Wordless Wednesday #368 - Just Doing It

 

Modifying the Saybrook Control Board - Finale: New Diagram, ReRewiring

When we last left the Saybrook Control Panel, everything was all wired up and working but not quite  finished. That is to say, it was all marked up and totally not intuitive. See below...

Click to enlarge to see all the new tracks added, especially crossovers. And note how the toggles & turnouts are illogically lettered.

As you can see in the photo above, while everything is working, the toggles really have no obvious relation to the turnouts they're controlling. They're associated by letter, but there's no logic at all. And most of the new turnouts don't have any light indicators. Suffice it to say, using the panel during the last operating session was a bit frustrating.

So I decided to bite the bullet and make redoing the diagram and rearranging the toggles the top priority on the punch list. Fortunately, BillS could take care of the diagram - I'd have to install the new LEDs and rearrange the toggles myself though.

While my now "marked up" panel graphic provided a good indicator of what changes would be necessary, it was also a good idea to draw an accurate schematic of the current track arrangement and get it to Bill. Based on that - and his coming over to visit the track in person(!) - we (and by "we" I mean "he") was able to modify the diagram to reflect the new arrangement. He then sent me a full/true size PDF I could get printed. I took that to Staples and paid the extra for a good quality printer and heavier stock paper. $20 got me a nice new diagram.

But I had to remove the old diagram first.

First step is to get the LEDs out of the way. A pencil eraser does this easily and safely.

I had used a glue stick to attach the diagram, but it wasn't too difficult to remove with a little time and patience (and a couple of putty knives)...

The process would have gone quicker if I wasn't trying to preserve the old diagram. But I wanted to save it for posterity (and to have a handy reference for how things "used" to be in case I need it).

Old diagram, mostly intact

Board all cleaned up and ready for the new diagram

New diagram installed and needing holes to be punched

Bill did an absolutely amazing job of reworking the diagram according to the new arrangement. He also used some prototype diagrams I sent him to make the new graphic as prototypical and as informative as possible. All turnouts are now numbered and - BONUS! - the numbers actually correspond to the toggles and the toggles are all in a logical order. The tracks are also numbered (from top to bottom - 10, 8, 6, 2, 1, 5, 7 - now you know why a diagram is so necessary!). The most impressive thing though was that he measured where my toggles were so that when the diagram was installed the numbers would line up under the toggles (it helped that I'd installed the toggles in a straight line and on 1" centers). He also put little dots where the LEDs should go. Made everything very nice and easy to follow.

Once the diagram was in place, I drilled 1/8" pilot holes through the front where the LEDs would go, then drilled 1/4" from the back.

Then it was just a matter of installing the little LED "sleeves" that would dress up the edges of the holes, and press fit the bulbs in.

I used the same process with the toggles, though the holes were drilled already. So it was just a matter of punching through the paper, pulling the toggle through, and dressing it up with the washer and nut.

Once all that was done, I was left with the long and tedious process of moving the toggle wires to connect with the proper turnout wires. In most cases, this just involved disconnecting and reconnecting. But there were a few wires I had to lengthen, and a couple I had to replace entirely.

The more involved process was installing the new/additional LEDs and wiring those up. But again, by working slowly and methodically, the process went very smoothly. Just took time.

But as you can see, it was certainly worth all the effort. It's really obvious how much better this diagram is compared to the old version. It now accurately reflects the track arrangement and there are LEDs for all the turnouts, and it just looks so much better now, with the main tracks now being parallel and everything being labeled so nicely.

The lesson for me here is to not be too afraid of redoing things (within reason, of course). It usually isn't as bad as you fear or take as long as you thought (heh - sometimes it takes even longer, but that's beside the point). In the long run, you'll be much happier - at least I'm finding that I am.

Can't wait to try it out for the next ops session - only a few crazy work days left . . .

Modifying the Saybrook Control Board, Part 1 - Wiring

It's nice and easy out on the Valley Line - the local freight meanders along, stopping as needed along the way to shuffle cars and throw switches. On the branchlines, the switches (a.k.a. "turnouts") are thrown by hand - and on my layout the points are moved by a finger (MicroEngineering turnouts have points that lock with a center-over spring).

