Ray, The circuit as you have drawn it would leave the red light on all the time and turn the green light on when the turnout is aligned for the through route.
Here is a quick and crude version of the circuit. Here it is operating. The switch is being fed DCC power from the right. View attachment Kato-low res.mpg I tried uploading a higher resolution version of the video but the attachment manager kept saying the upload failed.
OK guys. You know the definition of being positive - Being wrong at the top of your lungs. That fits me perfectly this time. The schematic is indeed WRONG. Hopefully someone will post a correct version.
It's alive! It's alive! Exactly as I envisioned my "creation" while putting around the laboratory of my mind. Simple and effective no matter how it's thrown. Thanks guys! MARV
Ray, Ther is still a problem with your circuit. I had the red light connected to the diverging frog rail because the through frog rail and diverging frog rail do not actually meet at the frog. There is an insulating gap in each rail. When the turnout is set for the diverging route there is NO power supplied to the through frog rail. Your circuit will work if connected directly to the frog but not if connectecd to the rail. In the following picture, I have the insulating gaps circled. Power is fed internally from the frog to the rail the switch is aligned for, but the other rail is left unconnected.
Robert, Your wires to the lights are connected right at the unijoiners by the "solderless" crimping method - are they not? That's the way I intend to do it, since I'm not much of a solderer. MARV
I didn't realize that. So one must make two connections to the frog rails and move the insilated UniJoiners on both diverging and through frog rails to make connections easy. Would you post your circuit diagram full sized to save me from the agony of doing mine over.
I'll restate my take on Marv's circuit vs BCD now that I finally see what connections must be made. If my understanding is correct now, one must run at least 2 wires from the frog rails back to the track panel. plus the 2 wires to actuate the turnout. This assumes the DCC buss for the block is already at the panel. So a minimum of 4 wires, but likely 6 wires from every turnout.to the panel. On a layout with an average run of 12 feet to a turnout, and 20 turnouts, that's ether 960 feet or 1440 feet of wire to run and maintain. It also requires 40 LEDs & 40 resistors or 40 lamps. Using BCD, the same layout would require a maximum of 480 feet of wire and could be done with less if the common connection to the turnouts was bussed. Also 20 LEDs and 40 resistors are needed. I think I prefer BCD if the lights are to be on the control panel and Norm's circuit if the lights are to be mounted at the turnout. It might be really nice to do both with BCD lights at the panel and Norm's lights at the turnout assuming a near scale sized illuminated switch-stand can be made.
Actually, if you click on the schematic in post #78 by Robert, it gets quite a bit larger. It seems correct. The only thing I would add is that there may not be any reason to add the short section on the inside rail before adding the insulated uni-joiner. The # 6’s seem to have plenty of room for soldering on all of the rail extensions from the frog – inside and outside rails. The #4’s, however, may be a little tight for soldering. But something to consider, if you’re “solder challenged” as I am, is that a very short section on all rails, for soldering purposes, would allow you to get the solder job “just right” before attaching those short sections to the turnout itself. You could cut a lot of short pieces of perhaps a couple of inches or less each, screw them up royally while soldering them, throw them away as you struggled to get the job right - and still be out only a few cents for all of your screw-ups. It’s a lot better than practicing on the $15-$20 turnout itself. But if you choose to use the solderless, crimped in the uni-joiner method, there would be no reason to solder at all. The only thing to be VERY SURE OF is that the wire from the inside rail to the light bulb is crimped into the INSULATED uni-joiner on the uni-joiner end CLOSEST to the turnout itself. Also (it seems to me), any wiring TO THE LIGHTS related to the OUTSIDE rails could really come from any like power line (as those rails) from under the layout. There is no reason that I can see, to drill a bunch more holes to solder or crimp on power lines to outside rails. Of course that light wire should come from a source in the same POWER DISTRICT as the turnout being lighted I would think. But I do believe that