Wednesday 29th September 2021

Worklist:

Get the exchange area control system working.

A full house and all focus was on working out what is wrong with Stephens control/switching system for the exchange area. The whole layout (minus fiddleyard) was set up to provide a testing area beyond the exchange boards. Moving on from last week, Geoff had a plan to test what route power was taking through the control box. He quickly identified that two section wires were reversed. After swapping within the box, we had switchable power on the outer (Quarry) line. Another short while later another reversed pair were found and corrected. We suddenly had a a fully working system. After the wiring changes were recorded, we spent a fair time testing the system. 

Local Panel - Using the track section switches on board 1 to isolate trains driven onto the exchange area (boards 2 & 3). Main Panel - used the two-way switch box to take control of the exchange area and drive the train into Worton Court. Ditto from Main panel to Local panel. Ditto mainline track.

Local Panel switched Quarry overall power selector switch to Main Panel. Main Panel drives train from Worton Court through to 'Fiddleyard'.

Laurence had to run through the different options a few times to grasp the concepts, but was confident that a good practice session would fix the systems.

All early testing was with one controller/panel. The AMR controller that was bought 'untested' on eBay then had the plug exchanged to match our standard socket, but was initially wired up wrong. When examined closely, the unit had failed along a PCB track that was almost completely corroded away. A quick addition of a soldered jumper and we were back in business with two controllers.

Finally, Geoff got his wonderful machine out and the two black boxes were labelled.

It was very satisfactory to finally have a fully functional electrical system!

Wednesday 22nd September 2021

Stephen had gone down with Covid and was isolating the previous week so the meeting had been cancelled. As Laurence thought Stephen was still in isolation this week, he'd made other arrangements, so just Stephen and Geoff this week.

Worklist:

New power supply.

Install exchange boards control system (EBCS).

Stephen dismantled the temporary setup that used his EBSC wire/plug components and started to wire them into the control box. Meanwhile, Geoff investigated an old H&M Motorman transformer-rectifier. The unit had been 'modified', but after testing, it was still deemed to be viable. He was able fit a new rectifier and fit new cable connections, making it perfect for providing the AC & DC supplies required. No 4-core cable could be found and so a temporary arrangement using two separate 3-core cables with excess wires removed was employed. The last job was to fit the new 6-pin DIN plug and it was ready for use. The unit was connected to the local panel and everything worked perfectly.

Meanwhile, after finishing the rewiring, Stephen was at a loss how to test the unit. According to the lights, the switch boxes worked perfectly - each section could (theoretically) take or cede control of the exchange area (the two central adapter boards). Inserting the board plugs enabled power from the local panel to pass into adjacent adapter board 4, but the EBSC section switches didn't relay power to the exchange boards. Unfortunately, Stephen had very little recollection of how the main box worked and elements of it only returned slowly, as Geoff (who knew nothing about the system), asked salient questions. Individual circuits were tested, but as no flaws were found and with time elapsing without much progress, the problem was shelved for the following week.

Wednesday 8th September

Worklist:

Test the new control panel and loom on the layout.

The start time was set back due to a combination of the weather, tea and some lovely homemade rhubarb cake, but we eventually made it into the workshop.

The full 10 board layout was set up (we're getting quicker). The new hand held controller plug hadn't arrived, so control was provided by using the main panel unit. The exchange board wiring 'spider' had temporarily been 'lashed' together to power the 4 adapter boards from the new control panel. Laurence's Deceauville was run from the fiddle yard around to the bridge on the mainline, then switched over and run back on the quarry line. However, the Mason's board quarry section was was dead, so investigations were undertaken. A mis-placed wire in the panel was found and correctly connected. Stephen continued to test the tracks and points, with all sections traversed several times. Meanwhile, Geoff examined and rectified some areas of track that appeared to be under gauge and some adapter board joints that were slightly out of alignment. Early on in the session, one of the section switches LED's had flickered and failed although power to the track was ok. The switch was successfully replaced.

Next week we intend to look at finishing the track. A short section in the engine shed is required, but this is over a full inspection pit, The siding off the engine shed will have a simpler ash pit added. Both require holes through the baseboard, so their designs need to be carefully established.

Wednesday 1st September 2021

Worklist:

Connect the new loom wires to the control panel.

A simple description, but it took the whole session to complete. It started with a chart/table to correlate and record pin/wire numbers to track section and point switches. The engine shed board was fully documented and the loom wires soldered to the appropriate pins in the control panel. The 4-wires for the fiddle yard posed no problem. The mason's board followed, but the initial test showed two reversed wires, which were easily corrected. However, after completing the wiring of loom to panel, a whole block of track sections were not working. The problem was soon identified - the sections had all been connected 1 pin out (an easy mistake after a long day). A few minutes to resolve and all sections were working....... except for the fiddle yard. Try as we might, we couldn't find the breakdown. In a true lightbulb moment, Geoff remembered that the fiddleyard had its own bank of isolation switches which were off! We were appalled that we had forgotten this basic part of the layouts operation, but that's Covid for you. However, we had completed the wiring of loom to panel and it all worked.

Geoff's label printer was brilliant for labelling(!).

For the main test, we dropped the layout down and checked the rail sections themselves via the section switches (Continuity tester, not 12v yet). The control panel will be mounted on brackets to drop it down to below board level. 

Stephen had made an eBay auction purchase of the same AMR handheld controller on the main layout. However, its 5-pin DIN connector didn't tie up with the 6-pin socket on the panel. None of us could remember what the original controller came with or where the 6-pin came from, but Geoff will source a new plug in due course. If need be, we can use the power and control units from the main boards for a running test. We'll also be able to test the points as well.