and put it back so many times, I lost the neatness plot once again 😏
 All three motors had to be reinstalled, this time with the wires cut short, but I got it without swearing once (Shut up Tony 😬)
The tiny circuit boards hanging down to right of solder station are single frog juicers and here they are dead, shorted out..Why???

 This NCE circuit breaker was my test light. Light on, no short Light flashing dead short. It flashed for three days, Soon after I sorted the problem, it cleared No short here!! :D

Ok all wires reconnected and steady red light on the circuit breaker. I am about to wire tie all this back up under the boards out of sight.

Tony built at least 12 signals here over the few days. It has been a long time coming.He told me that this was the most  he had ever done in one sitting, not for a customer.  He has hardly built a signal until I prevailed on him to build my batch, and it seems he found the joy once more of creating such incredible stuff.  He needs to come more often, I guess  😁

The Lop bracket in place, however needs motors and wire in to finish. A great signal. Apparently this one was rejected by a customer. Strewth when I saw it, I bought it on the spot.

I prepared the distant, and it got installed, however needs power and point motor as well.

Removed this end of Honeysuckle hoping Tony would lay the points and fit the signal, however it never happened when Tony found his mojo and started mass production 😹 and I was too busy trying to get trains running for Al's visit with the kids.

We needed to put the Honeysuckle panel back in to lay some track and cut the signal into the base board. That never happened either.

Bit of a disappointment, I guess, after spending three days fault finding, however Tony will come back for a few days in January, with two bracket signals needed to finish off the station project.

Cheers and merry Christmas to all
Rod Young

2016_12_16 Special Signs for Drivers?

2016_12_16 Trip to Melbourne (via Bendigo) makes Rod a very poor boy!

Here AL, is our next project :D

Deluxe Versions hand made in just a few days. Well close to half a day each.

Some Pictures!

Al, The Lop bracket is for the junction into Honeysuckle.

Various other homes to get the branch signalling project going. These are all fitted with actuators and sunny white lights which of course give the oil lamp characteristic yellow glow.
Next problem comes when you mix a yellow colour with green??  you get a blue proceed light. Victorian Railways used the common railway fix, of using a blue glass to get a real green signal indication.  Tony has replicated this with his signals.

And here is the Master at work. He is just fitting a tiny sunny white LED behind the spectacle. As you can see he is working in mm's here. And this is the final signal of the order The Distant!
Cheers
Rod

2016_12_13 Temp Control?

2016_12_13  Well it is hanging on 36C today!

The job is to install 5 point motors!
The outside temp was 32C at 2.00pm when we returned from shopping. That was 24.5C in house and 24C in the shed. Over the next 3 hours outside reached 36C and inside house 30.3C
But the shed remained at 24C Humidity (because of the swampy) about 43%

This is great news. The West wall was so hot on the outside, I could not leave my hand on it. This is what the inside of that brick wall was like last year and the swampy (Water cooled air conditioner) just could not hold the temperature down below 30C.
Its still early days. Trying to cool the building down after 20 days of near 40C might be out of the question.
But at least for now, I know the new internal wall appears to be insulating the West wall and hopefully keep my cool this summer.
Cheers
Rod

2016_12_12 We moved Alday forward

2016_12_12  "Al-Day" moves to Monday this once only. Al arrived and we finished off Kilmore East and started to tidy up the Silos, amongst other things.

As I write this entry, just had a nice conversation with Peter Birthisel from Warrnambool (about)
Hope you do get to visit, you will be welcome.

Ok so what did we achieve today? Al manned the tack hammer and the Dremel, and fitted track into place.

My job was to keep ahead soldering droppers to points, and connecting up point motors and wiring them in.

We did a heap of work.  Al's track work is extremely good. I am thinking of hiring him out :)

Pictures will tell the story :D

Ok.  The track on the top left is the branch line exiting the three way point, which is going to represent my Bowser Station.
The next track to right is the Main North East BG.
The next is the Main North East S.G..line
The third leg of the three way wont take you to Bright, however it does lead to a 21 hopper Apex Quarry siding.

Showing short head shunt.

The long straight section top two tracks will locate the Loading shed.

Loco Run a Round fits X or S plus a T type loco. Normal power in my era.

What's next mate, says Al ;).   Well, as you asked, the grain silo area needs a rebuild?

So we used up the last couple of hours tacking down all the points, joining in the straights to connect it all up, and setting up for the point motors.

 The empty storage roads far end, need to be replaced now that the d'slip is mounted.
Then I need to fit 5 Tortoise machines and one DCC singlet. (servo motor)

Loaded storage roads are a bit short. Might have to extend the road another 600mm.

Al built this section. The SG crossover was in, but all the rest including the nice straight line through the yard is all Al's work. Excellent work!
That will do me for tonight.
Cheers
Rod

2016_12_11 Custom Pointwork

2016_12_11 Custom points made in Madang Indonesia.

Thank you Evan ;)

Departing Coal Siding, Wodonga. The existing track was supposed to be a temporary one, going back towards Wanganella, allowing trains to circulate. Although it will be almost totally hidden, it is good track, and I decided to leave it in, if I could overcome this problem. I need to construct a special point.
In fact a huge special double  track Y junction, with 44 and 46 inch radius curves. I was stumped.

But along came Evan from Indonesia. Exactly one week on, we only have the problem of getting it through the post office :)

Design...one day!

Build and test?  two days.

Ready to mail in  a week.