But down on the Shore Line where the Valley connects in Old Saybrook, it's a different story. The switches are thrown remotely by the Saybrook tower operator. And on my layout, they're thrown by machines controlled by toggles on a control board. It's a pretty cool contrast to how things are done on the branch. But it's pretty annoying when you have to add additional turnouts. In addition to a new machine, every new turnout needs a new toggle (though crossovers can be controlled by 1 toggle), so the toggles need to be added to the board. And the diagram on the board itself needs to be changed eventually too.

The prototype had to do this from time to time as well, so that's some consolation.

Buzzards Bay, MA control board, posted by John S Greene on the New York New Haven & Hartford Railroad group on Facebook

Thankfully, my panel doesn't need to be modified quite that much - and I'm adding, rather than subtracting track, which results in more white pencil lines rather than blackout...

Click to enlarge and see the new markings showing the new track arrangement. The post-it shows where the new toggles will go.

First step was to run additional power lines from the panel to the machines. As I described here, power goes from an old 12v power pack, through two buslines (+/-) in the panel. The toggles are soldered to the buslines and are connected to a terminal strip. From that strip, 18ga lampcord goes 25' from the panel, under the stairs, up and over a doorway, to another terminal strip. And from that strip, more lampcord goes to each machine.

So, opening up the panel, here's what we see (click here for how I built the panel):

I've already drilled a new hole for the additional wires and the new wires are poking through.

Next, I needed to drill new holes for toggles, including routing out recesses (as described here).

I already had one extra hole from before - I wish I'd thought ahead more. Oh well. I extended the center line and marked 1" centers.

Then it was a matter of drilling a small pilot hole (1/8"), then the toggle hole (1/4"), then the recess (5/8" spade bit, then - when that was insufficient a 3/4" spade bit).

Drilling/recessing these holes was my biggest mental hurdle, but once I'd gotten the bit between my teeth (sorry for the pun) it actually went quickly (if stressfully).

Having previously wired up the additional toggles conveniently at my workbench (as I describe here), it was just a matter of putting them in - the most complicated task was soldering the toggle wires to the power bus (I ended up unsoldering a couple of the other connections in the process, but that was easily corrected - once I discovered the problem).

By contrast, one of the least-stressful (and almost relaxing) steps in the process, was cutting the remaining wires to length and connecting them to the terminal strips.

You can see the additional terminals I've added, as well as the additional wires - all nicely labeled.

So Many Wires going up and over the doorway! They come from the panel under the stairs and out through the stud in the lower right of the photo, and end up at the terminal strip under the layout next to the door knob.

It was a long process and I would have been perfectly happy if it hadn't been necessary. But for the most part, there was nothing particularly difficult about it as I'd already done it all before %^)

The pic above show everything all connected. Well, almost everything. As you can see (or maybe not, considering the bundle of wires) there are some loops of disconnected wire. Those are the wires from the new toggles that will go to the LED indicators. I haven't done those yet because 1) I need to find 3 more 5mm green 3v LED bulbs, and b) I need to redo the track diagram (and by "I" I mean Bill, hopefully) and won't know where the bulbs (and their associated mounting holes) will go until that's (re)done and (re)mounted.

We'll make it look all nicey nice when I/Bill have the extra time. That'll be "Control Board, Part 2." But for now, everything is functioning so it's ready to go for my next shake-down session.

Control Board in its current state - 17 toggles, all marked up, and temporarily relabeled.

Control Panel Wiring

Now that the control panel is all up and mounted, here's how I wired it up. . .

I needed to power 14 switch machines, including 2 crossovers which would have to be wired together so that they would throw together. The control panel would be on a wall on the other side of the (small) room from the layout & machines - about 8 feet away "as the crow flies" - but as it turned out anywhere from 25-36' away "by wire." In order to keep things cheap economical, I used a 500' spool of plain brown 2-gang (2-wire) lamp cord to provide the power from the panel to each machine. Each wire is also 18 gauge, so should be large enough to carry enough current that distance without too much voltage drop.