they could come from splices under the layout (perhaps using Posi-taps as recommended by Powersteamguy) and not necessarily from the outside rails themselves. If you did that, you could run as many as 5 or 6 lines of the same kind of power from a Posi-tap to various light bulbs. You’d save a lot of wire and a lot of soldering on a layout with many turnouts. It also seems to me (as new to electronics as I am) that those “resisters???” (As shown on the outside rails of the photo example in Robert’s post #84) could be cut to just one for each 5 or 6 lights that were being supplied from a particular “Posi-tap” (save a little more money on a big layout or a yard). ******Everyone needs to realize that the two outside rails leaving a turnout are opposite power types from each other (as are the two inside rails from each other). Don’t get messed up under the layout and go running the same kind of power wires to all lights. Those are my thoughts. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I don’t want to lead anyone astray, being a little new to this electronics and model railroad game. MARV
Ray, Related to your last post, I like your BCD system although I haven’t had time to build one. And, you’re right, if one uses that system from a control panel, they wouldn’t have to use my method for lights on the control panel. However, if one were using DCC stationary decoders, throwing by hand or other means (including Kato’s big blue things) it would be nice to have a light on the facia board to tell you the direction of the turnout with a glance in that direction. I can’t imagine that the facia would be farther than a couple of feet at the most from very many turnouts. I believe that a small LED on the facia would look better and be more useful than a central control panel would be. It all depends on the size and construction of a layout, I suppose. Also, there doesn’t necessarily have to be two lights for each turnout. I would think that a red or yellow light showing the divergent route or a green light to show that it was in the normal position would be enough. Many more and the layout looks like a Christmas tree. Also, the use of Posi-taps under the layout to run any power that was related to outside rails (as per my last post) would save more wire. Also a common resistor for several outside rail related lines from the Posi-taps would save more money and wiring. Obviously your BCD would look considerably better than the big blue things from Kato. (But, by the way, I have painted my one Kato controller black and it looks about a million percent better). I have a way of mounting them under the facia that looks pretty good, at least when they’re black - if I go that way. BCD would be cheaper that the Kato’s and a whole lot cheaper than DCC stationary controllers as well. So many ways to go, aren’t there? Those who have an existing layout will find the choices less than I have – me being in the planning stages prior even to bench work. I really like switch stands on the layout for at least a few important switches (perhaps even an overhead signal bridge here and there). They will be somewhat limited especially in turnout crowded areas because it would get a little “busy” with lights on the layout I would think. I'm looking forward to designing some on the layout lights. MARV
Marv: It doesn't take much to develop a good soldering technique. The only prerequisite you need is practice... practice... practice. I tried the solderless wire technique with Unitrack and 22 gauge solid copper wire and didn't get a very tight fit of the UniJoiners. I don't like to use stranded wire for feeders, which I guess is a personal preference. Stay cool and run steam....
If you solder the wire to the UniJoiner as has been described on other forums, there's no need to cut up track to learn to solder. The most you can lose is a UniJoiner per try. But one probably could try several times on one UniJoiner. I guess I'm not a fan of DCC control of turnouts. I found it awkward and expensive. The only advantages I can see is that it makes route control easier. But even there when a particular turnout is in two or more routes, I suspect you'd have to re-do the consist of turnouts every time you changed those routes. I know the idea is to set up the route when one starts a train. I'd rather hard wire the routes and throw a toggle for the route I want when ever I want. I have a BCD design that uses a rotary switch to select routes to yard tracks. Just set the switch to the track number and the route is established. Seems simpler to me than making consists of turnouts. However, I realize that others may feel differently.
