South Pelaw Junction

Tell us about your layout, where you put it, how you built it, how you operate it.
davebradwell
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby davebradwell » Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:07 pm

Ah, but will you know it hasn't done anything? There's nothing like wrestling with a lever that won't budge to get the penny to drop.

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:12 pm

davebradwell wrote:Ah, but will you know it hasn't done anything? There's nothing like wrestling with a lever that won't budge to get the penny to drop.


The operators will soon learn :mrgreen:

And, absolutely, a lever that won't move will soon concentrate the mind but, with 85 levers and the associated interlocking to figure out (I don't believe that the guys that built the EM version ever came across a locking diagram), the time it would take to figure it all out and then build the thing could, for me, be put to better use elsewhere on the layout...

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grovenor-2685
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby grovenor-2685 » Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:29 pm

Just provide an audible alert when a locked lever is pulled, or have red LED indicators for each lever that light when locked. (Which could conflict with other indicators if any).
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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Mon Oct 24, 2022 7:56 pm

grovenor-2685 wrote:or have red LED indicators for each lever that light when locked. (Which could conflict with other indicators if any).


That's exactly the plan...

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Mon Nov 21, 2022 8:48 am

A look up and down the layout as it currently stands three and half years after the baseboard kits were delivered. Allowing for the effects of lockdown and a couple of other fairly long periods away, I'm quite pleased with progress.

All the trackwork is laid and around half of the turnouts are operational and the hope is to get all of the others up and running for Christmas. Two signals have been installed so far and they both work.

Current jobs are the tie bars for the remaining turnouts and their connection to servos as well as the electronics for the 'locking' of the facing point lock levers.

Image

Image
Last edited by John Donnelly on Mon Nov 21, 2022 11:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

Terry Bendall
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Terry Bendall » Mon Nov 21, 2022 9:01 am

Very impressive John and some very nice pointwork there. :)

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Tue Nov 22, 2022 4:58 pm

Thanks Terry.

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Mon Dec 05, 2022 10:19 am

Now that the up and down main lines are fully wired and all the turnouts on them are operational, I've been doing some testing as I want to be sure that everything works properly before I commit to ballasting. I'm still limited somewhat by the lack of fiddle yards at each end but here is a short sample of some trains running...



and a short video of how I'm controlling the turnouts and signals:


SteamAle
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby SteamAle » Tue Dec 06, 2022 11:21 pm

John
I took a layout to a show once. It worked perfectly at home before I dismantled and transported it. Once erected and powered up there was a dead short. I could not find it anywhere. Having spent two days at a show only being able to run backwards and forwards in staright lines, because every time I changed a point, dead short! Wires had been disconnected but made no difference. I decided to skip the layout.
On return home I started to strip track and other fittings off the boards when I discovered the fault. Wire in brass tube with copperclad sleepers. A piece of tube had moved and was touching a rail, which caused the short when a pont was thrown.
Hopefully you won't have the same problem. I now use plastic tube!
Philip

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Tue Dec 06, 2022 11:51 pm

Thanks for that Philip, the tubes are all superglued in place so they shouldn't move but I will keep it in mind.

John

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Winander
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Winander » Wed Dec 07, 2022 12:18 am

John,
Great videos and very impressive performance.
Where are the servo mounts from? I didn't see an omega loop or other means of strain relief on the turnout rodding -what do you use? I am going to use exactly the same arrangement but wire in silicone tube. How do you switch polarity - is it built into the lever?
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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Wed Dec 07, 2022 7:24 am

Thanks Richard, to answer your questions:

1. The servo mounts are from MERG.

2. A couple of the rods do have omega loops in them but I must admit to being a bit sceptical as to whether they are needed, the MERG electronics allow extremely fine tuning of the movement of the servo so strain relief isn't really an issue or hasn't been so far at least.

3. The levers do have additional switches that would allow for polarity switching but I'm using frog juicers.

John

davebradwell
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby davebradwell » Wed Dec 07, 2022 9:41 am

I would suggest that by whatever means, it's sound practice to have a degree of give between point actuator and tiebar. This means the blades have a force holding them against the stock rail rather than them just being in the right place with respect to the baseboard. It means things can move (with temperature or especially humidity) or give a little and still function. An extreme example is the Tortoise drive wire which makes these things tolerant of many alignment sins.

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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Alan Turner » Wed Dec 07, 2022 10:27 am

John Donnelly wrote:Thanks Richard, to answer your questions:

2. A couple of the rods do have omega loops in them but I must admit to being a bit sceptical as to whether they are needed, the MERG electronics allow extremely fine tuning of the movement of the servo so strain relief isn't really an issue or hasn't been so far at least.

John


The MERG servo mounts already have in-built relief by virtue of their spring wire actuation. However it is very important that this "Spring" connection allows the servo to reach its desired position. If it is prevented from doing so you will run the risk of burning out the servo and or its control board. You must carefully select the appropriate spring wire diameter for its particular application.

Also for point control Analogue servos are usually chosen rather than Digital servos, which are more suited to signal control.

