The baseboard and track are painted

 Finally, the baseboard is all wired up and sockets fitted for plugging in the ECoS and the 5V DC supply. The staging track has been built and can now be attached to the main board.

First off, the track has been sprayed with "Ammo by MIG" Railway Fast Method paint set. I can't see me using all the colours but the rust worked very well.

I then painted their whole of the baseboard and the staging with some Hobbycraft brown acrylic paint. This has given everything a nice overall colour ready for ballasting.

The staging is attached using a couple of 50mm x10mm magnets. One is set into the staging board and one on the main board. They are strong enough to keep the staging in place but not too strong to affect removal. They also snap into place quite well but I also have a couple of rail joiners to make the final connection.

The site from the staging track connects though a small barrel plug and socket but it isn't really required because the rail joiners make an electrical connection as well.

Lastly, I have built a box to hold all of my current locos and cars. This is made out of the black foam core so is very sturdy. 

Each car has its own compartment. The scruffy bits of foam are made up from an offcut that I bought at the local "foam" shop. These stop the cars from rattling around when I pick up the tray or move it.

There is a photo of each car in the bottom of each compartment so that they can go back where they came from.

Finale

Well that is the current state of play. The track has been cleaned and tested and all of it works as expected. The two locos run  freely and both have sound so they are great fun. I am busy writing some Car Card software. I have decided not to use the software that I wrote for my degree as that was way too complicated for my little switching layout so I am writing some code that mimics the Micromark car cards. I will have more on that once it is capable of operating at its full design capability.

Wiring is all in place

 Having put in a DCC bus and a 5V bus, I now needed to connect up all of the track before I start putting the point motors in. The idea was that I would use some clever suitcase connectors that I got from Amazon that have a socket for a plug that lets a new connection to the bus. However, the suitcases needed squeezing shut and the plugs needed a compression on the wire. Both needed a good set of pliers, which I don't have so I muddled through with a pair of adjustable pliers. 

I carried on and connected all of the track droppers BUT - they didn't work! It seems that I couldn't cramp them tight enough. A combination of the wrong tool and arthritic hands. So, it was a case of going back to the old methods. I have a large collection of some connectors similar to Waco except that they are grey with orange levers (you can see the pass through ones in the image above). I have these as a 2 wire pass through or single channel 3 up to 5 way connectors.  They are a bit messier than the suitcase ones but, at least, I know that they work. After connecting all the track using these, I checked it out to find that a) I had missed a couple of places and b) in two places the wires were reversed! How can you get "black to the back" wrong?

Once I had sorted that out, it was time to go for the point motors. 

Fitting the motors

I have had trouble in the past getting the motors securely fastened to the foam core. Basically, the covering of the foam core is just a sheet of paper either side of the foam interior so there isn't a lot of shear strength in it. I cut out some 2mm plastic card to the footprint of the motor and used UHU glue to attach these at each point location. I had previously drilled pilot holes in the card to match the screw locations on the point motors. Once the glue was fully hardened I located each point through the holes in the board that I had made when laying the points. The screws held the points nice and securely so that all worked.

Now, I have never used the Cobalt Analog motors so I made a bit of a mistake in wiring them up. I assumed that the track voltage feed was all that was necessary along with the frog so I wired the track to 1 and 2 with the frog on 3. Wrong! The track goes to  1 and 2. Then you wire the track to 4 and 5 with the frog in 6. If the loco causes a short when passing over the frog, you reverse 4 and 5.  That sorted I had a railway that was wired.

I bought a couple of Frog Juicers as I was having trouble getting some of the points sorted but eventually the juicers weren't required. 

Adding the Accessory decoders

I use ESU SwitchPilot decoders to run any points that aren't DCC aware. These have to be adapted to operate Cobalt Analog motors as these motors, like Kato points, only require 2 wires and are switched when the plus and negative are reversed. So, we have to add some natty little DCC Concepts gizmos that take the three wire output of the SwitchPilot and convert it to a two wire feed.

As there are 6 points - well 7 actually but two are in a crossover so have the same DCC address - I needed two SwitchPilots. One of these worked and the other didn't. I spent over a day trying to sort this out. I asked questions on the ESU forum and, typically, got no answers. I tried two different SwitchPilots and even replaced them with s TrainTech device and nothing worked.

Finally, I applied a bit of logic and compared the two to see that 1) The lights were on one and not the other and 2) the switch that determines the protocol was on User and not K84. I always thought that User was the right setting but I switched it to the other and all the lights came on.

Finale

Everything worked except one frog feed needed reversing. I have a running layout. Next step is to build a tray to hold all of the cars and locos so that I can put trains together easily on the staging track.

First run of Amtrak 737

 While I am waiting to receive the switches for the railroad I thought that I would check out the loco that my friend Dan, in Connecticut, sent me for Christmas a few years ago. I have had it fitted with a sound decoder so it is really a nice piece of kit. Also, I bought a few freight cars on eBay which have now arrived. They were an absolute bargain as the cheapest I can find a car on US web sites is around $19.99 and I paid £15 for these four! I have laid out two yards of track and coupled up the freight cars and of it went.

