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
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments and suggestions from like minded individuals always welcomed. Help make this railway better :D