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Alan

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Wed Dec 07, 2022 10:30 am

Alan Turner wrote:The MERG servo mounts already have in-built relief by virtue of their spring wire actuation. However it is very important that this "Spring" connection allows the servo to reach its desired position. If it is prevented from doing so you will run the risk of burning out the servo and or its control board. You must carefully select the appropriate spring wire diameter for its particular application.

Also for point control Analogue servos are usually chosen rather than Digital servos, which are more suited to signal control.


As it stands, I'm not actually using a spring wire on the mounts at all, the point actuating rod is connected directly to the arm of the servo mount although thinking about it, using the spring wire would solve another issue I've thought of so I'll investigate further...

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Will L
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Will L » Wed Dec 07, 2022 3:13 pm

SteamAle wrote:John
....On return home I started to strip track and other fittings off the boards when I discovered the fault. Wire in brass tube with copperclad sleepers. A piece of tube had moved and was touching a rail, which caused the short when a pont was thrown.
Hopefully you won't have the same problem. I now use plastic tube!

When I suffered a similar problem it was the wire in the (plastic) tube which was the unexpected rout!

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Tue Dec 13, 2022 3:10 pm

davebradwell wrote:I would suggest that by whatever means, it's sound practice to have a degree of give between point actuator and tiebar. This means the blades have a force holding them against the stock rail rather than them just being in the right place with respect to the baseboard. It means things can move (with temperature or especially humidity) or give a little and still function. An extreme example is the Tortoise drive wire which makes these things tolerant of many alignment sins.

DaveB


Thanks Dave, I'm sure you are right. I've decided to modify the mounting of the servos to make them easier to replace should the need arise so I'll likely add something before the operating wires are buried under the scenery...

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Tue Jan 17, 2023 11:16 pm

A delivery of frog juicers has seen the crossover on the branch line as well as the turnout and catch point for the banker's siding fully operational so I'm now able to replicate the return of the banker from Consett to South Pelaw:


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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Mon Oct 30, 2023 9:52 am

First update in a long time...

I never did get all the turnouts working before last Christmas and a severe loss of interest this year had seen very little progress for 5 months or so. I've now got back to it and, with just 3 turnouts left to have tie bars fitted, there is a good chance that, electrically, all the track will be working before this Christmas.

The lever frame is now up to 58 levers out of the eventual 86:

Image

There was one turnout at South Pelaw that was manually operated which is why there is the green lever on the left of the frame as it was easier to add it to the main frame rather than having to wander down the layout to operate it and it mounting a single lever on the side of the board wasn't ideal anyway.

So, when I get those three turnouts working, with the addition of a board at each end and some very basic cassettes, I'll finally be able to test all of the trackwork then spend another year adjusting it :mrgreen:

John

Mark Tatlow
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Mark Tatlow » Mon Oct 30, 2023 12:51 pm

There is a king's ransom in those DCC Concepts levers!!

Beware the multigang sockets that you appear to be using. If they are what they appear to be they are not rated with a very high current draw. I found that the use of "stall point motors" such as the DCC Concepts led to me frazzing some.

See the base of this blog post:

https://highlandmiscellany.com/2017/04/ ... -one-back/

As you would imagine, it was very irritating indeed!!
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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Mon Oct 30, 2023 1:59 pm

Mark Tatlow wrote:There is a king's ransom in those DCC Concepts levers!!


They are certainly not cheap but I was lucky to get a fair few of them second hand with no wiring looms and they have been ideal for the out of use levers.

Mark Tatlow wrote:Beware the multigang sockets that you appear to be using. If they are what they appear to be they are not rated with a very high current draw. I found that the use of "stall point motors" such as the DCC Concepts led to me frazzing some.

See the base of this blog post:

https://highlandmiscellany.com/2017/04/ ... -one-back/

As you would imagine, it was very irritating indeed!!


I shall keep an eye on that, no problems so far with servos controlled by MERG electronics.

John

Mark Tatlow
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Mark Tatlow » Mon Oct 30, 2023 2:37 pm

John Donnelly wrote:[
I shall keep an eye on that, no problems so far with servos controlled by MERG electronics.

John


Mine were wired in the traditional manner (ie a reversing pair going direct to the motor drive). If you are sending signals to either MERG servo controls or CBUS the power you will be using will be significantly lower I would think.

Good luck!
Mark Tatlow

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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Sun Nov 12, 2023 4:52 pm

A rather momentous day for the layout today. Checking back on the thread, I glued the first sleeper down on 21 Jan 2020 and, today, I fitted the final tie bar and got the last turnout operating so, electrically and mechanically, the whole of the track work is now complete, not too for a solo effort, considering the thousands of sleepers and chairs and, of course, the rather long time away from the layout due to COVID.

Now for lots of testing, before I think about point rodding supports...

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Winander
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby Winander » Sun Nov 12, 2023 6:40 pm

Congratulations, must be a bit of a relief that it's done and excitement for what's next (after the testing).
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John Donnelly
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Re: South Pelaw Junction

Postby John Donnelly » Mon Nov 13, 2023 4:08 pm

Thanks Richard.

Now that I can access all the routes across the layout, proper track testing is underway. First test below, a couple of 'bangs' over crossing Vs to sort out but nothing fell off which is encouraging given that none of the wagons is sprung or compensated and all have fixed buffers.



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