2010 February 24

2010 February 24   Wednesday  (Page 13 of 35)

A nice blue sky day probably about 28C.
Very little happens
Re-laid some track on the long bottom level, opened up the 42 inch curve ex the station to 60 inch! That looks better!
Cannot figure out what I have done wrong with the Shinohara curved point.
Does anybody sell code 100 Shinohara points these days?

The moving point blades are live. But the frog is completely isolated
When running the smaller curve everything is fine, but throw the blades to the bigger outside curve and every rail is shorted.
 Spent several hours trying to nut that one out.
Gave up, and repositioned the second half of Trentham at the correct level, adjusted the levels and bolted everything up tight. Looks fine!

Gee I was busy for at least 3 hours, and yet not much was done!
Tomorrow comes and we will see
Cheers



2010 February 27     Saturday

I just left the Train room!
What a shambles. But...
I fixed the shinohara curved point. Wired it in and got a "live frog" change over switch fitted in. I have heard horror stories about trains entering the back of the point when set against them. As soon as the wheels bridge the gap to the frog, a short circuit shuts down the DCC and possibly fries the decoder. So I added an 18 watt tail light globe to the wire that connects to the frog. Hopefully that will solve that problem. Trains are now running happily through both legs of the point, and no hesitations at all. God that took some doing. And the problem? the throw bar was shorting out on the sleeper next door. I had to strip all the copper off the back, and previously I had two cuts per sleeper each just inside the solder joint with the moving blades. Removing the copper between the blades and completely from the bottom, fixed the problem. Next time I will use wooden sleepers either side of the throw bar

The next project for the day was to install the "juicers" on the points in the main station. When I looked at it, I decided to install the rest of the points. That is two double slips and at least 9 other points. Should make it all a little more interesting too. In the end, I have pulled out almost all the points and spaced them out a little bit differently in the hope of making the yard tracks a little longer, and more usable.
I mentioned the hex juicer. This amazing little board is designed to make the "live frog" wiring a lot easier. First you find a safe place to install it, usually on a safe surface like timber. You then join your positive and negative track feeds to the taps on one side, tighten them up. You then join wires from the 6 frog taps, all screw tightened, to the six point frogs of your choice.
when a train wheel bridges the frog gap, the juicer instantly feels the short and matches the polarity. The short is fixed so quickly, you will never see a globe glow, or any hesitation from the engine. Nice friendly product for a yard, and lightweight short engines like a Fordson tractor, or even a Y class now move around freely without a hesitation anywhere.
I suspect also, that breaking the points is now short protected automatically.
If you came for a visit today, you would wonder what I have been doing. In actuality, I got heaps done
Cheers till we meet again...
Rod Y

 2010 March 5 AD a Friday
The ides of March are almost upon us! What say you Ceasar?   

 Bloody Hell!
Its wet, rained all day!! But its like the rain in Nth Queensland.. hot and humid

Ok just looked into the train room... Don't need take a picture, just look at any recent picture and delete track

Well I sat in the Office most of the day and wired up points. That is one three way electro frog, attach 7 wires.
one to each point blade, one to each frog, (3) and both outside rails and the two nearest them were bridged as well.

One Double Slip and one Single slip. About 10 wires to the Double and 6 to the single.
And 7 pairs of points 5 wires each. One to each blade, another to the frog and 2 more for outer track feeds bridged to next closest rail also.
With telephones and other jobs needed to be done, that filled my day.
I did get to install the three way point in place of a large radius point, and two points installed.

The reason I solder wire to the blades is to prevent the corrosion which eventually will insulate the blades from the system. It always annoyed me in the past and hopefully I am eliminating that problem for ever.

Tomorrow is our trip down to Sandown. We hired a bus, and Murray Railway Modellers will be there again
So its bed time!
Goodnight
Rod

2010 March 7  Sunday   Our Tess had her First Birthday today! :D

What a day!
Is the drought broken yet? Well Is It? the drought ?? Is it broken yet??

Rain never stopped, but everything safe here in beautiful Yackandandah

However Melbourne has copped the worst storm in 40 years. Parts of it got washed away, I think
After our visit to Healesville and Sandown, we were amazed at the ferocity of the storm, we could see flooded gullies and lots of water in lower areas, as we headed towards the Hume Highway about 4.30 pm.
We decided to head across to Greensborough, and on to the ring road and Craigeburn, rather than via the City.
We were so fortunate, and apart from a couple of scary moments when the bus rear wheels broke away, we missed the worst of the storm.
Unfortunately Hobson's Bay Model Railway was not so lucky. The Docklands area received a lot of hail stones and severe flooding.
edited split to Hobson's Bay Thread
Rod (no cheers today

2010 March 12  Friday

An old version code 100 Shinohara Point. Because it was a large curved point and fitted the spot fairly well, I decided to modify it. First I had to isolate the frog. You can see the cuts both sides. Then solder a wire to the bottom and use the "Juicer" to supply power to the frog, or in this case a simple slide switch.
The only problem I had was using the circuit board material to replace the ties / sleepers I used two either side of the throw bar (to help locate it) This caused short problems. I also had to replace the solid joiner at the frog end of the blades. I simply used fish plates to locate the rails correctly and linked the blades by soldering with fine multi strand wire.
Works very well.

From normal height it does not look so bad, however I will have to adjust the kinks the picture clearly shows in the connected tracks\  

Sorry about the blurry picture. However you can see that the point blades of a Peco Electrofrog (and Insulfrog) are actually easily removable.
The tabs on the blade a simply twisted in the throw bar, and near the frog. A jewellers screw driver easily flips them up, and when you pop them out, you can ease the blade around to release the throw bar. Do one at a time and make sure the little spring is not dislocated on the throwbar, should you need to keep the centring device working.

 After removing the blade, I tin it and solder a fine multi strand wire to it, to guarantee the blade is always live. Simply feed the clip back into the throw bar and fit the other end in to the frog. Using the screw driver spread the tabs and push them down flat to secure the blades. Easier than melting sleepers and trying to solder in impossible places  

 Tonight I just had to connect all the live frogs to the "juicers" and finish installing the track between the points. Did not quite finish the track, however all the points are now wired, and all the locomotives glide through the points very nicely indeed.

 Three roads completed just a little more to go here before returning to the Helix.
Had four trains running around and although I had a few funny bits of track I need to work on, suffered no derailments, even pushing 30 cars around the reversing loop.

Well its 0200 and I am late for bed Adios!

Rod