Sputtering start to a new layout

Stephane Savard May 24, 2018

  1. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    I really don't want to mess with moving tunnels, and I don't like much the idea of starting the turnout in the tunnel. Of course I do have another option, and that may be the simplest of all.

    If I were to take out the "throat" turnouts, and start the PECO turnouts at the exact same place, that means that the three tracks need to be moved towards the back of the layout by about 5mm (3/16"). Maybe that's the easiest solution, just rip out the three tracks from one end to the other and start them over. I could even decide to have only two tracks instead of three?
     
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  2. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    Ah, didn't realize this Thursday evening was a rare one with no diving practice to attend! Instead, tonight I have bloody knuckles and realization that I've got a lot more work than expected ahead of me! :LOL::censored:

    IMG_20200123_182100435.JPG

    In any case, no turning back, my decision is made - I've started ripping out the track. The old turnouts are ripped out (in tiny little pieces) and above we can see the rough positioning of the new turnouts (though that little piece of flex track is just to see the track centres, I'll be using a full length piece instead).

    But now I need to continue ripping out track all the way to the other end of the staging area since the new track needs to be be half a centimeter from the current track.

    alllll the way down there....

    IMG_20200123_182139967.JPG

    Ok, so I didn't realize how strong ballast can be. The track is really really difficult to pull up. Does anyone know of a trick? Can the mod podge I used to glue the ballast in place be softened somehow? I feel that the putty knife will be gone by the time I'm done scraping everything away!
     
  3. Mike C

    Mike C TrainBoard Member

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    Throw a wet rag over the area you want to remove . That should soften the glue .....Mike
     
  4. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    Done! I ripped out the three tracks. No photos, not much to look at. I tried laying a hot wet rag over the tracks and ballast, but it didn't do much - maybe if I had left it a lot longer. In the end I sprayed the track and ballast I wanted removed with isopropyl alchohol. That did the trick - the Mod Podge softened immediately. It still wasn't exactly easy (it did nothing to soften the latex caulk holding down the track), but it turned the task much much easier.

    Quick cleanup is a must though, with the Mod Podge infused ballast back in a pasty state, it sticks everywhere! An old toothbrush and shop-vac took care of cleanup. On the other hand, the inside of my shop vac's hose is ballasted now :ROFLMAO:
     
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  5. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    The staging area version 2.0 is just about back!

    Got quite a bit done on that staging area, and now the track is back up and running...

    IMG_20200129_221027966.JPG

    This is the "east" end, gloriously out of focus. This was taken right after I finished laying in the last track and pinning everything in place. As earlier in this long thread, I use latex caulk to hold down the track. By squinting real good, we can see that the three tracks are a few milimeters closer to the edge of the table. The cork was wide enough to still accept the track without modification.

    IMG_20200129_221259508.JPG

    Thankfully I took more care with focus in the above picture, showing the "west" end of the staging area. I also learned from my earlier ballasting adventures, and this time I painted the cork underneath the turnout throw bars. I will keep ballast away from those throw bars, and should hopefully have better luck. Might even notice that I did not put the re-railers back into the 2.0 design. I never really liked them in version 1.0, and they were entirely destroyed when pulling up the track. Decided against having them again.

    IMG_20200201_165220102.JPG

    Back to the "East" end. This was this morning's work. The track feeders were reattached to the three tracks (not seen in any not the above pictures) and I installed the new Peco PL-11 side switch machines. Peco does not actually make n-scale side mounted machines - these are HO/O machines. But I read somewhere online that they worked fine with n-scale track. I can confirm that they do work perfectly well! Right, so I wouldn't actually use them on the front of the layout out where everyone can see, but out back in the staging area, I'm fine with it. I cut out a rectangle out of the ballast/cork, and replaced it with a new piece of cork. I then removed the mounting lugs off the Peco switch machines with a side cutter, and glued them in place (same latex caulk). They'll blend in much better once properly surrounded by ballast. The other end also has the switch machines glued in place, so at this point, I'm set to start ballasting the area again!

    Oh, and two important bits of things I did was to (a) run my locomotives through every combination of switch settings, and happy to report that they run silky smooth! (b) was to temporarily hook up power and the c.d.u. to the turnout leads and make sure they work, and yes, with a satisfying 'twack' they solidly click in place.

    Next time should have pictures of the staging area re-ballasted!

    Have a great weekend!
     
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  6. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    Small update today.

    Still not finished ballasting the staging area. I only got to work on the layout proper a few short times. However, despite the lack of progress I am happy with my new way of applying ballast. See, the first time, I tried to do everything at once, and that was horrible. As soon as I got and area of the track the way I wanted, I would invariably disturb it when trying to spread ballast somewhere else along the track. This time, I started with ballasting only between adjacent tracks, and let that dry before doing the outer banks of the track. I still haven't done between the rails as I'm keeping that for last. So yeah, it's slower, but this way I work at it in small increments of time, and the result is much better.

