Today, we started to modify Johns points, which started with a discussion about the problems and the solutions.
Issues:
1. Modification: The solid metal tie bar is silver soldered to the blade rails, which might be difficult to separate, but we need the blades for rebuilding the point.
2. Operation: The blades are not electrically separated and are also linked to the frog as a single unit. Dismantle blade/frog unit retaining blades for re-use.
3. Bond diamond cross-over frog rails together.
The main operating issue is that when switching john's points, a short circuit usually occurs, which manifests itself as a track power outage and meaning any moving loco stops momentarily. Although there is now a 50/50 mix of old and new points on John's two original boards, operators have to learn to ensure loco's are stationary before changing points in this location. This is not a major issue at present, but if we decide to try operating with a DCC system, there would be a much longer delay to normal power while the controller resets itself, which would not be desirable.
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| John's configuration |
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'Normal' configuration on all other boards |
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| Cutting the blades unit to allow for its removal and to form the electrical separation required. |
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| Unsoldering the solid tie bar for reusing the blades. |
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| The cleaned-up point ready for reassembly. |
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| The blades were soldered to pivot pins in the new sleeper tie bar. These reduce the stress on the printed circuit board as the blades move. |
