Well, CRAP!
With two of the three sets of occupancy detectors in Minneapolis staging yard now working, I went to start installation of the last set, at the far end of the yard, last night. I cut the oblong holes between the tracks for the transmitter / detector set (very easy with a Roto-zip), then went to string the 12-conductor cable between the control panel and the point I'll mount the terminal strips near the detector set. Turns out the cable is about five feet too short! End of progress last night.
This morning I ordered another 100' spool of the cable, as well as a hundred-foot spool of 8-conductor cable for Seattle staging detectors.
So for the next several days I'll mount the terminal strips for the last set of Minneapolis detectors, add pigtails to the detectors, then mount them and tie them into the terminal strips. By the time that's done I'll have the new cable, most likey, and I can install that. I hope to have Minneapolis yard totally finished by the end of next weekend.

Okay!
I was able to spend some time on the layout over the Thanksgiving weekend (in between working on the house and sitting on my butt), and I managed to get the IRDOTs installed for the center section of the Milwaukee staging yard. I'll get the final set of detectors installed at the other end over the next few weeks, then I can start installing the base for Thermopolis.

I've managed to start doing some work on the layout this past week. I'm in the process of installing occupancy detectors in the center of the Minneapolis staging yard. All the detectors are mounted and connecting wires attached - now I just have to connect the wires to the cabling, the cabling to the panel, and install the LEDs in the panel. In all, probably seven or eight hours of work to go to get this batch functional.
Then it's on to the set of detectors at the far end of Minneapolis. Total that will take about ten hours, then I can install the Thermopolis base support, run track into Thermopolis, add fascia board to the Glenrock area, then FINALLY start installing basic scenery at Glenrock. Hopefully I'll have some time over the Christmas break to do some of that.

Back to the Layout!

Well, the election is over. It was too close to call, so for another few days I still won't know if I've won or not. Meanwhile, life gets back to normal, with working on the house and, finally, the trains again! So watch here for periodic updates!!

I know it's been awhile since I last posted, but vacation, work and a run for borough concil have me so busy right now I haven't had time for the trains since my last post!
Hopefully I'll have time again after the election on November 6th - win or lose!

The new control panel was completed last Friday evening (17 August). Here it is:

Sunday I ran my John ALlen track cleaner car around the layout to clean all the tracks - I haven't run anything since mid-July.

Monday I did something I haven't done in ages - I actually spent a couple of hours just running trains! Tuesday I did just the least little amount of work on the roundhouse floor, cleaning up flash off the castings and fitting them together, then locating it properly relative to the turntable.

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted - anyone notice?

The control panel is just a few connections from finished - for now. Only five of the 24 total IRDOTs are wired into the panel, because I only have five installed. The others will come over the next six to eight months (these things are about $25 apiece, so I have to break the purchase into small numbers at a time).

Everything works - I just have to wire the IRDOT power supply through the panel off switch.

I'll be posting pics of the finished panel in a day or so.

Work on the new control panel progresses. I have one more set of track selection indicators to wire, then the power LEDs. After that, I have to add new terminal strips in the case, slip the panel into the case and attach all the wires to the terminal strips, and add resistors to balance the LED lighting. Probably another week worth of effort, all told (it will probably take me three weeks!).

The new control panel is coming along slowly, but it IS progressing. I managed to get one bank of track selected indicators wired, and all the Tortoise switch wiring is complete. Here's a couple of shots of the panel as of Sunday night:





And here's a view of the face of the panel with one occupancy indicator temporarily powered:

Well, I decided to forgo the panel mounts for the LEDs. I'll secure them in place with a dab of rubber cement or something on the bottom lip.

Here's the new panel graphic:



I finished cutting and drilling the panel's plastic sheets, and installed the switches. A closeup of one section looks like this:



The holes which are NOT punched in the graphic yet are for the LEDs. Each track except the main gets two LEDS near the switches - a blue one to give an at-a-glance indication of which route is selected, and a bi-color (red/green) one to indicate whether that section is occupied (red) or clear (green). The main will not store trains, so it doesn't have occupancy detectors.

Wiring is just barely started:



I plan to work on this each night for the next week or two until it's done.

I guess I need to plan ahead a little better.

I ordered the LED panel mounts yesterday morning, then at home tonight I worked on the panel. I got all the switch holes drilled and the switches temporarily installed. Getting the panel mounts for the LEDs installed would be challenging, because the smallest require a 1/4" mounting hole, and is about 3/8" diameter over the bezel. So - a choice.

Do I redesign the panel graphics once again, leaving more distance between the yard track lines and then buying new plastic and starting over again, or do I forego the panel mounts, and install the LEDs directly in the panel (using rubber cement or something else that will allow me to remove the LEDs if I damage one)?

I chose the latter - we'll see how that works. So a whole batch of panel mounts I don't think I'll need will show up in a few days. Oh, well.

No work on the layout tonight, and probably not tomorrow, either - I'm attending an operating session on a nearby layout tonight, and I have a political meeting tomorrow evening.

Well, I did NO work on the layout last night. My back is still bothering me, so I'm not sleeping real well. After a full day of work, an hour spent stripping paint on a window and a few minutes installing a piece of baseboard, I was absolutely pooped! I plopped down in front of the TV at 8:30 and promptly dozed off. I slept pretty well last night (in a recliner - easier on the back), so I hope to get some work on the control panel done tonight.


