Cisco Bridges: a new layout concept

[Scottl]

The video is basically what I am trying to reproduce, kind of cool to watch.  It is too bad they did the video in summer when the smoke was bad and the heat was on.  Spring or autumn would have been better light.  A local could have put them onto some of the best viewing spots.

At 6:52, the CN train is about to go through Cape Horn, which is a cool location where the stream coming in from the side valley goes over the track on an aqueduct wide enough for the debris flows that come down the valley. You can see it around 7:00.  It would be a great modelling scene.

[Scottl]

An afternoon of progress.  I installed and tested my first Tortoise turnout motor and it operates the way it should, which is encouraging .  I also installed the 5-track staging yard  and aside from some minor re-alignment on one end, it is all ready to go.  I decided to not even use glue or caulk for the yard- I spiked it down and it is nice and snug, but easy to modify if I need to.  I still need to install the Tortoise on the other end of the yard and that will take some careful surgery but it is my next task.  I also need to drop feeders and solder the joiners on the staging tracks.

The mainline in the foreground is going to be concrete tie flex, but I need to get my hands on 4 pieces of it.  I hope I might be able to pick it up in Toronto in a few weeks.  In some ways, I'm not too worried about the main as I want the yard to be bullet-proof before the scenery starts to go in.   All of the turnouts have been carefully tuned as necessary with a NMRA gauge and are operating well according to my limited tests.  The next step is to run some trains and see what some of the finicky intermodal and locomotives reveal.

A few things that emerged from my efforts that are new for me.  I have not really thought much about wiring before, just kind of strung it out as needed (with predictable birds-nest results).  The new plan has DCC-operating turnouts and I want to wire for frog juicers as well.  Additionally I want to ultimately install block detectors to allow semi-automation to keep the trains rolling and to control localized sound.  I figured out how to do localized sound with a block detector, one of the spare outputs in the turnout board, and a Fantasonics Dream Player.  I am also wiring in a three wire conductor from the SPDT contact on each Tortoise to link to the DCC system to confirm operation of the turnout for the automated system.  The nice thing is that all the wires going to each turnout (including the motor, SPDT and frog juicer line) all fit into a 6-conductor phone line, so the wiring will be neat and tidy and come to a common location where the boards will be accessible and I can make future connections as I develop the electronics.

So, a few pictures of the new backdrop, a newly re-painted foam base and the  newly-laid staging yard. 

[Scottl]

My Tortoises finally showed up, so back to work.  I decided that I wanted the motors exposed since they will be hidden in staging, and the two turnouts that are visible on the mainline are mounted underneath.  It is my first time working with turnout motors, but I like the results.

The wires are 6-conductor phone cable:  2 for the motor, 1 for the frog (from the juicer at the panel) and 3 for a set of Tortoise contacts (future use).  I secured the turnouts with hot glue but I can now see the benefit of the mounting system Rod has come up with. 

It all works well with a 9 volt battery, so far things are going well.

[rodsup9000]

 I really like your staging idea. It going to add a lot to the layout.

 Use bi-color (red & green) 2 leg LED's between the Tortoise power switch and motor to indicate which way it is thrown on a control panel. On the first few I installed, I used the contacts and after a while,(10 years) the pc board in the machine becomes tarnished and the LED's don't always lite. I use the contacts for the frogs (with a small 12 volt lamp in line) and it seams to not to be a problem for them though. Maybe because of the higher current.     

 

[Scottl]

The staging tracks are longer than my original yard, so the trains will be even longer  .   I am glad that I went with staging rather than the plan I considered a few months back.

Your experience with the motor contacts is interesting- I'm just running some line from one set on each turnout motor for future use, perhaps to feed into a DCC input device for automatic running.  I contemplated using the second set for the frog, but I have a frog juicer and I must admit I really like the idea over contacts.  No risk of a short if something goes unplanned.

Today I finished mounting and wiring all the motors for the turnouts and everything works with a battery.  I also ran feeders to each staging track and will cut gaps in the rails to isolate them for future block detection.  I ran all the wires to a central location and build a panel on some drawer slides so it can be pulled out for work and then tucked away out of sight.  It is a lot of wire!  I guess this DCC stuff can get rather intense if you want to, but it will be great to run everything from my DCC handheld.  I blame @GaryHinshaw for all of this, he turned me to the dark side...

I've started to work out the scenery and I think I have some ideas about how to make it pretty interesting.  The new backdrop gives me lots of vertical to work with, and I think some of the photo angles will be really great, so I want to get it all right.   I have lots of time to sort that out but it is good to start thinking about it as the backdrop needs to be painted at some point.

