| Update 23rd January 2016 |
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Happy Birthday to me, 49 years now.
So better get into what has happened this year so far. A week after returning from Brisbane for Christmas/ new year I had a week to get ready for some members fronm a Facebook group who were to come for a layout session. I also had a visit to hospital for clinics etc every day during the week as well - so there was not a lot done at all apart from cleaning up. The day went well with no major breakages. So now I could work on the layout without ensuring it had to work. A few projects were looked at....... |
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First thing was working on Broughton yard. The original yard was shorting. So I had tried to see if it was
all the trackwork, but eventually decided to undo all the work of my friends had done in soldeing all the dropper wires
for me. I decided to CUT them off the two feeder wires from the panel. The drastic action got rid of most shorts,
and helped me find one last track fault to fix.
So then slowly I resoldered the dropper wires checking at all times to ensure no shorting. It worked, and the yard is ready for me to wire up the points. |
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Next up was the EB-1 Circuitbreaker project, or is it the lightbulb elimination project?
I has already sone the loco end of Broughton. The issue is I have not got enough circuit breakers to do all
districts. So I decided to just do the ones I had.
Also will be putting in the DCC alive LED indicator as originally done at Broughton's loco end. The bicolour LED shows a orange light. With Broughton, I connected both Broughton sections as one, removing the bulbs as well. |
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First up was the lower staging yards. Because there was a autoreverser in the field, the circuitbreaker had
to go next to it, since you cannot have one circuitbreaker in line with what is another circuitbreaker.
There were only 3 bulbs removed, the wiring went easy. I didn't put in a DCC alive for now as the power lights on the boards themselves can be easily seen. |
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Eyeseeh was the next conversion. This one I hope will fix a lot of the shorting issues that often occured
at this station.
The DCC alive LED was put in as well, it can be seen from the end of thepeninsular. |
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Graceton was next. Being the first sub board done I had a lot of work to do to remove over 16 bulbs.
The DCC alive LED was put in as well, it was positioned near the existing panel. A lot or wiring was done for the conversion. The circuitbreaker is in the control room. |
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The hardest one yet was tackles next. The Upper staging indictorboard was to be a real pain as it needed the most wiring.
exactly like the Lower staging, the circuitbreaker had to be fitted to this board and not int he control room.
Took me ages to reaquaint myself with the panel as it hasn't been removed since it was installed years ago.
Because I were not sure how long this was going to take, I moved a little steam loco owned by Danial, one of my regular friends. It was moved out of the electrical section so it could be retrieved. I eventually got it done. No real change apart from removing the bulbs and rerouting the wiring. I decided to rationalise the FOULD LED and added the DCC alive LED where I had left a spot for. At the moment it's working, and I also tried to retune the BD20's block occupancy units a bit, but it didn't work. The fould LED was on so it didn't work either, but the trains work and that was good enought for now. |
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In the control room there are now threee circuitbreakers installed. So far I now have 2 districts without a breaker,
the Warren Loop and Daboola & JJ Loop, as well as the points ( accessory bus )
With most of the layout now on a circuitbreaker it will change the railway. How much I will not know properly until the layout has several operators over again. |
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Meanwhile I had a new project/idea. At Broughton I have been very frustrated with a lot of shorts in the loco
area. i have pulled out wired etc a few times and concluded the board was not good enough.
So I had a idea of the automotive lugs, a blade and socket connection. I soldered the blades to the circuitboard strip and then crimped the wires on, in order. This seems to have worked very well. The photo on the right is part way through the conversion. |
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Lurking in the lower staging yard is another visiting american loco and pass trainowned by Andrew Gallacher.
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Photos....... |
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Page written & maintained by David Head. dthead@hotmail.com