Ray, I’m not familiar with the idea of soldering to the uni-joiner rather than the track. That sounds like an interesting concept and may be helpful. I guess I’ll try to find it. Was it in this forum or some other? (Obviously one would not be able to solder to an INSULATED uni-joiner for the inside track though– right? Also - do you have any pictures or have you sent in any to other forums or in articles that show how your panels and or circuit boards are done. Anything along those lines would help. I’m a little daunted simply because I have never done those things. When you say that it’s all on a circuit board, it sounds better than picturing a whole bunch of wires leading to each individual turnout with resistors and capacitors and whatnot hanging on the wires all over the place. I’m trying to picture how the BCD set-up would go on a central panel and circuit board vs. having toggles in respective places along the facia and the like. As far as the awkwardness of full DCC control goes – that was one of my original questions when I started this thread. It seems that with a whole lot of individual turnouts as opposed to routes (which could be nice) it might take just as long and maybe even longer to punch things into a hand control with DCC than to just flip a toggle on the facia or something. Especially while changing directions, stopping and going, unhooking couplers and all of that with trips back and forth through a turnout - it would almost be nicer to handle the locomotive with one hand with the DCC controller and simply hit a toggle with the other at the same time. Not having done these things, I’m just surmising. I’m sure I’ll have at least some complete DCC even if I have mostly toggles just to mix it up a little. Most likely it would be for the mainline double crossovers. But even then, it might get to be too busy on the hand controller when having two trains cross over and switch tracks on the fly etc. It might be nice even then to do it kind of ambidextrously with toggles AND a controller. MARV
No pix Marv, but there is a drawing of the way I mounted things for one control panel. It is a view of the back of the panel which uses push-push SPDT push-buttons and a European style terminal strip as the mounting devices. Each capacitor mounts vertically between a slot in the terminal strip and a treminal on a push-button switch. The resistors mount from switch to LED which is mounted in the board just above each switch. The + power buss runs alont the top of the switches and the ground buss runs along the switches picking up a terminal on the strip adjacent to the capacitor terminal. Thus each turnout connects to a pair of terminals on the strip making wiring and identification easy. This structure is rigid yet requires a minimum of soldering and no extra parts for mounting parts. I have the part numbers for the various parts if you're interested. I'll try to locate the threads on making your own power UniJoiners.
Here is the post on making power UniJoiners Signalew says: make your own Unijoiner power feeders using both #22 blue and white PVC insulated copper stranded wire. Dismantle a unijoiner and solder the wire to the bottom of the insert. Then feed the wire down through the top of the plastic unijoiner and snap the metal insert back into place. I have just finished making 50 of these to power my track. Kato sells a similar product (Unijoiner feeders) but they are costly, make your own. If you want pictures of where to solder the wire and instructions on how to remove the metal clip from the unijoiner, I will be glad to oblige. Making your own Unijoiner feeders can save you a ton of money. He later posts a tutorial with pictures at http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=11807&whichpage=2 unfortunately the pictures no longer appear in the post. You can E-mail him and he will send you a copy.
All of the parts for the BCD circuit can probably be purchesed on-line for less than at Radio Shack. But the European terminal strip may be hard to find elsewhere. While it's not manditory, it is convenient. The spacings are such that using 2 terminals per toggle results in ergonomic spacing of the toggles, a convenient place to connect both wires from a turnout, and space to mount the capacitor. It is compact. By tapping the mounting holes, no nuts & washers are required to mount it. The strip handles 6 turnouts, but butting them end-to-end preserves the toggle spacing and provides for 6 additional turnouts. The strip is European 12 pos Terminal Strip 274-0680 $2.45.
Thanks Ray! I think I'll just works with the data I have for a while now and see what my plan ends up being. I'm just thinking through a few things like these controllers before I get this benchwork done so I don't close any doors. I'm going to go to the next operating session of the local n-scale club and see how the DCC that they've gone to since I was last there is working out. I'd like to watch some DCC decoder switching an see how smooth it goes etc. Another thing I'd like to observe is magnet uncoupler ramps vs. hand (scewers) uncoupling and doing it on corners as opposed to straight sections etc. etc. I think I'm going to start a new thread today or maybe tomorrow discussing magnetic ramps for n-scale and pushing cars through turnouts as opposed to just straight back etc. to get a little feedback. Thanks for all your help on this thread. I think your method as well as mine will help some people. I believe that people with existing layouts in particular who install a few of my method type of light system will find it an easy way to go without disturbing their existing layout very much at all to get lights on their facia. MARV MARV