In the above photo you see the terminal strip between the machines and the bus wires going to the panel. The wires from the machines come up from the bottom while the wires to the panel go out through the top. I wired one machine at a time, attaching a 2-gang wire to the machine, labeling it, and running/connecting it to the terminal strip (also labeled). Click here more detail on wiring the machines.

I ran what turned out to be 25' of wire from the terminal strip, up & over the door between the staging yard room (shop area) and the layout (as above) . . .

. . . then punched through the doorframe and bottom of the stairway . . .

. . . under the stairs and up along the back of the stairway footer wall . . .

. . . to the back of the wall where the panel would be mounted. And then repeated the process 12 times (thanks to Pete for LOTS of help with this part of the project!) In the photo above, you can see that each wire is labeled - I ran one at a time in order to keep track of them all (I couldn't expect to have found 12 different colored wires - especially being color-blind!).

So that concluded all the wiring between the layout and the panel location. Now, back to the panel itself. . .

You may recall my (what turned out to be a minor) debacle whereby I discovered that the panel was too thick for the toggles to be mounted. As you can see above (and read about here), I used a spade bit to rout out where the toggles would go. The pic above shows the first wire of the power bus installed (the green wire going right-to-left with insulation removed where the wires to the toggles would be attached), the first toggle installed, and connection to the first pair of LEDs. Click here for details on how I wired the LEDs to indicate switch machine direction (polarity).

To keep everything neat and organized - and to make it MUCH easier to connect all my lamp cords later - I installed another terminal strip inside the control panel cabinet. Wires from the toggle to the switch machines get connected to this terminal strip. You can also see in this pic the other power bus (the red wire) and the remaining connections (short wires going from the power bus to the toggles), as well as wires to the terminal strip and LEDs.

Here's a closeup view of all the wiring completed. I still have no idea why I drilled that 13th toggle hole - or why I took the time to rout it out - when it wasn't needed. Oh well.

Here's a closeup of one of the LED pairs wired up. Notice the resistor joined to the anode (long leg) of one bulb & the cathode (short leg) of the other bulb. The remaining legs are joined as well (and of course all the connections are soldered). Wired this way, one bulb will light when the toggle is switched one way, and the other bulb will light when the toggle is switched the other way. For further explanation of this wiring, click here.

I've made mention of the power bus a couple times already. Power comes from the DC terminals of an old 12v MRC power pack I picked up at a local hobby shop for $5.

I used lamp cord (again, since it has the two wires) to go between the power pack and the two 14ga bus wires inside the control panel cabinet which run along the length of the panel (see above). The lamp cord is connected to the bus wires via two screws (poor man's terminal strip) . . .

. . . but the other end of the lamp cord is connected to a SOCKET (female part of the plug).

Attach the plug (male part) to the wire coming from the power pack. This arrangement allow me to easily connect & disconnect the power pack to/from the panel. But you want to be sure and use the SOCKET on the panel-side so you (or anybody else) are never tempted (or able) to plug the panel directly into a wall socket, via an extension cord or otherwise. I don't even want to think of the FLASH!!! that would result(not to mention the smoke, and possibly fire).

Speaking of fire hazards, note also that despite the heavy gauge lamp cord and such, there is NO house current going through any of these wires or into the panel. All of the power comes through the powerpack/transformer and is only 12v (& 1 amp) max when it gets to the panel.

And here's an overview shot of the completed panel wiring. Power comes in through a 1/4" hole drilled through the bottom right corner (and in turn comes from the power pack as discussed earlier) and goes through the bus wires to the toggles. The toggles simultaneously control polarity to the switch machines and alternate lighting of the LEDs. All the wires you saw fanned out under the stairs earlier are coming through a large hole drilled through the back of the panel and through the wall and are connected to the terminal strip. Again, each wire is labeled to keep track of them all (big thanks to Tom for passing them to me from inside the wall!)

