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!
