Luib Bridge

It'll be a stupid over sight. I will ride victorious. ....... Lovely Greek gal.

 

Oh Fanks. I'm so humbled.
does that mean I'll have to do a post to congratulate myself.

 

Hi Cameron,

A dunny in the shed ....... Now there's an idea. I was originally going to use box truss for my baseboard construction but abandoned the idea. The little bit that I had done is just lying around.

The short ..... Well ...... That's tomorrow's task. I've not been in the shed at night this week as I need to donate some SWMBO and puppy time as well as shed time. I am ready for another push over the Easter weekend though in order to finish the track electrics off though and it will free me up to start on other elements of the build.

You have a great weekend as well and watch this space as I'll be updating on whatever I get up to.

Cheers for now

Toto

 

Well, made it.

Made it through to the holiday weekend that is. Fault finding next. Maybe a bit baseboard painting and some ballasting. Try the new ballaster out.

Got visitors at the moment but may nip out and glue my ballaster together with PVA.

A nice sedate task to kick off with. Once I get the long awaited video made and post up, I am also thinking about renewing the track BUS as it could be placed better strategically going forward.
There is not a lot of room for further connections and there will be more required in the future. I may build in an accessory BUS as well for lighting and other power sapping things.

Loads to do ........ Yaaaaaaaaaawn . Zzzzzzzzzzz

 

Maaaaaaaan

The layout works fine except one set of points. The controller shows no short which is indicated by a steady red status light. I measure the voltage over the track in question and there is no voltage. I put a Jesus box over it and it screams it's heart out indicating there is a short.

I test it through the points and it narrows down to one small section of track connected to one of the Spurs coming off the point. I disconnect the point at the cobalt all together and there is still a short. I power off and every stretch of track comes up with a short.

It's madness.

The whole thing runs bar a six inch piece of track when powered up.

I need to walk away from this before I set a match to it. It will be something stupid. I'll return to it later ........ Meanwhile SWMBO has hidden the matches.

Toto

 

Hi Chris,

I will send a photo.

The point runs ok through one leg but stops dead at the Y on the other leg. The weird thing is, it all worked before.

I'll send a picture showing the isolation gaps etc. It may be in a while as I just have a visitor arrived.

Thanks for your input.

Cheers

Toto

 

OK,
Here we go ...... photos. First up is the point at the bottom of the picture. You will note a piece of track shooting off to the left ( or the top ) of the point. As soon as the loco hits the Y, it halts.



below you can see the track coming of towards the top. It is joined at the point on both rails with joiners and soldered. Both rails are isolated at the copper clad. the track should pick up power via the point. there are two wires that you will see that are not connected. ( this was just a trial ) forget them.


The screwdriver points to the isolation joints ( which are clear )


The picture below shows the Y where the loco stops. It goes through the down line with no issue, but not the upper line. Keep it in mind that if there was a polarity issue on any part of the track, It should show up as a flashing red status light on the power unit. It does not do this suggesting no short. When I physically push the loco along the small section of dead track ........... no short either. once the loco clears the dead section and hits the other set of points, all is ok.


The picture below ( where the screw driver is pointing to shows the track feed. The railjoiners to the left connecting to the point is also soldered for a better physical connection.


The picture below shows the next wired feed to the left of the point. The rail joiners between the track and the point is also soldered for better conductivity.


Below shows the feed to the point and the electrical link between the rails as per the instructions and as done on every other set of points on every layout I have never completed.


And the common


Below, I point to the area of track that is giving the issue between the two sets of points. When everything is powered up, I get zero voltage reading regardless of how the points are set. My jesus box squeals like a piggy when put over the two rails ( but the controller status shows " no short " on the status light )


If I connect the twisted feed below, the system shows a short. I done this purely as an experiment as previously the whole system worked fine before I made the latest changes.


Fathom that one out.
cheers
toto