And here's the panel in-service above the Agent-Operator's desk. I'm really proud of how it all came out - especially since having it at all was the result of a (mostly) off-hand remark I made way back when I was first starting the Saybrook scene - "Gee, wouldn't it be cool to have all these turnouts remotely controlled by a tower operator just like the prototype - we could put a panel above the operator's desk over there. We'd "just" have to run some wires to it - should be easy."

Well, I wouldn't say it was exactly "easy" but once I thought it through it was fairly easy work - just a lot of it. I had a couple setbacks along the way, but those turned out to be pretty minor all things considered. And the result is - to my mind - the proof that the work was definitely worthwhile.

I can't wait to get things cleaned up and run some trains through Saybrook Junction - S.S. 102!

A Tease and a Tip

The control panel is mounted!

But this is just a tease for now - although it looks like it's done done, with LEDs lit up and all, it actually still needs to have all the switch machine power wires connected. I'll get into that when I do my post on control panel wiring. Click on the image to embiggen, It should be at least a little reminiscent of this:

Of course, I don't have an actual tower to mount the panel in, but mounting it above the Agent/Operator's desk I have is the next best thing, I think.

So I just have a little bit of wiring left to do. I've mentioned before How Much Wiring there is in this thing - and it's not even that complicated! But I had to wire up a dozen DPDT toggle switches (the first 6 were done by Pieter and Dick - thanks again guys!) and they had to be wired so that I could reverse polarity (and thereby, reverse the direction of the switch motor and move the points on the turnouts). That meant I had to come up with a good way of making that little "X" of wires that has to go between 4 of the 6 poles on a little DPDT toggle.

So here's a tip I came up with - follow along and let me know if it makes wiring these things easier for you too...

We'll actually start at the end - the above pic is where I had to end up for Every Single Toggle.

• Two wires pointed straight down off the bottom two poles go to the LED panel indicator bulbs;
• Two wires pointed down at an angle & connected to the middle two poles go to the power supply wires;
• Two wires pointed out the "top" & connected to the top two poles go to the switch machine.

The wires I'm gonna show you how to do - and which were really difficult for me to do until I figured this out - are the ones going from "southwest" (lower left pole) to "northeast" (upper right pole) and vice versa ("southeast" to "northwest"). These are the wires that allow the toggle to reverse polarity.

The key is to remove about 1" of insulation from the end of the wire, then make a loop to go around the first pole. The pic above shows what you're trying to accomplish.

Here's a better pic (above) showing how I start. I've done the red wire already and just started the white wire, having removed 1" of insulation and made my loop.

Then I slide the insulation back on and mark where to cut it.

Next, I take the insulation back off, cut it, slide it back on, and make my "hook" in the end of the wire - like this:

It actually takes about as long to describe as it does to do. But, as you can see, the result is a VERY compact wiring job that keeps everything all nice and snug and - most important - insulated.

At this point, all I had to do is add a little flux and solder. Alhough the resulting "mechanical" joints are actually pretty strong all by themselves, you'll still want to solder the connections to keep things from coming loose.

If you try this out, be sure to let me know how it works out for you. And if you have a better - or even just a different - way to do this, let me know!

Finally - one last little gimme tip:

Poor (& lazy) Man's Power Tester

It's not bad enough that I'm so cheap I actually wired up an old 12v bulb to two alligator clips for testing track and such (rather than buy an actual current tester). But I was also too lazy to remove wires I'd already screwed into the terminal strip to test them (I'd forgotten to test them beforehand). No problem - just clip your El Cheapo tester to a couple of scrap pieces of wire and stick'em into the strip.

Looks like the wires work after all! (just don't stick those wires into a wall socket...)

I've got a small work session planned for tomorrow evening wherein I'll (hopefully) finish up the control panel wiring and test all the switch machines. Here's hoping everything goes smoothly. . . As much as I've enjoyed doing the control panel and am very happy with how it's coming out, I'll be ready to dive into something new.

Speaking of which, what are your thoughts on Tortoise switch machines? I have just a few more turnouts I'd like to power and am considering trying them out . . .