Geoff - Extension board - design and start building road. Amend wiring
Stephen & Laurence - Bridge board - wiring
First of all, G&S surveyed the bridge board with a 'continuity meter' and recorded all of the track sections and point motor connections.
We then stripped out the old electrical gear - control panel, transformer, capacitor discharge unit and redundant socket. All of the fittings were located on the board, but under the glass-fibre scenery. No, John hadn't bolted them in place, he'd screwed them, from on top ....... a typical 'Johnism'. Some came out reasonably easily with some cranked screwdrivers, but others had to broken out, like the one below. We wondered how he'd got them in, and then noticed a repair patch in the shell above!
The capacitor discharge unit was definitely home-made, and although he does not recognise it, Geoff probably had a big hand in its design/construction.
Laurence was soon into the rewiring, which, together with mounting the connector, was completed before the afternoon tea break. Basically, we're just replacing the wiring from the old control panels with leads to a socket, ready for the loom. The loom was discussed, and Geoff proposed that in the control panel, we wired directly onto the switches.
Geoff has a new tool (must find out what it's called), which works like an electric toothbrush. So, with a suitable blade, he trimmed out the board edge, down to road level.
He didn't get off wiring completely, as we decided to cut the end section of the run-around, to provide a loco isolation section. Visible below is Geoff's preferred method - a brass nail is hammered through the board and wires soldered between nail and sleeper. Underneath, wires are soldered to the nail, which is trimmed to length.