Very fair price and problem solved!
Cheers
Rod

2016_12_08 Its Al Day again!

2016_12_08 We want to finish alignment of track and make a start on Kilmore East.

Picture Story:

I was a bit slack with the camera, but here is the 4 pm shot of our work today. All droppers in, and ready for point motors

All we wanted to do was put the quarry siding in. But as we said before, we found we had to rebuild the whole junction to expand the quarry to allow for two engines and 19 hoppers. Even so I can fit only one van on (20veh) and my era is that a van sat on each end. The obvious solution is to leave one hopper off.
Very pleased with the work. I worked on one end and Al from the other and we met exactly at the correct position too.

At this stage I suggested Al might do a double shift, and we could get the siding in.......

Enough said 🙋

And so I continued on for a while whilst Al returned home to Corowa, and started here and fitted the loco run a round in.

And by about 9.30 I almost got part of the siding in. Just need the run a round points this end, and put the run a round itself in.

Ok crew change and ready to depart, the "block rock"

Cheers
Rod

2016_12_05 So how was your day?

2016_12_05  My day was sort of........ destructive?

So I am still messy? Sure am :)  However this is a special mess. Its caused by my difficulty to find something I know I have, and now I need, but have no idea where it is.

So in my search, I filled another rubbish bin, and moved everything of value, that did not have a home to here. As well I cleared my proper work bench down, and perhaps I can do my work there now, as I have room to work once more. Might stop me loading the bench board up as I usually do, just like this.
Possibly by tomorrow all this will have found a home. Already today I reduced the pile by more than half.

Constructive work? Well I tried to mount the point I recently modified here to access the turntable. This means that  the distant (see it behind tree?) had to be moved out further. This meant I had to rewire it, that is, extend the 7 wires that operate it and move the signal and tortoise motor to a new position. I wanted to use some ribbon cable, and so began the search which turned into a clean up.

Yesterday I damped down the scenery and the track to allow the modification!   Damn another mess!

But of course that got cleaned up and the point was still too close to the turn table. So I upended the board and removed the distant signal, so I could cut the point back another 6 inches or so.

So the Tortoise has already gone You can see the bent link that joined the bottom of the signal post to the tortoise? so it was mounted to the right. I found 5 wires joined to Tortoise and two to the signal.

I noted down where each wire was meant to go, and cut them away and joined them to the new ribbon cable. Tidied up the wiring. I notice  here I have not reconnected the power feeds yet.

So here is the signal in its new position. It does sit ok when the weight of the connecting rod from the Tortoise sits on the connectors.

So now I need a home signal to protect the turn table road? Funny thing about that......

I did have a brass home signal, however it had been damaged many years ago, and the mast was bent. So I spent several hours with needle nose pliers and I actually straightened the post, and pulled out all the lattice and it looked, perhaps 85% good to go.  So it was sitting up on the baseboard whilst I was banging and drilling and somehow it disappeared. Well I looked for it, unaware I had already found it several times it appears. :(
It was on the floor...  and looked like this

I guess it did not want to be fixed. A new one will cost me $200. Such is life....

Cheers
Rod

2016_12_03 Saturday? V8 Super Cars? Wiring Jobs?

2016_12_03..  V8's at Sydney. Its hot! and I really want to get things done in the shed

Ok record the V8's and turn on the air conditioner.....  waiting.... wai.....

lay track? ok we need to get ready some points, don't we? Points glued down and ballasted are always going to give trouble, so I have to wire them so they wont ;)

 This is the Junction crossover going into Melbourne end of Honey Suckle. These are code 70 Micro Engineering No6 points. They are dead frog, however the frog can be made live with a little clearing of plastic underneath. Just looking here, I see a mistake already. I have insulated the frog rail approaches. They need power because unlike Peco  the frog is completely isolated (dead frog) Powering up the frog does not supply power anywhere else. Easy fix.

The white wire solders to base of frog. I simply ground away the plastic with a Dremel.
Now solder red and black (eh? grey today :)  ) to all other rails
And spotting those insulated joiners linking the points, and for these type of points only, I will replace them with metal and solder droppers on to power in between points.

So you think Peco Electro frogs are easy?

Ok Ok, you do know that Peco redesigned the released "electrofrogs" don't you? The early ones gave trouble and were fixed, and I have found a few original ones in my store, and I decided to fix them today as well.

The new "electrofrogs" have jumpers that need removing for DCC. This one does not!
Also you will notice I have had to cut gaps between the frog and blades to isolate the frog?
Red and black (eh grey) to DCC bus, and white to switch the frog from switch machine or frog juicer.

But that's not good enough.

Cut and clear sleepers to allow linking two rails on each side and joining to DCC bus.
Grind away under frog and join a frog feed here making sure feed wires to rail ends remain attached, mine didn't.

Is that easier to see?

Their is a missing picture? must have been out of focus. I linked these two wires to the bottom of frog, and you can just see it through the plastic? I should not have removed it in the first place. The white wire was soldered into this link. Normally I would simply lift one the bridge wires with a flat head driver and solder the wire directly to it using the driver as a heat sink. Then prod it back into the grooves.

crap soldering not withstanding ;)  I now have DCC bus connectors to blades and all solid rails.

These lay on foam underlay and the wires are just cut into foam.

So I don't care if white glue insulates the blades. I only have to make sure it does not freeze them, and they easily move from side to side. Power will only fail if the wire (or solder) fails.

Cheers
Rod