[Scottl]

A few photos:

[Scottl]

One last thing, I discovered you can seal up the hole for the turnout actuating wire by just punching it through the WS foam roadbed. The roadbed has enough give to move with the wire, but covers the larger hole in the subroadbed. I only did this for the two turnouts that have motors mounted below the deck (they will be visible turnouts), but this should be helpful during ballasting.

[Scottl]

I bit the bullet and wired everything up.  Not as neat as it could be, but I am saving space for other boards and there is a lot of wire to deal with.  I labelled everything so it is at least organized. And color coded if you consider green and blue to be equivalent to black, and yellow and white to be equivalent to red/ 

Nothing showed as shorted, so I plugged it in and volla- DCC turnouts and automatic frog polarity!  My most temperamental locomotive went through every turnout without a problem.  All is good in the world. 



Here is an overall shot showing the staging and the mainline that will go in the foreground.  I have prepared a paper template of the scenery footprint that will back the canyon wall.  I'm thinking 2-3 shelf brackets will support the removable foam scenic cover for the staging.  It will take three brackets and I have only loosely placed them in this shot.

[Scottl]

I started to sort out how to choose routes for the new staging using the DCC turnout control.  Essentially, I needed to figure out the combination of turnouts and directions needed to line up each staging track (or the mainline) automatically.

I prepared a matrix in Excel to sort this out.  I have wired pairs of turnouts to a particular NCE SwitchIT control port (1-8, I used 4-8). One thing this exercise revealed was that my track configuration, which was designed to maximize the length of the staging lines, meant that I had to separate two turnouts from the same motor control circuit in order to have correct routing.  So one turnout will move to port 3 and the rest remain the same.  I also had to sort out what actual position the turnouts were in relative to what the DCC system thinks they are (there is no way in my system to independently determine this... yet).  I could set this if I wish by manually reversing polarity of individual turnouts, but I chose to deal with it in the DCC logic instead.

So the result is the following tables:



The bottom table is the important one, it indicates the macro inputs I need to make to program each route (1-6, with 1 being the mainline).  The number indicates the accessory address followed by the direction (e.g., 8-1 means accessory 8, normal routing (1)).  It worked out pretty well, but this all taught me how important planning is for this type of application. 

Now when I select a route, all I need to do is enter a macro number that corresponds to the route number.  Thanks to Otto (@Cajonpassfan) for pointing out this feature with the NCE controller.   No control panel is needed, although in the future I may do this so I can display occupancy and allow routing selection from the panel.  I visited a friend in December who is using JMRI and touchscreen panels for this, and I think this is an attractive option over a traditional panel.  I have an old Android tablet that would be great for the job, but you can also buy them inexpensively.

Next up, running trains to make sure the staging and turnouts work well.  I should have my concrete flex track next weekend and will lay the main.

[Cajonpassfan]

Scott, glad you like the Macro feature, but what's not to like...

I'm impressed with your methodical approach to programming them. I just winged it one by one, with an error here and there. Fortunately, these are easy to fix.
The staging yard should give you some fun trains to run through that gorgeous scenery!
Otto K.

[GaryHinshaw]

Coming together nicely.  I predict you'll be hooked on jmri within a month.   

[Cajonpassfan]

One more thought if I may. I found it helpful to get the layout up and running with temporary or mocked up panels and controls to get the feel for what works (for me) and what doesn't. As a result, I ended up modifying locations and information displayed (and still in process of doing so). Shown below is a low tech "temporary" staging yard panel: the "towers" at each end control routing using Macros, and the blank central panel will indicate track occupancy and if occupied, train i.d. If I stay low tech, it may end up being a magnetic strip. How 20th Century
Otto

[Scottl]

A low tech panel may be just the ticket to get used to what I am doing with this, especially when the trains are partially hidden.

Thankfully, I have some time to save up for the next gizmos:  another frog juicer, block detection, usb-DCC interface.  I'm not completely converted yet, but its moving fast!

A final note to a great train weekend.  We had our annual Rail o' Rama here in Kingston and amongst the tables was a group from a new club in town.  Looks like a great group!

[OldEastRR]

How far is the reach from the front benchwork to the farthest hidden yard track?

[Chris333]

I just saw those touch controls for turnouts in person.

http://www.berretthill.com/controls/
http://www.berretthillshop.com/joey-ricards-video-of-his-touch-toggle-installation/