So I ran into a little problem. It wouldn’t have been a problem had I built the modules in order but I did the end before the middle. I have done this in the past and it’s worked out just fine, but not this time. The 2 middle tracks were just ever so slightly too long, which made the module not want to line up right. So I tried just sanding the ends, but that didn’t work, as it took off the rail joiner retainers. So 2 pieces of track came out and I replaced them with customized shortened pieces to get the module to fit together properly. Now it does. Once the hot glue sets up solid I will be able to play with some wires. oh, and I will in the future need to add another module to get my longest train completely in the station. The Century Limited with all cars is too long. The train cars alone fill the longest track and foul the switch, and I didn’t even add the power. Lol, oh well.
I have to ask. This style is suppose to be for minimal space layouts. But yet it looks like I would need as much room as a full layout. Why not just have a full layout?
I will, it’s going to go in the corner near where the Scenic Ridge is once that sells, but I can’t take my home layout to shows, and once we get the club together, I get to add to a much larger layout, so win win.
That’s not a bad idea-going to move back to the US this summer and was looking to build a full layout in a basement or spare room whenever we buy a place. But I like the idea of having some of that full layout maybe be some modules that I could take to a show or rotate out. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
One of the guys in my club has out Yard modules made of 3 triples and he incorporated the T-Trak yard into his home layout so he wouldn’t have to spend so much money on switches. It works great.
Modular layouts (especially T-Trak) can be small or very large, depending upon what you want to do. The minimum size T-Track layout would be a 12x14" double-track straight module. The smallest loop would be a ~25" diameter double-track circle (four corner modules or two end-cap modules). You would not be able to take all/part of your non-modular layout and integrate it with other's modules at a club or show. It would also be more difficult to move a sizeable, non-modular layout, so if you move frequently, maybe a modular layout makes sense even if only for use at home. But there are limitations. Probably the most cumbersome as far as a home layout is that tracks cannot cross a module-module boundary at non-right angles. The standard cautions that if you make a straight module that is deeper than the standard, you should make a more shallow complementary module for use behind it on the same table. The standard does not mention a full-depth module that spans front to back, but there are non-standard corner radius modules that impact the front-to-back track dimension for such a module, whereas separate modules front and back can be spaced further apart to accommodate a larger radius end cap. Grades, flyovers, etc. can be difficult while still compliant with modular standards, at least without a very large "module." Modularity is just another variable in our hobby, like scale, road names, eras, locales, etc.
Work stoppage happened tonight with 2.5 of the wiring harnesses made. I ran out of 3/8” diameter heat shrink tube. I guess I could just make the rest of the harnesses to the point I’m at right now with the unfinished one, and I may just do that. That way all’s that will be left is to wrap the wires and put the ends on to finish up… I got tomorrow too… new heat shrink doesn’t get here till Wednesday. I also got most of the supplies to build the control panel for the station tracks, but that too requires the tubing, and a project box that will get here tomorrow. Anyway here is what I got so far.
So I have been putting my wiring progress on the workbench thread, and now that’s all finished. So here is the almost final result of my work. Due to a rule with my club, we have to run any new modules bare before scenery is applied. Once it is found to work with the rest of the club’s modules it is then approved for scenery. Well that’s the state I’m in now. I am the engineer for the club, so it’s my job to approve modules, but I’m not going to approve my own module without following the rules. Here is the full set minus the front to backs, from the customer side. Another view. With one of my Type 500 trainsets.
Nice work! It's nice to see it all put together, for us to get a chance to see the the whole project. Impressive! However, I thought I saw somewhere in the standards, a recommendation that module boundaries use double-track sections, to more reliably ensure the inter-track spacing? By physically tying the two tracks together at the module boundaries, it also ensures that misalignment stresses do not isolate on any one track's unijoiners, but are more evenly shared amongst both tracks' unijoiners. It looks like you already did that on the far end and a few other interior boundaries. While it may not apply to your intra-modular connections, and obviously where your yard tracks are not on standard double-track spacing, it's probably not a bad idea where possible there either.