    IMG_20200207_185229480.JPG

    This is what the track currently looks like with the motors in place and ballasted. Note that I haven't yet ballasted between the rails. That's my next step this afternoon. Really, this new way of applying ballast in subsections is so much better!

    But this is not my only project currently in progress!

    IMG_20200208_154113088.JPG

    This absolute mess is my test for adding LEDs to the turnout switches in the fascia! See, on the left I have the Peco Capacitive Discharge Unit (PL-35) that will be powering all my turnout motors. Of course, I can't power my LEDs from the same power supply, so after some reading online, I figured I'd need to use relays. Well, this week all of my components for the system came in the mail, and this above is my wiring everything together to see if it works. It does! Well, it did after I burned out the two green LEDs (forgot the resistor! ooops!) :whistle:

    I measured the output of the CDU at 24V DC, and found that the 24V two coil latching relays were significantly more expensive than the 12V relays of the same type. So I use 12V linear voltage regulators between that CDU and the relay. The mess of wires was just to get everything plugged in together, and unfortunately, the relay didn't fit on the breadboard. So while it looks like a huge mess, at least I know that the wiring diagram I drew up works. Now I'll figure out how to best get this onto a prototype PCB cleanly.

    But that's not all!! :LOL:

    n-scale-yard-office.png

    I drew up this yard office in Fusion 360, and I'm currently printing it on my Anycubic Photon. I based it roughly to the same looks as the engine house I built a few weeks ago. I'll have more pictures of that when the prints finish and I start assembling it.

    Later!
     
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  7. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    New resin, and I'm not quite used to it. But I finally got a decent print!

    IMG_20200210_195757954.JPG

    The windows and doors are press fit into the walls (which are printed as one piece, fits on the build plate). Really I pretty much used the same design as the pikestuff buildings for the windows and doors. The walls are 1.5mm tick (about .06 inches). The building will be about 30 x 40 scale feet. Looks a bit rough, but it's not painted yet, and well, I find all my n-scale 3d prints look rather terrible within the camera, but tend to be fine when viewed without magnification!

    Next I'll print the roof. I'm not sure if I want to try printing it one piece or in halves yet.
     
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  8. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    My staging area is now complete. Not bothering with a photo, it would look nearly identical to that last one :)

    The yard office hasn't much progress yet, so no pictures there either, I've since printed a roof, but I put all that aside for now.

    Actually, where I did "progress" (if standing still is a any progress!) is in turnout control. See, one of the lasts posts I showed a jumble of wires that was my test to see if I could wire up an atlas switch, C.D.U, a relay and some LEDs together to show how the turnout is aligned on the control panel - which I'd randomly decided to be my next project.

    Now, if I'm going to have LEDs, that means I need a control panel! So that's what I've been working towards. I already bought a bunch of micro switches last year, I have new 3mm LEDs in various colors (red, green, yellow, blue and while), and even little shrouds for the LEDs. So for a control panel,. I wanted to make a panel on the front of the fascia.

    IMG_20200222_172322487.JPG

    So first off, I bought a router, or rather, a Dremel attachment that would transform my dremel into a router. A real router is just too expensive for the amount of use I have for it! Took a bit of a learning curve, but it works fine! I already have some 3mm acryclic from a project years ago, so I just used that.

    IMG_20200222_172350892.JPG

    I've also made a bottom for the frame, but it's not in the picture. Hmm, a smart person might be seeing a couple of problems that's going to be coming up (that smart person ain't me!)

    Next, I figured I would print some track diagrams to put in back of the clear acrylic. I spent the entire day drawing that up in a new vector drawing program, Inkscape. It's free, and works, but naturally, learning curve is involved.

    control_panel_v1.png

    This is what will be going into the frame, behind the acrylic. However, note that the green, red and black dots are only placeholders. I just created dots that were the size of the LED shrouds (8mm) and the switch mounting nut (9mm). Yeah, I angled the acrylic in the frame, meaning the switches can only fit starting 4mm from the top of the frame. That was my first problem.

    In any case, the diagrams outlines the major sections of my layout, and isn't to scale obviously. I just started drawing using ideas I found online. Mainline in blue, greyish blue for sidings, and orange for the lines that lead the staging. Green LEDs for straight, and red for diverging. Simple enough! Though it's one heck of a mess. I wish I could have placed the switch (black dots) right on the diagram instead of below, but the angled acrylic won't let me due to the amount of space for the switch bodies behind the acrylic!

    Then I came across my biggest DoH! moment. :sigh:

    IMG_20200223_183650864.JPG

    I printed a real quick draft of the diagram, taped it to the acrylic (still protected by the brown paper) and tried to see how it would look like mounted to the fascia.