I think that, considering it has been sitting there for around 3 years, it went very well.

Putting in the Wiring Buses

 I am awaiting my LHS (local hobby shop) to get my Peco code 83 switches into stock. They are promised for tomorrow. In the meantime, I have been carrying out a few tasks that can be done without the track.

First off, I have been putting in some wiring for the two busses that I need along the length of the baseboard. These are the DCC bus and a 5V bus for lighting and Arduino use. The DCC bus is laid with 16awg stranded wire whilst the 5V one is 22awg as little power will be going down that. The DCC bus is also twisted. To connect wires together, I use what are called "Lever nut wire connectors" which I get from Amazon.

I have these as shown which are through connectors. I also have a large collection of these for single wire distribution - I have them with 3, 4 and 5 connections. These are convenient for distributing wires around a larger layout. As it is, I use these through connectors as terminations for the two busses. as can be seen in this close up.

The whole underside of the board looks like this now.

The red and black are for the DCC and the white and green are the 5V DC. Once installed, I run them both out to 5mm jack sockets on the side of the layout.

ECoS is my DCC controller. Lastly, I have been laying down some DCC Concepts foam roadbed. I am not sure if this is a mistake laying it before I get the switches but I am laying it down using Copydex, which is rubber based UK carpet glue which should be relatively easy to lift if I need to.

The white extension is the staging yard - off scenic. It is a u-shaped construction out of foam core. I have installed some Neodymium magnets in the end of the staging and the side of the main board and the staging now jumps onto position making it easy for connecting the track between them. As you can see, the staging encroaches onto my computer desk so it has to be moveable.

As I mentioned, I have been promised the switches by Wednesday (tomorrow)  but if they don't come, I will have to think about buying over the internet, which I am reluctant to do. What is happening on the internet is my selling of all my N Scale and unwanted Märkin/Roco/Piko European stock. I have been given some good prices by Rails of Sheffield. So far I have gathered over £250. Although, it doesn't seem like much for each item, eBay was producing worse prices and I need the capital to invest (!!) in some HO stuff. I need a collection of freight cars, at least one more loco (see below) and some structure kits.

The loco that I have is a circa 1942 EMD SW1 ex-NYC that is still in use by Amtrak in Sacramento. There are two arguments against using this. Firstly, I don't really want to model the present day as all the cars would be longer and I don't want to repaint the SW1 as it was a present - although I have fitted it out with a decoder and sound - and a limited edition Walthers item!

We build baseboards

 I have mentioned on many occasions that I make my baseboards out of 5mm foam core. Well, this time is no different, except that I videoed the whole process. I got my usual four sheets of white A1 foam core from Hobbycraft for £10. I then went to my local art gallery/art supplies shop to get a couple of sheets of black foam core. I like this for the basics of the boards as it is much denser than the white and is very much tougher. The only issue is that the art gallery wanted £12.50 per sheet! I did ask how much their white was and the answer was £8.50 - a sheet! I will continue to go to Hobbycraft where their service is great and they know me by name.

OK, so I had all the board that I needed. Then I had to make sure that I had a plentiful supply of hot glue sticks and 2" double sided tape. To outline the process, I cut the white into 3" strips along with a few black one. The top of the boards and the outside of the supporting bars will be black and the rest will be white. When laminated using three sheets and the double sided tape, the resulting girders are very strong. Anyway, I have created a stop frame video of the process. I am sorry that the beginning is dark but I was still getting to understand the process. My nice Olympus mirrorless camera takes up to 999 frames  at your choice of delay and when finished melds them all together into a video - very clever.

Here is the baseboard in position. I have used the legs from the previous layout.

Here is the view from the left hand side where you can see the white extension for the staging.

I have printed out the Anyrail layout in full size and run along the centre of all of the rails with a pounce wheel.  Following that I am outlining them using a white marker. Here are the pounce wheel and the marker.

and here is the board with some of the track centres highlighted.

Next up, I have some DCC Concepts trackbed to go down and, then, when the LHS gets their act together and gets some switches in stock, I will lay the track. As I am waiting for the switches, I will probably put the DCC bus and a 5v bus (for structure lighting) under the board ready.

Oh dear, here we go again!

 Yet again, I have destroyed what I have and have moved on to something different.

I was contemplating opening up a Youtube channel and describe how I would make a small 6 x 1'  switching layout in HO. Then I tried ballasting the N Scale layout. I managed to glue up 4 out of the 10 points and couldn't fix them. As they were now ballasted, they were stuck firm so I couldn't get them out to try and free them up. So... I decided that the idea of an HO switching layout sounded good - especially as I have a nice little SW2 switcher complete with DCC and sound that I had left from my previous HO layout that got taken down on the arrival of my mother-in-law. In fact, the loco was a Christmas present from my friend in Connecticut so I would be glad to be using it again.

Then, I proved one of the laws of entropy. It takes you weeks to build the basic structure of the layout, lay track and fix all the wiring BUT it takes 2 1/2 hours to rip it all up! The foam core went down to the apartment block bin room, the wiring went into a bag for later use (that includes the SwitchPilots etc.) and the track went into a box ready to be cleaned up and sold on eBay. 