The double track on the ends is a suggestion not a rule. The spacing is the rule, which coincides with the double track sections. I wanted to use the double track the whole way, but there were spots where it just wasn’t possible due to the lengths I had available. I could have cut down a longer piece and made a custom length section, but I don’t have a good miter box to make it look good. By the time I get the ballast on everything it will be hardly noticeable. Due to the switch alignments I couldn’t get perfectly spaced tracks. No big deal, I will be making custom platforms anyway to accommodate different step in heights for several of my trains. There will also be a Unitram added as I build the station that will go to the city side of the module. Since there will be no roads from the ladder side to the station, I figured the people will take the tram to the station to travel.
Recommendation, suggestion, yada yada. You don't necessarily have to make up custom track lengths at the end of a module, you can do it somewhere in the middle instead. In fact you want a common, standard length at each end (e.g. 62mm), so you can have a couple of spares in your kit, and replace any of them as needed, since it is the module end track segments that are most likely to be damaged in setting up and tearing down at the club or a show. I was thinking you could replace a 248mm section in the middle with a 186mm section, slide the remaining track over to meet it, then add a standard 62mm length section of doubletrack at the end, to meet the module boundary. Of course, I only tell you this after you have everything glued down...
So my new station module set had it’s debut this weekend at a show in Monroe Washington, and it came out with mixed results. First, the mainline worked perfectly, no issues. Second, the turnouts worked with the control box perfectly under a certain condition (more on that in a minute). And 3rd the switches worked perfectly via DCC commands through the rails. Now my issue. Any time I powered up any of the rails in the station legs, or there was a locomotive in the station legs, the switches would randomly cycle. This wouldn’t stop happening, no matter what we did. If we removed the control box, and let the power routing feature of the turnouts take over it got worse. So so long as there was no trains using the station tracks we were fine. Has anyone had a DS64 do this to them, and if so what was the fix. This is from 2 units at the same time.
Perhaps the locos were loading the bus, and a bad (high resistance) connection was dropping the rail voltage enough that your DS64's were misbehaving?
It happens with no loco's on the rails, just applying power to the rail will cause the issue. Each rail is physically cut past the switch so the power routing feature of the switches to not interfere with the parked trains when in DC mode. When in DC mode I know I must power the DS64 externally, and I do this with one PS14. I know that it should be one per due to the low amperage of the PS14, but I am not setting routes so only one switch will be thrown at a time, this should not exceed the abilities of the PS14.
Weird. Are you sure that when in DC mode, you are not somehow still connecting power to the DS64 via the track?
Yes the DS64 is still on the track power, I do not disconnect it from the rails. Problem is this happens in DCC mode too! Only when I power the ladder rails.
Massey, Let me possibly shed some light on this issue. This is 1st hand experience with our club layout in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We made the decision in the very start of the project that it would be a total Digitrax controlled layout. In the beginning all the DS-64's were track powered and when we left for the day we just shut down the main layout power supply. If we came in the next day and fired her up, no problems at all. However, if we did not fire it up until the next week, when we did every turnout would start throwing themselves and not necessarily ending up where we wanted them. Digitrax could not explain the issue but said we should get them off of track power and add a wallwart to independently power the DS-64's. We did that and have not had the issue since adding the new power supply some 5-6 years ago. I think the idea is that there is a capacitor in the DS64 that will not stay charged for a long enough period. Me, I don't know, I just like to plug things in and have them operate properly. That's getting more difficult, by the day, in today's world. Test it out on your yard section, cant hurt ? ? BTW - I failed to mention that there are now 110-115 turnouts and 30-31 DS-64's on layout.
So the DS64s do sometimes cycle the turnouts on power up. I figured that was from the input current surge and the building of the DCC waveform. No big deal on power up. So I am ok with that aspect but this happens well after power up when I add power to the legs of the yard. The yard legs are powered via the red line, just like the DS64s are. I would expect a current draw if there were a train on the rails, but this happens even on empty tracks. This also happens when there is power to the DS64s via the PS14. I’m going to try
You might check Harbor Freight for the 3/8 in. heat shrink tubing as I have purchased it there in the past.
I have tried they’re stiff and it works ok. I found the marine grade stuff with the glue inside the heat shrink to be superior as it will not slide off later. I have had that problem when making these cables. I got 50’ of it from Amazon for a fairly cheap price and it works perfectly, but thanks for looking out for me.