    Yeah, I can't see the top of the diagram unless I crouch down and back away from the layout!!!!

    So yeah, I'm dumb. I spend the afternoon yesterday making the frame (learning curve from the router) and then most of today on the diagram, and I've got nothing to show for it except failure (which turns out is so totally an option!)

    I don't know how I'll fix it. I suppose the easiest way would to be build a new frame that is NOT angled (ick!). Or maybe angled but not recessed, 'cause the top recess is what's causing me the problem. I do have a table saw, so that I could cut the wood at the angles needed, however I don't like using it inside, the room ends up full of sawdust!

    Anyway, I need to figure out something, and I'm a bit out of ideas. I'm not sure if the track diagram even makes sense or will be a nightmare to figure out which switches to throw!
     
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  9. PAPPY1

    PAPPY1 TrainBoard Member

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    If you do not want to make a new panel could you mount the panel face up on a set of sliding under desk roller brackets?
     
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  10. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks for the suggestion Pappy1. If the design of my table allowed for drawers, I think that could have been a great idea!

    In any case, this evening I came back home with a new length of wood and started on a new frame. I don't have the right tools for cutting angles into narrow lengths of wood, but after a few tries and tricks, i finally managed to cut the side frames. Basically i screwed the 2 in wide strips of wood to some scrap plywood and used the mitre saw to cut the angles.

    Bonus, i cut another piece of acrylic that is somewhat wider, leaving slightly more room to the track diagrams.
     
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  11. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    Ah, here, I snapped a quick picture showing the progress of control panel v2.0 :)

    IMG_20200224_215148179.JPG

    The old frame is in the picture too - we can see the new piece of acrylic and the side pieces. everything to the left of the pencil mark on the side pieces will be cut away. Next I will cut the grooves into those pieces with the router. But that will be later this week, whenever next I can find some time to get back into the workshop!

    Thanks for looking! :D
     
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  12. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    I'm back with an update!

    Still working on that control panel actually. I didn't take that many pictures, mostly when I finished little milestones. I only get little bits and pieces of time to work at anything, including researching techniques and what not. But it's not a race!

    IMG_20200229_165622966.JPG

    So the first milestone came up when I completed the newest frame. It was in some ways actually easier to build than the first one, though I had a bit of an ooops moment when my plane slipped and scored a hit on the inside left. I didn't only say "oops" when it happened :mad:

    However, looking through my tools and stuff in the garage, I was happy to find some plastic wood, and I filled in that little mistake right up. I'm going to paint the frame in any case, so any problems will be hidden. In fact, it's being painted right now!

    IMG_20200301_204433727.JPG

    The next bit was to print out the track diagram on my photo printer. I'm lucky enough to own a decent photo printer that can take rolls of paper. In this case, the roll is 13 inches wide. The actual acrylic sheet is 170mm tall by 395mm wide (6.7" x 15.6"). I ended up printing the diagram twice. The first time it was mangled when I drilled the holes in the acrylic. I was hoping that the drill press would make a nice clean cut in the paper (I had a backing piece of plywood), but no such luck.

    Oh well, I printed again, taped it down and added the acrylic on top. Then it was a matter of painstakingly cutting out each hole in the paper using a hobby knife - 57 holes in all!

    IMG_20200302_205603756.JPG

    But in the end it worked!! Here it is assembled temporarily - all the LED shrouds are in place, and so are the little switches. Alignment of the holes could have been better, but I'm calling it perfect enough for me!

    Now, as I said earlier, I'm now painting the wood. Taking a bit of time, since I'm spraying it with black paint using my airbrush - but it makes for a nice smooth finish, and I just didn't want to go out to buy a rattle can when I had perfectly good paint at home. Just going to need to be patient! :LOL:

    Later!
     
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  13. Sumner

    Sumner TrainBoard Member

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    I really like the way you have put the turnout toggles below the turnout and just put the LED's in the tracks. I was going to go with the toggles on the turnout but after seeing this I really like it so think I'll go with what you have done. I think it is clean and still functional, especially once you use it a little.

    I'm still a ways from building my staging yard control panel so look forward to a followup on how you like it once you've used it for awhile.

    Well done,

    Sumner
     
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  14. BNSF FAN

    BNSF FAN TrainBoard Supporter

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    The control panel looks great. Will be cool to see how it looks once you have it stained or painted and in place. I second what Sumner said about your placement of the LED's and toggles. (y)(y)(y)
     
  15. sidney

    sidney TrainBoard Member

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    ok how do you keep that desk area so tidy ??? mine is a constant mess hahaha:)
     
  16. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks Sumner and BNSF FAN!

