February 2024 Update

For whatever reason, it was a bit more difficult to get the blog written this month. It does become an albatross at times. Enough of my whining, onto the update...

February was a month dedicated to more wiring, getting the control boards installed, testing the Arduino turnout matrices, and some benchwork updates. 

All of the staging track bus wiring for the Taylor peninsula was completed. 

As you can see in the photo, the trunks of wire headed to the control board are substantial. Since this photo was taken, the zip ties have been snugged up. 

The purple/yellow wire pairs are for each staging track, and the blue/white pair is the standard track bus. The blue/white is connected to each yard ladder and the tracks headed out of the yard to the main level. 

We began pulling wire for the track bus on the main and upper levels. Wiring goes from the control panel to the left and to the right on both the main and upper levels. Thus, four runs. This allows me to keep each wire run under 65'. 

I'm using 12 gauge wire and expect to have consistent power for the length of the run. The track bus is twisted about 1 turn every 8-12". I'm installing NCE Snubbers at the end of each run as well. 

Pictured are two empty 500' wire spools on the 'apparatus'. That is 1000' of wire main track bus pulled. So far, I'm well over 3000' of track bus wire installed, and over 600' of Cat5/6. And who knows how much feeder wire! 

There is more to go, but I believe I have all the wire on hand to complete the remainder of the wiring.  

Pictured are the wires for the upper level and main level which have been pulled. The upper level to the left remains to be pulled as I still have benchwork to complete. The control panel is mounted on the wall below the main level. 

I've noted before about my feeder to track bus wiring and how it is a bit different. Now that I'm connecting the feeders to the track bus, I'll review my process. 

After installing the feeders, I connect them to a 'sub-bus' of 14 gauge bare copper wire. I then connect the bare copper wire to the track bus. Using the sub-bus, I'm able to keep my feeder wires shorter and avoid soldering clusters of wire to the track bus. This technique also makes it very easy to add more feeders quickly. 

Pictured are a couple of examples. When connecting the sub-bus to the track bus, I bend the bare copper into a hook that wraps around the bare (stripped) track bus. A quick squeeze to tighten the hook around the track bus and then I solder it in place. 

The wiring looks a bit messy, but will clean up once hot glued in place. 

Once everything is connected, it will be hot glued to hold it up. As the wires become static once connected, there is no risk of the sub-busses touching and shorting. I used the same technique on the Exeter Branch and haven't had a short in 15 years of operating. The only caveat is that I'm using steel benchwork this time around. So I'm a bit more careful.

I am currently getting all of the sub-busses connected. It is a bit of a time consuming process as I trim the sub-bus once installed. In some cases, I need to adjust where the feeders are connected to the sub-bus to ensure the feeders are not stretched or have tension. 

I did change methods from when I originally installed the feeders on many of the the sub-busses. The original intent was to make the sub-bus one length of copper. I changed my method from a single piece to two pieces.  The track bus splits the distance and there are front and back sub-busses. This is a more effective method for managing the connections versus a single piece of copper and provides more flexibility. It allows me to keep the track bus a straight as possible, keeping the overall length to a minimum. 

I decided to change the design of my car card boxes as well. I use one box per industry. In doing so, I realized that most industries will have 1-3 cars. Some will have up to 10. I really do not need deep card boxes as they only hold a few cards. I redesigned my card boxes to comfortably hold 15 car cards. Now the overall depth of the box is less than 1/2". 

For the yards, I created boxes that will hold up to 50 car cards. These are just over 1" deep. The more traditional boxes that I used on the Exeter Branch are over 1 3/4" deep, so there is a noticeable difference. All boxes will be mounted to the main level fascia. Color coding is gray for the main level and red for the upper level. 

Some of the prints need a little clean up, but I'm pretty satisfied with the result. I'm also planning to highlight the lettering with paint for better visibility of the lettering. I'm still working on the best method to accomplish this. 

For the staging tracks, I used the same size box as the yard boxes. I added a new section to the bottom of the standard yard box to house a push button. The push button is used to activate the turnout matrix and activate power for the specific staging track. I chose to use white for the staging boxes to have a distinctive color and make the push button obvious to the operator.

My 3D printer has been getting quite a workout printing all of the boxes. 

Not all of the boxes are printed yet as I had to order more filament for the printer. Overall, my cost for nearly 200 boxes will be less than $50.00. Of course that doesn't include the cost of the printer! 

I did manage to burnout another soldering iron. That's two so far. Granted, I've had them for 20+ years and they have seen a lot of use. When I was looking for a replacement, I came across one with LEDs for lighting up the work area. I thought that was novel and could prove to be helpful. So I purchased it and am really glad I did. Soldering under the benchwork made me really appreciate the light. Using an independent work light causes shadows in the work area. This does not. I highly recommend it.

Before adding all of the cross members to the main level of the new peninsula, I determined that some additional legs would be required to support and stabilize the upper level. I added two more legs. In March, I'll be installing the base frame for the upper level and getting everything strong and stable prior to adding the cross members, risers, and drywall. My design has been to plan for all three levels (staging, main, upper) during construction starting with the staging level. 

I'm pretty sure I'll be adding two or three more legs to the structure beyond these two. 

I did some final test fitting of the helix before permanent assembly. The piece of Atlas code 83 flextrack fits snugly into the groove. This is going to work out very well!

We were able to get the turnout matrix working in Arduino. Next was tweaking of the matrix code and some additional manipulation to get everything running. The yard ladders are not mirror images on each end of the staging yards. Thus, we had to do the aforementioned tweaking to get everything to work perfectly. The design is one set of relays to control the yard ladders on both ends of the yard. This would have been simpler with relays for each end of the yard. Regardless, it is all working well. 

In the picture to the right is the breadboard with pushbuttons installed for testing. 

I received some questions about how I was hanging the control boards on the wall. They are not mounted directly to the wall. This was done to enable easy removal if ever necessary. I hope that's never the case. 

I cut a piece of plywood at a 45 degree angle lengthwise down the middle. I mount one half to the wall as a cleat. 

The corresponding piece is mounted to the back of the control board. 

The board is then placed on top of the wall mounted cleat. This is a simple and effective method for hanging the boards and ensuring that they can be removed if needed. However, disconnecting all the wiring will be a nightmare.

Here are pictures of the remaining boards mounted to the wall.

There is one board remaining to be built. This will house the Switch 8s for Taylor Yard and Violet Alley. And, the Violet Alley electromagnet timer boards. 

That wraps up this update. I'll have more visible progress in the March update.