more work on electrical system
I sent out a letter showing some progress, there is some overlap with previous posts, but I'm to lazy to edit it down
I have been rolling along on my rebuild efforts . The last few days I have been working on the new electrical system. I have got the first six six position rotary switches in place in the control panel to control six of the eventual thirteen blocks, I have retained four blocks of my railroads previous incarnation, and have already installed track on one of the new blocks. another new block will be real easy, and will happen soon, so I got it's control switch installed and ready. the output from each of the rotary switches has an on and off switch, so I can shut down each block easily for operational or short detection purposes.
My old control system was centrally located in a blank area of my central peninsula created by the split level design. My new design has no such available space, also the old central peninsula has not been removed yet, so some other place to put the control panel and electrical goodies was needed. I made a new control panel to fit in a Surplus Roll top desk. The desk is not an antique, it is a nicely built modern desk designed to hold a computer, but my computer has grown much too large for it. We had no room for it elsewhere in the house, but I figured out how to disassemble it and Forrester and I were able to shoehorn the pieces up into the RR room. My previous dispatcher's desk was in a nook in the wall, which on my rebuild will house a helix, so the roll top will make a fancy dispatcher's desk. I built a control panel to fit the space that was made for a monitor, and on the pull out drawer for a keyboard will hold a track schematic on cork board, so a dispatcher can mark train order information on the schematic with push pins.
For an electrical cabinet I had a wooden crate I picked up at hardware city. it is military surplus, and it looks like it was made to hold flare rounds for a mortar. I screwed some 2 x4s to one end, so it would stand upright securely on it's end. I cut a square hole in the bottom, ( now the back ) to pass power cords to a power strip mounted on the side. I mounted some terminal strips for the throttle wires to hook up to, and linked a bunch of them into a homemade buss for the layout's common rail. I drilled some round holes in the back of the cabinet to pass wires through, that run up to the control panel on the desk, for the throttle inputs to the control panel.
My new design for the railroad is much less compact, and uses more wall space, so the old wiring I considered inadequate, since the new control center was less centrally located, and the layout will be considerably larger, I figured I needed heavier wire to prevent excessive voltage drop over the longer run. I removed the outer casing from some house current wiring, and used that wire, and some thick stranded cable, to run a circle of wire for the common rail all the way around the room with branches off the main loop for each of the three levels. when I build my new central peninsula, I'll add branches off of the common rail loop for each of the three levels on the new central peninsula.
I then ran wires from the control panel carrying the switched power for the isolated rail to each of the five existing blocks on my railroad. I still need to hook some of them up, make some gaps in the insulated rail for some of the blocks, and hook up the three power supplies in the cabinet to the three throttles in the cabinet, run a control loop for throttle #1 around the room, and I will be able to have trains rolling again
I have also started to pull the fashia off of the Perry's Gizzard area, the big tall fachia of this section was designed for a differnt space, and did a lot to give my RR the clausterphobic feel it had, hopefully having more visable scenery at that level will make the room feel larger and more open.
Nelson