    The switches could have been worse, if you scroll up and see my original diagram for the printout (post 148), you can see that I had originally put the switches below, but all spaced equally centered under each diagram. A friend of mine suggested I move them to right below the LEDs, and he was right! Works much better. When I was drawing the diagram, I did try putting them into the lines but couldn't find a way that didn't make it seem so cluttered!

    Here's the final result:

    IMG_20200307_215652210.JPG

    Will look great once the fascia is painted a gray colour! I suppose since the majority of remote switches are on the left side of the layout, I should have placed the control panel on the left and the NCE panel and brackets on the right near the yard. But really, I need to be able to bring the handheld controller to the back of the layout, so that was the best place for the NCE power panel.

    And here's a new picture just for you sidney, just to point out that I'm not always tidy :ROFLMAO:

    IMG_20200307_215936932.JPG

    Okay, so yeah, it's not exactly cluttered. But I can't stand a dusty messy workshop (though the above is not my workshop - it's at my computer desk next to the layout). I do spend a mighty large amount of time keeping my work area clean at all times!

    The above is the next part of the control panel. I'm using a PECO capacitive discharge unit to drive the remote turnouts. But since I want to light the control panel with LEDs, that means I need some latching relays. So the above is my (probably way over-complicated!) solution. The turnouts will plug into the yellow ports, and the green ports are for the switches on the control panel. I'm putting in two green connectors because I may put some switches on the back of the layout to control the staging turnouts.

    Now the orange boxes are the relays; and since the 12V relays were considerably cheaper than 24V relays (which my multimeter indicates is the output voltage of the C.D.U.), I added 12V linear regulators and some capacitors for these. Honestly I don't know if the capacitors were strictly necessary, but the datasheet for the regulators suggested them as the standard way of wiring up those components.

    Finally, the red/black connectors at the back are where I will plug in the LEDs for the control panel. You might wonder why there is space for five different LEDs on each side of the relay? Well, I want to put in some very simple signalling at the turnouts (i.e. the simplest form of signal lights that will serve to show if the turnout is set to diverging or main, much like the control panel). So, I'm just building in "expansion" into the prototype board.

    This is the first of five identical boards, that I will just daisy chain together, each board handling four turnouts.

    Hey, might be complicated, but I'm learning electronics at the same time, it's fun! :ROFLMAO:
     
  17. sidney

    sidney TrainBoard Member

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    nice and i love that extra hands thingy there . i need to get me something like that.
     
  18. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    Hmm, long time since an update!

    Well, what with staying and working from home due to COVID-19 and all activities cancelled, I've now suddenly have more time to work on the layout, so long as I don't need anything from the store.

    And well, I've been busy building the multitude of circuits needed for the control panel, and here they are!!!

    IMG_20200322_181339937.JPG

    Whew, it was more difficult than anticipated, and it didn't help when a few days ago I burned out two voltage regulators and a PECO capacitive discharge unit, yikes!!

    See, after I completed the relay circuits, I decided to test them before mounting them to the layout. I wired up two LEDs and a remote Atlas turnout with the connector plugs I'll use in the final wiring. Then started testing each of the 17 total relays to make sure my soldering and circuits worked correctly. Everything was quite fine, until on unplugging the CDU from the screw terminals, I forgot to unplug it from the wall. The leads touched leading to a predictable poof and flash! :whistle: Afterwards, the PECO CDU was taking 10 seconds to accumulate enough charge to throw a turnout. Oh well. I continued testing without the CDU, figuring I'd just plug the circuit right into the 16V AC. Yeah, totally forgot about the the implications of this, and burned out two of the 12V voltage regulators before realizing my mistake. :mad:

    So, at this point, I needed to order new voltage regulators and a new PECO CDU. In the end, figuring since I have to order from Digikey anyway, and I'm MUCH more comfortable building prototype boards, I found an online circuit for a CDU and ordered the parts needed to build it (6$ total vs 50$ for the PECO). Works perfectly! It's the smallest board with the two large capacitors.

    I printed a second control panel on 4x6 photo paper, with the only change that I added numbers to each switch location. That way, I'll label the cables coming out of the control panel (57 total cables!) and will be able to figuring out where everything goes.

    Finally, the five relay boards basically have 17 total latching relays and plugs for the turnout (yellow), two plugs for momentary switches (green), and banks of five light connections for each of the latching positions (e.g. straight and diverging). That should future proof me for a while! Okay okay, it's overkill, but umm, yeah it's overkill I guess :ROFLMAO:

    Next, I assemble the wires and plug the control panel and turnouts into this monstrosity!
     
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  19. Stephane Savard

    Stephane Savard TrainBoard Member

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    Sidney: the helping hands thing was a gift from my wife and daughters for my birthday - I love it, much better than those little two metal armed things.
     
  20. VinceP

    VinceP TrainBoard Member

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    Magic smoke is not a good sign lol.

    Had days like that.
     

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