Yesterday I did order some panel mountings for the LEDs - something I forgot to do when I ordered the switches a few weeks ago. Hmph! Here's a schematic of the wiring for one end of the Seattle staging yard (the other end will require an identical arrangement):



Two more middle switches and LEDs, wired the same as this middle switch and LED, will be needed for each end of the Minneapolis yard. Note that the LEDs indicate which track is SELECTED, and not the actual position of the turnouts. That's all I wanted - an indication of what track off the yard ladder I've selected.

Not shown here, since they're separate circuits, are the IRDOT LEDs and wiring.

Depending on how much time I have after paint stripping tonight, I may actually start wiring the switches.

I got the second sheet of the Glenrock backdrop mounted a couple of days ago. I just need to get some plastic putty to fill the gap, then about fourteen feet of the backdrop will be ready to paint!

Last night I cut the new plastic face of the panel to size and sandwiched the graphic in between two sheets of the stuff. I slipped the sandwich into the grooves on the panel frame and began drilling it for the new switches. I got about ten switches in, leaving ten to go. I'll finish drilling those switch locations tonight or tomorrow.

I realized that I forgot one very inportant thing - panel mountings for the LEDs. I'll need about 36 of those. I guess I'll order a batch from Digikey.

Well, the new switches for my control panel came in Friday. Bad news - the case is so much larger that I'll have to basically rebuild the panel from scratch! The switches won't fit where the others are now. That will be a chunk of work! I bought new lexan for the panel face, and re-worked my graphic for the new switch spacing. I went to print it out and discovered I don't have any 11X17 paper! Maybe I'll get it printed by tomorrow... then I can start populating it (again).

We (my wife and I) mounted the first sheet of the Glenrock backdrop on the 3rd. The second sheet also would have been done, but we ran out of 1X2 wood we're using for the mounting framing. Once that second piece of backdrop goes in, we'll paint it.

I started preparing to install the backdrop behind Glenrock, and did some "fit checks" of the second deck benchwork over that area. The second deck looks like it will work well. There's plenty of room between the tracks on the lower deck and the bottom of the fascia board on the second deck.
I'm using white styrene for the backdrop, and mounting it with 1X2s. I got the 1X2s installed for Glenrock, and half-installed a curved piece of plywood that will carry the backdrop over to the helix.

I had a few extra minutes before my meeting last night, so I was able to test the IRDOTs. They all work fine. All I need to do now is install the bi-color LEDs in the panel and wire them. But that brings up another problem...

When I first built the panel, I didn't plan on having much in the way of indicator lights, except for occupancy indicators for the hidden yards. But it turns out that it's easy to get confused about which track is selected for Minneapolis staging! Since the ladders for that yard are not mirror images, making sure the same track is selected for both ladders is not completely straight forward. In fact, even though I built both the yard and the panel, I have to look twice and think for a second or two to make sure I have the right track selected at both ends! So I want to put in an indicator for which track is selected for each ladder, with the simple premise that only the indicator for the selected track will light (for each ladder), with other indicators dark. An easy, at-a-glance way to be sure that the right tracks are selected at each end of the yards.

Note that I'm not looking for an indication of how the turnouts are actually aligned, only of which way the panel switches indicate the turnouts should be aligned. Simple to do, except...

The tortioses are thrown using DPDT switches. For my "selected track" indication, I need 3PDT switches - two sets of poles for the Tortoises, and one for the indicators. So I need to disassemble the panel, remove the DPDT switches, and install the 3PDT switches in their place. OY!

Meanwhile, I'm just a bit leery of installing the bi-color (red/green) LEDs for the IRDOTs, just in case I need a bit more room for the track selection (blue) LEDs. But maybe I'll just bite the bullet and put in the occupancy LEDs anyway.

Here's how the panel looks now:

Been so busy with borough meetings and so on (plus stripping the porch in preparation for painting) that I haven't been able to work on the layout for several days.
Last night, though, I did have some time (no meetings!), so I got back aboard the creeper and spent two hours underneath the layout wiring the IRDOTs. Other than adding a couple of cable clamps, the under-layout work is done for now. I'm going to try to test the IRDOTs this afternoon, but that's doubtful - I have another meeting tonight! But if they work, then all I have to do is install the LEDs in the panel and wire them up - probably three to six more hours of work. Maybe by Sunday night...

I managed to finish mounting the first group of IRDOTs last night. My back is still a bit sore, so getting on and off the creeper was not a lot of fun! Now comes wiring. I'm using bi-color LEDs, so each IRDOT gets four wires run to it - two for power and one for each color of the LED. Power is common on all units (wired in parallel), so I need 12 wire cable - two to each IRDOT, for ten wires, and two to all IRDOTs for power, making two more for a total of twelve. And gee, I'm just lucky enough to have bought a spool of twelve-conductor cable from Digi-Key when I was wiring Tortoises. Sometimes things DO work out. I'll be starting the wiring tonight. That should take several days.

It's been a few weeks since I last posted any activity - because there's been very little activity.
Since the end of May I've been too busy with other things (the local primary elections, some irritating back problems that's made me less than completely comfortable working around the train, etc.) to spend time on the layout. But the last few days I've managed to start again - slowly.
I got the feeders installed on the track west of Genrock, and extended my layout power circuit (I have a 120V line running along the front L-girder of the benchwork, with outlets spaced conveniently every 8 feet or so). I hope later this week to start installing the rest of the IRDOTs on the west end of Milwaukee staging, but that kinda depends on how my back is feeling.