After cleaning the Kato track, I put it all back in its display cards ready to be sold. Then I realised what a huge task it would be to actually ship all of the Kato packs that I had. I might have achieved £100 for the lot but I can live without that. I came to the same conclusion about selling 25 freight cars. Hence, I now have both of these packed away in our storage unit for later use (??).

I have dug out all of my Märklin, Roco and Pike stuff which I will try and sell as there is a lot of money there and I will also try and sell the four N Scale locos, all of which have nice decoders installed.

I have bought a couple of lengths of Peco code 83 track and 2 #5 points plus a couple of DCC Concepts Cobalt IP point motors. The idea behind that was to test the plan for the 6' x 1' layout but that has been overtaken now. It seems that DCC Concepts IP motors as unavailable so I will go with their analog motors which I can drive with my Switch Pilots. My LHS is getting some more code 83 so, hopefully, in a few days I will be able to buy the rest of the track. Now, the problem.

I would like to try the idea of a Youtube channel as my use of foam core is quite unusual and might get some interest. However, I am hesitant about doing it for a few reasons. Like a lot of people, I hate the sound of my own voice when I hear a recoding. Secondly, I have to get the flat quiet which is currently an issue as my wife has a bad chest cough! I do have a nice Olympus mirrorless camera which can take first class video and can also take stop frames so, once going, I can do some good stuff when building the baseboards, for instance. Also, I am quite adept at iMovie and have a copy of Adobe Premiere so am well set up technically.

The New Layout

Here is the current thinking regarding the new layout. It will be about 7'x 1' 4" with a 2' 6" extension as a "fiddle yard" or staging as  the US calls it.

More to come on this when my thinking is straighter.

Backscene and Signalling (1)

 Big news today - we have a back scene. This is important because, once I have buildings, etc. on the layout, I won't be able to turn it upside down to install any more electrics/electronics. The back scene means that I can balance the layout on it and have clear, supported, access to the underneath.

The back scene is made from my usual 5mm foam core. Unfortunately, it does warp a bit when exposed to acrylic paints but it will be securely stuck using hot glue. There are three boards. I used school acrylic paints in blue, white and black. I mixed the the white and blue with little blue and put that on at the lowest level. I then increased the blue for another  two stages to get an idea of the normal sky. I have to say that I didn't put enough blue in the first layer but it's too late now. Once all this was dry, I painted some white clouds on using a stipple brush. This was followed with a white/black mix to get the normal grey underside of the clouds.  I think that it does the job, especially as I am not an artist. (You can right click and see a bigger version of any image).

OK, so now down to some interesting electronics. This is still being built so you won't see it working yet.

I am arranging to put a protective signal on the exit road to the staging. When at the Warley show over the weekend I bought a Berko two aspect signal. Silly really as it is a UK style signal. I should have waited and bought an Atlas one but there we are. Maybe I will replace it. The idea is that when a train gets to the end of the staging it will trip the signal feed to go from green to red. This will happen when the loco moves into the last element of the staging road so about 8" from the end. At the same time, the track power to the whole line will be removed so, should any loco pass the red, it will stop. When the loco and train are  removed, the power will come on and the signal will revert to green.

The stuff that makes this happen is as follows:

An Arduino Uno (eventually, a Nano)

A light sensitive diode

A 5V Relay interface for Arduino

A signal - this time it is a two colour light - red and green.

The idea is that the track is isolated at that 8" distance from the end. The track at that point is fed from the relay.  The Arduino sketch (program) loops around continuously and checks the output of the light sensitive diode. Anything under 1000 as seen by the Arduino indicates that the light above the diode is being blocked. If that happens, the track current is stopped and the signal set to red. Over 1000, the power is restored and the signal turns green.

The sketch looks like this.

// Project Control Staging Track and Signal

int LED = 13; //define LED digital pin 13

int relay = 11; //define relay digital pin 11

int val = 0; //define the voltage value of photo diode in digital pin 0

int state = 1; //state of light sent. diode 1 = ON 1 = OFF

void setup(){

pinMode(LED,OUTPUT); // Configure LED as output mode

pinMode(relay,OUTPUT); // Configure relay as output mode

Serial.begin(9600); //Configure baud rate 9600

}

void turnOff() // power off to track and signal to red

{

if( state = 1 ) {digitalWrite(relay,LOW); // turn relay off

state = 0; // note state as off

}

}

void turnOn() // power on to track and signal to green

{

if( state = 0) {digitalWrite(relay,HIGH); // turn relay on

state = 1; // note state as on

}

}

void loop(){

val = analogRead(0); // Read voltage value ranging from 0 -1023

Serial.println(val); // read voltage value from serial monitor

if(val<1000){ // If lower than 1000, turn off LED

turnOff();

}else{ // Otherwise turn on LED

turnOn();

} // delay for 10ms

}

I think that if you start at the loop and follow that even a non-programmer can follow what is going on.

I am waiting for the last little bits to build the actual setup so that will be the content of the next blog entry.