2015_09_16 wiring again

2015_09_16

Without a doubt wiring is going to make or break a model railway!
Bad wiring is going to break my railway, eventually. I had to do a complete rethink, about what wiring was required with a DCC layout. I made some good decisions, such as using a heavy ring main around the whole shed. But my lack of experience with DCC showed up many mistakes. The mistakes introduced me  to  temporary wiring. That is get it right then make it neat later when you know it works. Bad ... Bad idea.....   :(

So now even though I got it right, I am suffering with a rats nest of temporary wiring... So what to do?

The last week has found me back on the floor tracing out wiring and removing the mistakes and preparing to "neat it" all up.  Found a few improvements and still more mistakes. Actually this was a good week, but it could have been avoided if I made it all neat from the start.

 The Hex Frog Juicer here was screwed to the framework, but it was not working as it should.
The temporary wiring was all good, but finally I found a dry solder joint on a rail.  My soldering skills are not good, barely better than when I started here 7 years ago.
Temporary wiring 7 years on.. The solder joint let me down, however the rest of the wiring using automotive spline joints, and spades all crimped on, are just fine. Lots of folk told me the crimp joiners would fail. I don't think any have thus far. I only used them because at my age, I have no hope of soldering everything together on my back under the layout. I would say the crimped joiners are a success.
You can pair up two frog juicers or 4 of them for special duties. So this juicer manages frog polarity on two points, and as well it uses two pairs to operate track polarity on both ends of the reverse loop formed by the storage roads around the Helix and out of Wanganella.  I made some changes to the wiring here today, and improved operation a lot. With two reversing sections, I can now enter both ends of the dual track storage roads at the same time, when I tried this before, I would put a short on the other train.

 
So the red heavy cable is 45 amp copper, probably over engineered, but I got it on special at Jaycar, and it was the cheapest option.
I am phasing out the tail light short detectors, and replacing them with NCE circuit protectors.
Since I took the picture, I have removed four of the heavy cables, and then redirected all droppers  to the remaining pair. I have no idea, why I thought it was necessary to run the extra cables. System works fine without them.

Tomorrows job will be to tape up all the wires and secure them close underneath the frame. That should look better :D

Cheers
Rod