Finally got done with my Unitrack turnout panel. I ordered some of the Tamiya connectors to match the kato turnout connectors. Now, all I have to do is plug each turnout into it's assigned plug on the panel, and it will be controlled by that assigned toggle. I am also wiring these plugs into the DS64, so all I have to do is unplug the turnout from the panel, plug the appropriate plug into it from the DS64 input, and then the turnout into the appropriate plug from the DS64 output, and walla, it is controlled by the switch panel, and/or the ds64 via laptop. It is modular for easy of maintenance, and/or troubleshooting, OR, tear down when this layout gets torn down in the future, and the components can easily be incorporated into a new layout. You might notice one of the plugs is a different one though, it is reversed on purpose so it can not be plugged into one of the turnouts by mistake. It is the power feed, feeding the panel to power the turnouts. I like the new set up..
As we are looking at this masterpiece, I might add a tip on wrapping wire harnesses. In most cases, I do wrap my harnesses except where I may need access in the future for troubleshooting or maintenance. But long spans of wire bundle with no interruptions I like to wrap for a clean look, as well as easy to deal with so no hanging wires to entangle with other wires, or objects. That said, a simple electrical tape wrap is a REAL pain in the butt if you do by chance have to get into it down the road. After some time passes, in many cases, the electrical tape adheasives soften and end up making a mess on your wires, making them difficult and messy to deal with. How I get around that is this. My electrical tape wrapped harnesses never have the adheasive side of the tape touching the wires at all. I simply make two wraps with each wrap overlapping the last by a quarter to half tape width. But I wrap it upside down, sticky side out away from the wire. When I get to the end, I twist the roll, and start wrapping back in the other direction with the sticky side down. So, you end up with two layers of tape wrap, but both sticky sides together. You end up with a cool, vinyl jacket encasing your wire bundle. If you ever have to cut into it, you simply slit the vinyl wrap with a sharp knife, and it falls away from the wire bundle, nice and clean. Anyway.. Thought I would share that tip along with the panel..
One thing that I really didn't discuss much, but maybe should have. Most of you that use Kato Unitrack knows that Kato turnouts are DC only, and you can not directly connect them to your AC acc. terminals on a standard DC cab transformer without the use of Kato's little blue magic adapter. If you aren't as familiar with electronics, or electricity, I will explain a little bit why that is. There really is no magic in that little blue adapter. It is a simple rectifier bridge that is used to convert AC voltage to DC voltage. All it is really is 4 diodes wired as a bridge. On my turnout control panel, I added to the back of it, this rectifier, so it can be connected directly to the AC acc. terminals on my transformer. I run DCC, but still use standard DC cab transformers for aux. power when it is needed. So, I might as well use the AC power that is there too. You can easily build a simple rectifier, like said, all it is, is 4 diodes. But, I already had the Kato adapter that wasn't going to be used, so I just cracked it open and took out the guts, and hard wired it into my control panel, and tucked it away out of sight behind the panel. You can see it here on the back side of my panel. Now, no thought needed. I just connected the connector for my panel to the connector I put on the ACC terminals on the DC cab transformer. Out of sight, out of mind. So, this panel is Kato friendly, and standard AC acc. terminal friendly.
if ya have it, that spiral wrap works good too. I do like that stuff too to make nice bundles. And you can easily exit it with circuits coming or leaving the bundle. Nice addition.
Very nicely done!:thumbs_up::thumbs_up: Great work around using the diode bridge to convert ac to dc for use with Kato turnouts. Jerry
